An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation

But the time when this process of disillusionment and decay of ideals shall have gone far enough among the common run to afford no secure footing in popular sentiment for the contemplated Imperial enterprise,—this time is doubtless far in the future, as compared with the interval of preparation required for a new onset. Habituation takes time, particularly such habituation as can be counted on to derange the habitual bent of a great population in respect of their dearest preconceptions. It will take a very appreciable space of time even in the case of a populace so accessible to new habits of thought as the German people are by virtue of their slight percentage of illiteracy, the very large proportion engaged in those modern industries that constantly require some intelligent insight into mechanistic facts, the density of population and the adequate means of communication, and the extent to which the whole population is caught in the web of mechanically standardised processes that condition their daily life at every turn. As regards their technological situation, and their exposure to the discipline of industrial life, no other population of nearly the same volume is placed in a position so conducive to a rapid acquirement of the spirit of the modern era. But, also, no other people comparable with the population of the Fatherland has so large and well-knit a body of archaic preconceptions to unlearn. Their nearest analogue, of course, is the Japanese nation.

In all this there is, of course, no inclination to cast a slur on the German people. In point of racial characteristics there is no difference between them and their neighbours. And there is no reason to question their good intentions. Indeed, it may safely be asserted that no people is more consciously well-meaning than the children of the Fatherland. It is only that, with their archaic preconceptions of what is right and meritorious, their best intentions spell malevolence when projected into the civilised world as it stands today. And by no fault of theirs. Nor is it meant to be intimated that their rate of approach to the accepted Occidental standard of institutional maturity will be unduly slow or unduly reluctant, so soon as the pertinent facts of modern life begin effectively to shape their habits of thought. It is only that, human nature—and human second nature—being what it always has been, the rate of approach of the German people to a passably neutral complexion in matters of international animosity and aggression must necessarily be slow enough to allow ample time for the renewed preparation of a more unsparing and redoubtable endeavour on the part of the Imperial establishment.

What makes this German Imperial establishment redoubtable, beyond comparison, is the very simple but also very grave combination of circumstances whereby the German people have acquired the use of the modern industrial arts in the highest state of efficiency, at the same time that they have retained unabated the fanatical loyalty of feudal barbarism.9 So long, and in so far, as this conjunction of forces holds there is no outlook for peace except on the elimination of Germany as a power capable of disturbing the peace.

It may seem invidious to speak so recurrently of the German Imperial establishment as the sole potential disturber of the peace in Europe. The reason for so singling out the Empire for this invidious distinction—of merit or demerit, as one may incline to take it—is that the facts run that way. There is, of course, other human material, and no small volume of it in the aggregate, that is of much the same character, and serviceable for the same purposes as the resources and man-power of the Empire. But this other material can come effectually into bearing as a means of disturbance only in so far as it clusters about the Imperial dynasty and marches under his banners. In so speaking of the Imperial establishment as the sole enemy of a European peace, therefore, these outlying others are taken for granted, very much as one takes the nimbus for granted in speaking of one of the greater saints of God.

So the argument returns to the alternative: Peace by unconditional surrender and submission, or peace by elimination of Imperial Germany (and Japan). There is no middle course apparent. The old-fashioned—that is to say nineteenth-century—plan of competitive defensive armament and a balance of powers has been tried, and it has not proved to be a success, even so early in the twentieth century. This plan offers a substitute (Ersatz) for peace; but even as such it has become impracticable. The modern, or rather the current late-modern, state of the industrial arts does not tolerate it. Technological knowledge has thrown the advantage in military affairs definitively to the offensive, particularly to the offensive that is prepared beforehand with the suitable appliances and with men ready matured in that rigorous and protracted training by which alone they can become competent to make warlike use of these suitable appliances provided by the modern technology. At the same time, and by grace of the same advance in technology, any well-designed offensive can effectually reach any given community, in spite of distance or of other natural obstacles. The era of defensive armaments and diplomatic equilibration, as a substitute for peace, has been definitively closed by the modern state of the industrial arts.

Of the two alternatives spoken of above, the former—peace by submission under an alien dynasty—is presumably not a practicable solution, as has appeared in the course of the foregoing argument.

The modern nations are not spiritually ripe for it. Whether they have reached even that stage of national sobriety, or neutrality, that would enable them to live at peace among themselves after elimination of the Imperial Powers is still open to an uneasy doubt. It would be by a precarious margin that they can be counted on so to keep the peace in the absence of provocation from without the pale. Their predilection for peace goes to no greater lengths than is implied in the formula: Peace with Honour; which assuredly does not cover a peace of non-resistance, and which, in effect, leaves the distinction between an offensive and a defensive war somewhat at loose ends. The national prestige is still a live asset in the mind of these peoples; and the limit of tolerance in respect of this patriotic animosity appears to be drawn appreciably closer than the formula cited above would necessarily presume. They will fight on provocation, and the degree of provocation required to upset the serenity of these sportsmanlike modern peoples is a point on which the shrewdest guesses may diverge. Still, opinion runs more and more consistently to the effect that if these modern—say the French and the English-speaking—peoples were left to their own devices the peace might fairly be counted on to be kept between them indefinitely, barring unforeseen contingencies.

Experience teaches that warlike enterprise on a moderate scale and as a side interest is by no means incompatible with such a degree of neutral animus as these peoples have yet acquired,—e.g., the Spanish-American war, which was made in America, or the Boer war, which was made in England. But these wars, in spite of the dimensions which they presently took on, were after all of the nature of episodes,—the one chiefly an extension of sportsmanship, which engaged the best attention of only the more sportsmanlike elements, the other chiefly engineered by certain business interests with a callous view to getting something for nothing. Both episodes came to be serious enough, both in their immediate incidence and in their consequences; but neither commanded the deliberate and cordial support of the community at large. There is a meretricious air over both; and there is apparent a popular inclination to condone rather than to take pride in these faits accomplis. The one excursion was a product of sportsmanlike bravado, fed on boyish exuberance, fomented for mercenary objects by certain business interests and place-hunting politicians, and incited by meretricious newspapers with a view to increase their circulation. The other was set afoot by interested businessmen, backed by politicians, seconded by newspapers, and borne by the community at large, in great part under misapprehension and stung by wounded pride.

Opinions will diverge widely as to the chances of peace in a community of nations among whom episodes of this character, and of such dimensions, have been somewhat more than tolerated in the immediate past. But the consensus of opinion in these same countries appears to be setting with fair consistency to the persuasion that the popular spirit shown in these and in analogous conjunctures in the recent past gives warrant that peace is deliberately desired and is likely to be maintained, barring unforeseen contingencies.

In the large, the measures conducive to the perpetuation of peace, and necessary to be taken, are simple and obvious; and they are largely of a negative character, exploits of omission and neglect. Under modern conditions, and barring aggression from without, the peace is kept by avoiding the breaking of it. It does not break of itself,—in the absence of such national establishments as are organised with the sole ulterior view of warlike enterprise. A policy of peace is obviously a policy of avoidance,—avoidance of offense and of occasion for annoyance.

What is required to insure the maintenance of peace among pacific nations is the neutralisation of all those human relations out of which international grievances are wont to arise. And what is necessary to assure a reasonable expectation of continued peace is the neutralisation of so much of these relations as the patriotic self-conceit and credulity of these peoples will permit. These two formulations are by no means identical; indeed, the disparity between what could advantageously be dispensed with in the way of national rights and pretensions, and what the common run of modern patriots could be induced to relinquish, is probably much larger than any sanguine person would like to believe. It should be plain on slight reflection that the greater part, indeed substantially the whole, of those material interests and demands that now engage the policy of the nations, and that serve on occasion to set them at variance, might be neutralised or relinquished out of hand, without detriment to any one of the peoples concerned.

The greater part of these material interests over which the various national establishments keep watch and hold pretensions are, in point of historical derivation, a legacy from the princely politics of what is called the "Mercantilist" period; and they are uniformly of the nature of gratuitous interference or discrimination between the citizens of the given nation and outsiders. Except (doubtfully) in the English case, where mercantilist policies are commonly believed to have been adopted directly for the benefit of the commercial interest, measures of this nature are uniformly traceable to the endeavours of the crown and its officers to strengthen the finances of the prince and give him an advantage in warlike enterprise. They are kept up essentially for the same eventual end of preparation for war. So, e.g., protective tariffs, and the like discrimination in shipping, are still advocated as a means of making the nation self-supporting, self-contained, self-sufficient; with a view to readiness in the event of hostilities.

A nation is in no degree better off in time of peace for being self-sufficient. In point of patent fact no nation can be industrially self-sufficient except at the cost of foregoing some of the economic advantages of that specialisation of industry which the modern state of the industrial arts enforces. In time of peace there is no benefit comes to the community at large from such restraint of trade with the outside world, or to any class or section of the community except those commercial concerns that are favored by the discrimination; and these invariably gain their special advantage at the cost of their compatriots. Discrimination in trade—export, import or shipping—has no more beneficial effect when carried out publicly by the national authorities than when effected surreptitiously and illegally by a private conspiracy in restraint of trade within a group of interested business concerns.

Hitherto the common man has found it difficult to divest himself of an habitual delusion on this head, handed down out of the past and inculcated by interested politicians, to the effect that in some mysterious way he stands to gain by limiting his own opportunities. But the neutralisation of international trade, or the abrogation of all discrimination in trade, is the beginning of wisdom as touches the perpetuation of peace. The first effect of such a neutral policy would be wider and more intricately interlocking trade relations, coupled with a further specialisation and mutual dependence of industry between the several countries concerned; which would mean, in terms of international comity, a lessened readiness for warlike operations all around.

It used to be an argument of the free-traders that the growth of international commercial relations under a free-trade policy would greatly conduce to a spirit of mutual understanding and forbearance between the nations. There may or may not be something appreciable in the contention; it has been doubted, and there is no considerable evidence to be had in support of it. But what is more to the point is the tangible fact that such specialisation of industry and consequent industrial interdependence would leave all parties to this relation less capable, materially and spiritually, to break off amicable relations. So again, in time of peace and except with a view to eventual hostilities, it would involve no loss, and presumably little pecuniary gain, to any country, locality, town or class, if all merchant shipping were registered indiscriminately under neutral colors and sailed under the neutral no-man's flag, responsible indiscriminately to the courts where they touched or where their business was transacted.

Neither producers, shippers, merchants nor consumers have any slightest interest in the national allegiance of the carriers of their freight, except such as may artificially be induced by discriminatory shipping regulations. In all but the name—in time of peace—the world's merchant shipping already comes near being so neutralised, and the slight further simplification required to leave it on a neutral peace footing would be little else than a neglect of such vexatious discrimination as is still in force. If no nation could claim the allegiance, and therefore the usufruct, of any given item of merchant shipping in case of eventual hostilities, on account of the domicile of the owners or the port of registry, that would create a further handicap on eventual warlike enterprise and add so much to the margin of tolerance. At the same time, in the event of hostilities, shipping sailing under the neutral no-man's flag and subject to no national allegiance would enjoy such immunities as still inure to neutral shipping. It is true, neutrality has not carried many immunities lately.

Cumulatively effective usage and the exigencies of a large, varied, shifting and extensive maritime trade have in the course of time brought merchant shipping to something approaching a neutral footing. For most, one might venture to say for virtually all, routine purposes of business and legal liability the merchant shipping comes under the jurisdiction of the local courts, without reservation. It is true, there still are formalities and reservations which enable questions arising out of incidents in the shipping trade to become subject of international conference and adjustment, but they are after all not such as would warrant the erection of national apparatus to take care of them in case they were not already covered by usage to that effect. The visible drift of usage toward neutralisation in merchant shipping, in maritime trade, and in international commercial transactions, together with the similarly visible feasibility of a closer approach to unreserved neutralisation of this whole range of traffic, suggests that much the same line of considerations should apply as regards the personal and pecuniary rights of citizens traveling or residing abroad. The extreme,—or, as seen from the present point of view, the ultimate—term in the relinquishment of national pretensions along this line would of course be the neutralisation of citizenship.

This is not so sweeping a move as a patriotically-minded person might imagine on the first alarm, so far as touches the practical status of the ordinary citizen in his ordinary relations, and particularly among the English-speaking peoples. As an illustrative instance, citizenship has sat somewhat lightly on the denizens of the American republic, and with no evident damage to the community at large or to the inhabitants in detail. Naturalisation has been easy, and has been sought with no more eagerness, on the whole, than the notably low terms of its acquirement would indicate. Without loss or discomfort many law-abiding aliens have settled in this country and spent the greater part of a life-time under its laws without becoming citizens, and no one the worse or the wiser for it. Not infrequently the decisive inducement to naturalisation on the part of immigrant aliens has been, and is, the desirability of divesting themselves of their rights of citizenship in the country of their origin. Not that the privilege and dignity of citizenship, in this or in any other country, is to be held of little account. It is rather that under modern civilised conditions, and among a people governed by sentiments of humanity and equity, the stranger within our gates suffers no obloquy and no despiteful usage for being a stranger. It may be admitted that of late, with the fomentation of a more accentuated nationalism by politicians seeking a raison d'être, additional difficulties have been created in the way of naturalisation and the like incidents. Still, when all is told of the average American citizen, qua citizen, there is not much to tell. The like is true throughout the English-speaking peoples, with inconsequential allowance for local color. A definitive neutralisation of citizenship within the range of these English-speaking countries would scarcely ripple the surface of things as they are—in time of peace.

All of which has not touched the sore and sacred spot in the received scheme of citizenship and its rights and liabilities. It is in the event of hostilities that the liabilities of the citizen at home come into the foreground, and it is as a source of patriotic grievance looking to warlike retaliation that the rights of the citizen abroad chiefly come into the case.

If, as was once, almost inaudibly, hinted by a well-regarded statesman, the national establishment should refuse to jeopardise the public peace for the safeguarding of the person and property of citizens who go out in partes infidelium on their own private concerns, and should so leave them under the uncurbed jurisdiction of the authorities in those countries into which they have intruded, the result might in many cases be hardship to such individuals. This would, of course, be true almost exclusively of such instances only as occur in such localities as are, temporarily or permanently, outside the pale of modern law and order. And, it may be in place to remark, instances of such hardship, with the accompanying hazard of national complications, would, no doubt, greatly diminish in frequency consequent upon the promulgation of such a disclaimer of national responsibility for the continued well-being of citizens who so expatriate themselves in the pursuit of their own advantage or amusement. Meantime, let it not seem inconsiderate to recall that to the community at large the deplorable case of such expatriates under hardship involves no loss or gain in the material respect; and that, except for the fortuitous circumstance of his being a compatriot, the given individual's personal or pecuniary fortune in foreign parts has no special claim on his compatriots' sympathy or assistance; from which it follows also that with the definitive neutralisation of citizenship as touches expatriates, the sympathy which is now somewhat unintelligently confined to such cases, on what may without offense be called extraneous grounds, would somewhat more impartially and humanely extend to fellowmen in distress, regardless of nativity or naturalisation.

What is mainly to the point here, however, is the fact that if citizenship were so neutralised within the range of neutral countries here contemplated, one further source of provocation to international jealousy and distrust would drop out of the situation. And it is not easy to detect any element of material loss involved in such a move. In the material respect no individual would be any the worse off, with the doubtful and dubious exception of the expatriate fortune-hunter, who aims to fish safely in troubled waters at his compatriots' expense. But the case stands otherwise as regards the balance of immaterial assets. The scaffolding of much highly-prized sentiment would collapse, and the world of poetry and pageantry—particularly that of the tawdrier and more vendible poetry and pageantry—would be poorer by so much. The Man Without a Country would lose his pathetic appeal, or would at any rate lose much of it. It may be, of course, that in the sequel there would result no net loss even in respect of these immaterial assets of sentimental animation and patriotic self-complacency, but it is after all fairly certain that something would be lost, and it is by no means clear what if anything would come in to fill its place.

An historical parallel may help to illustrate the point. In the movement out of what may be called the royal age of dynasties and chivalric service, those peoples who have moved out of that age and out of its spiritual atmosphere have lost much of the conscious magnanimity and conviction of merit that once characterised that order of things, as it still continues to characterise the prevalent habit of mind in the countries that still continue under the archaic order of dynastic mastery and service. But it is also to be noted that these peoples who so have moved out of the archaic order appear to be well content with this change of spiritual atmosphere, and they are even fairly well persuaded, in the common run, that the move has brought them some net gain in the way of human dignity and neighbourly tolerance, such as to offset any loss incurred on the heroic and invidious side of life. Such is the tempering force of habit. Whereas, e.g., on the other hand, the peoples of these surviving dynastic States, to which it is necessary continually to recur, who have not yet moved out of that realm of heroics, find themselves unable to see anything in such a prospective shift but net loss and headlong decay of the spirit; that modicum of forbearance and equity that is requisite to the conduct of life in a community of ungraded masterless men is seen by these stouter stomachs as a loosening of the moral fiber and a loss of nerve.

What is here tentatively projected under the phrase, "neutralization of citizenship," is only something a little more and farther along the same general line of movement which these more modern peoples have been following in all that sequence of institutional changes that has given them their present distinctive character of commonwealths, as contrasted with the dynastic States of the mediaeval order. What may be in prospect—if such a further move away from the mediaeval landmarks is to take effect—may best be seen in the light of the later moves in the same direction hitherto, more particularly as regards the moral and aesthetic merits at large of such an institutional mutation. As touches this last previous shifting of ground along this line, just spoken of, the case stands in this singular but significant posture, in respect of the spiritual values and valuations involved: These peoples who have, even in a doubtful measure, made this transition from the archaic institutional scheme, of fealty and dynastic exploit and coercion, to the newer scheme of the ungraded commonwealth, are convinced, to the point of martyrdom, that anything like a return to the old order is morally impossible as well as insufferably shameful and irksome; whereas those people, of the retarded division of the race, who have had no experience of this new order, are equally convinced that it is all quite incompatible with a worthy life.