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

With what may be uncanny shrewdness, or perhaps mere tropismatic response to the unreasoned stimulus of a "consciousness of kind," the British government—habitually a syndicate of gentlefolk—has uniformly insisted on the installation of a constitutional monarchy at the formation of every new national organisation in which that government has had a discretionary voice. And the many and various constitutional governments so established, commonly under British auspices in some degree, have invariably run true to form, in some appreciable degree. They may be quasi-dynastic or pseudo-dynastic, but at this nearest approach to democracy they always, and unavoidably, include at least a circumlocution office of gentlefolk, in the way of a ministry and court establishment, whose place in the economy of the nation's affairs it is to adapt the run of these affairs to the needs of the kept classes.

There need be no imputation of sinister designs to these gentlefolk, who so are elected by force of circumstances to guard and guide the nation's interests. As things go, it will doubtless commonly be found that they are as well-intentioned as need be. But a well-meaning gentleman of good antecedents means well in a gentlemanly way and in the light of good antecedents. Which comes unavoidably to an effectual bias in favor of those interests which honorable gentlemen of good antecedents have at heart. And among these interests are the interests of the kept classes, as contrasted with that common run of the population from which their keep is drawn.

Under the auspices, even if they are only the histrionic and decorative auspices, of so decorous an article of institutional furniture as royalty, it follows of logical necessity that the personnel of the effectual government must also be drawn from the better classes, whose place and station and high repute will make their association with the First Gentleman of the Realm not too insufferably incongruous. And then, the popular habit of looking up to this First Gentleman with that deference that royalty commands, also conduces materially to the attendant habitual attitude of deference to gentility more at large.

Even in so democratic a country, and with so exanimate a crown as is to be found in the United Kingdom, the royal establishment visibly, and doubtless very materially, conduces to the continued tenure of the effectual government by representatives of the kept classes; and it therefore counts with large effect toward the retardation of the country's further move in the direction of democratic insubordination and direct participation in the direction of affairs by the underbred, who finally pay the cost. And on the other hand, even so moderately royal an establishment as the Norwegian has apparently a sensible effect in the way of gathering the reins somewhat into the hands of the better classes, under circumstances of such meagerness as might be expected to preclude anything like a "better" class, in the conventional acceptation of that term. It would appear that even the extreme of pseudo-dynastic royalty, sterilised to the last degree, is something of an effectual hindrance to democratic rule, and in so far also a hindrance to the further continued neutralisation of nationalist pretensions, as also an effectual furtherance of upper-class rule for upper-class ends.

Now, a government by well-meaning gentlemen-investors will, at the nearest, come no nearer representing the material needs and interests of the common run than a parable comes to representing the concrete facts which it hopes to illuminate. And as bears immediately on the point in hand, these gentlemanly administrators of the nation's affairs who so cluster about the throne, vacant though it may be of all but the bodily presence of majesty, are after all gentlemen, with a gentlemanly sense of punctilio touching the large proprieties and courtesies of political life. The national honor is a matter of punctilio, always; and out of the formal exigencies of the national honor arise grievances to be redressed; and it is grievances of this character that commonly afford the formal ground of a breach of the peace. An appeal on patriotic grounds of wounded national pride, to the common run who have no trained sense of punctilio, by the gentlemanly responsible class who have such a sense, backed by assurances that the national prestige or the national interests are at stake, will commonly bring a suitable response. It is scarcely necessary that the common run should know just what the stir is about, so long as they are informed by their trusted betters that there is a grievance to redress. In effect, it results that the democratic nation's affairs are administered by a syndicate composed of the least democratic class in the population.

Excepting what is to be excepted, it will commonly hold true today that these gentlemanly governments are conducted in a commendably clean and upright fashion, with a conscious rectitude and a benevolent intention. But they are after all, in effect, class governments, and they unavoidably carry the bias of their class. The gentlemanly officials and law-givers come, in the main, from the kept classes, whose living comes to them in the way of income from investments, at home or in foreign parts, or from an equivalent source of accumulated wealth or official emolument. The bias resulting from this state of the case need not be of an intolerant character in order to bring its modicum of mischief into the national policy, as regards amicable relations with other nationalities. A slight bias running on a ground of conscious right and unbroken usage may go far. So, e.g., anyone of these gentlemanly governments is within its legitimate rights, or rather within its imperative duty, in defending the foreign investments of its citizens and enforcing due payment of its citizens' claims to income or principal of such property as they may hold in foreign parts; and it is within its ordinary lines of duty in making use of the nation's resources—that is to say of the common man and his means of livelihood—in enforcing such claims held by the investing classes. The community at large has no interest in the enforcement of such claims; it is evidently a class interest, and as evidently protected by a code of rights, duties and procedure that has grown out of a class bias, at the cost of the community at large.

This bias favoring the interests of invested wealth may also, and indeed it commonly does, take the aggressive form of aggressively forwarding enterprise in investment abroad, particularly in commercially backward countries abroad, by extension of the national jurisdiction and the active countenancing of concessions in foreign parts, by subventions, or by creation of offices to bring suitable emoluments to the younger sons of deserving families. The protective tariffs to which recourse is sometimes had, are of the same general nature and purpose. Of course, it is in this latter, aggressive or excursive, issue of the well-to-do bias in favor of investment and invested wealth that its most pernicious effect on international relations is traceable.

Free income, that is to say income not dependent on personal merit or exertion of any kind, is the breath of life to the kept classes; and as a corollary of the "First Law of Nature," therefore, the invested wealth which gives a legally equitable claim to such income has in their eyes all the sanctity that can be given by Natural Right. Investment—often spoken of euphemistically as "savings"—is consequently a meritorious act, conceived to be very serviceable to the community at large, and properly to be furthered by all available means. Invested wealth is so much added to the aggregate means at the community's disposal, it is believed. Of course, in point of fact, income from investment in the hands of these gentlefolk is a means of tracelessly consuming that much of the community's yearly product; but to the kept classes, who see the matter from the point of view of the recipient, the matter does not present itself in that light. To them it is the breath of life. Like other honorable men they are faithful to their bread; and by authentic tradition the common man, in whose disciplined preconceptions the kept classes are his indispensable betters, is also imbued with the uncritical faith that the invested wealth which enables these betters tracelessly to consume a due share of the yearly product is an addition to the aggregate means in hand.

The advancement of commercial and other business enterprise beyond the national frontiers is consequently one of the duties not to be neglected, and with which no trifling can be tolerated. It is so bound up with national ideals, under any gentlemanly government, that any invasion or evasion of the rights of investors in foreign parts, or of other business involved in dealings with foreign parts, immediately involves not only the material interest of the nation but the national honour as well. Hence international jealousies and eventual embroilment.

The constitutional monarchy that commonly covers a modern democratic community is accordingly a menace to the common peace, and any pacific league of neutrals will be laying up trouble and prospective defeat for itself in allowing such an institution to stand over in any instance. Acting with a free hand, if such a thing were possible, the projected league should logically eliminate all monarchical establishments, constitutional or otherwise, from among its federated nations. It is doubtless not within reason to look for such a move in the negotiations that are to initiate the projected league of neutrals; but the point is called to mind here chiefly as indicating one of the difficult passages which are to be faced in any attempted formation of such a league, as well as one of the abiding sources of international irritation with which the league's jurisdiction will be burdened so long as a decisive measure of the kind is not taken.

The logic of the whole matter is simple enough, and the necessary measures to be taken to remedy it are no less simple—barring sentimental objections which will probably prove insuperable. A monarchy, even a sufficiently inane monarchy, carries the burden of a gentlemanly governmental establishment—a government by and for the kept classes; such a government will unavoidably direct the affairs of state with a view to income on invested wealth, and will see the material interests of the country only in so far as they present themselves under the form of investment and business enterprise designed to eventuate in investment; these are the only forms of material interest that give rise to international jealousies, discriminations and misunderstanding, at the same time that they are interests of individuals only and have no material use or value to the community at large. Given a monarchical establishment and the concomitant gentlemanly governmental corps, there is no avoiding this sinister prime mover of international rivalry, so long as the rights of invested wealth continue in popular apprehension to be held inviolable.

Quite obviously there is a certain tu quoque ready to the hand of these "gentlemen of the old school" who see in the constitutional monarchy a God-given shelter from the unreserved vulgarisation of life at the hands of the unblest and unbalanced underbred and underfed. The formally democratic nations, that have not retained even a pseudo-dynastic royalty, are not much more fortunately placed in respect of national discrimination in trade and investment. The American republic will obviously come into the comparison as the type-form of economic policy in a democratic commonwealth. There is little to choose between the economic policy pursued by such republics as France or America on the one side and their nearest counterparts among the constitutional monarchies on the other. It is even to be admitted out of hand that the comparison does no credit to democratic institutions as seen at work in these republics. They are, in fact, somewhat the crudest and most singularly foolish in their economic policy of any peoples in Christendom. And in view of the amazing facility with which these democratic commonwealths are always ready to delude themselves in everything that touches their national trade policies, it is obvious that any league of neutrals whose fortunes are in any degree contingent on their reasonable compliance with a call to neutralise their trade regulations for the sake of peace, will have need of all the persuasive power it can bring to bear.

However, the powers of darkness have one less line of defense to shelter them and their work of malversation in these commonwealths than in the constitutional monarchies. The American national establishment, e.g., which may be taken as a fairly characteristic type-form in this bearing, is a government of businessmen for business ends; and there is no tabu of axiomatic gentility or of certified pedigree to hedge about this working syndicate of business interests. So that it is all nearer by one remove to the disintegrating touch of the common man and his commonplace circumstances. The businesslike régime of these democratic politicians is as undeviating in its advocacy and aid of enterprise in pursuit of private gain under shelter of national discrimination as the circumstances will permit; and the circumstances will permit them to do much and go far; for the limits of popular gullibility in all things that touch the admirable feats of business enterprise are very wide in these countries. There is a sentimental popular belief running to the curious effect that because the citizens of such a commonwealth are ungraded equals before the law, therefore somehow they can all and several become wealthy by trading at the expense of their neighbours.

Yet, the fact remains that there is only the one line of defense in these countries where the business interests have not the countenance of a time-honored order of gentlefolk, with the sanction of royalty in the background. And this fact is further enhanced by one of its immediate consequences. Proceeding upon the abounding faith which these peoples have in business enterprise as a universal solvent, the unreserved venality and greed of their businessmen—unhampered by the gentleman's noblesse oblige—have pushed the conversion of public law to private gain farther and more openly here than elsewhere. The outcome has been divers measures in restraint of trade or in furtherance of profitable abuses, of such a crass and flagrant character that if once the popular apprehension is touched by matter-of-fact reflection on the actualities of this businesslike policy the whole structure should reasonably be expected to crumble. If the present conjuncture of circumstances should, e.g., present to the American populace a choice between exclusion from the neutral league, and a consequent probable and dubious war of self-defense, on the one hand; as against entrance into the league, and security at the cost of relinquishing their national tariff in restraint of trade, on the other hand, it is always possible that the people might be brought to look their protective tariff in the face and recognise it for a commonplace conspiracy in restraint of trade, and so decide to shuffle it out of the way as a good riddance. And the rest of the Republic's businesslike policy of special favors would in such a case stand a chance of going in the discard along with the protective tariff, since the rest is of substantially the same disingenuous character.

Not that anyone need entertain a confident expectation of such an exploit of common sense on the part of the American voters. There is little encouragement for such a hope in their past career of gullibility on this head. But this is again a point of difficulty to be faced in negotiations looking to such a pacific league of neutrals. Without a somewhat comprehensive neutralisation of national trade regulations, the outlook for lasting peace would be reduced by that much; there would be so much material for international jealousy and misunderstanding left standing over and requiring continued readjustment and compromise, always with the contingency of a breach that much nearer. The infatuation of the Americans with their protective tariff and other businesslike discriminations is a sufficiently serious matter in this connection, and it is always possible that their inability to give up this superstition might lead to their not adhering to this projected neutral league. Yet it is at least to be said that the longer the time that passes before active measures are taken toward the organisation of such a league—that is to say, in effect, the longer the great war lasts—the more amenable is the temper of the Americans likely to be, and the more reluctantly would they see themselves excluded. Should the war be protracted to some such length as appears to be promised by latterday pronunciamentos from the belligerents, or to something passably approaching such a duration; and should the Imperial designs and anomalous diplomacy of Japan continue to force themselves on the popular attention at the present rate; at the same time that the operations in Europe continue to demonstrate the excessive cost of defense against a well devised and resolute offensive; then it should reasonably be expected that the Americans might come to such a realisation of their own case as to let no minor considerations of trade discrimination stand in the way of their making common cause with the other pacific nations.

It appears already to be realised in the most responsible quarter that America needs the succor of the other pacific nations, with a need that is not to be put away or put off; as it is also coming to be realised that the Imperial Powers are disturbers of the peace, by force of their Imperial character. Of course, the politicians who seek their own advantage in the nation's embarrassment are commonly unable to see the matter in that light. But it is also apparent that the popular sentiment is affected with the same apprehension, more and more as time passes and the aims and methods of the Imperial Powers become more patent.

Hitherto the spokesmen of a pacific federation of nations have spoken for a league of such an (indeterminate) constitution as to leave all the federated nations undisturbed in all their conduct of their own affairs, domestic or international; probably for want of second thought as to the complications of copartnership between them in so grave and unwonted an enterprise. They have also spoken of America's share in the project as being that of an interested outsider, whose interest in any precautionary measures of this kind is in part a regard for his own tranquility as a disinterested neighbour, but in greater part a humane solicitude for the well-being of civilised mankind at large. In this view, somewhat self-complacent it is to be admitted, America is conceived to come into the case as initiator and guide, about whom the pacific nations are to cluster as some sort of queen-bee.

Now, there is not a little verisimilitude in this conception of America as a sort of central office and a tower of strength in the projected federation of neutral nations, however pharisaical an appearance it may all have in the self-complacent utterances of patriotic Americans. The American republic is, after all, the greatest of the pacific nations of Christendom, in resources, population and industrial capacity; and it is also not to be denied that the temper of this large population is, on the whole, as pacific as that of any considerable people—outside of China. The adherence of the American republic would, in effect, double the mass and powers of the projected league, and would so place it beyond all hazard of defeat from without, or even of serious outside opposition to its aims.

Yet it will not hold true that America is either disinterested or indispensable. The unenviable position of the indispensable belongs to the United Kingdom, and carries with it the customary suspicion of interested motives that attaches to the stronger party in a bargain. To America, on the other hand, the league is indispensable, as a refuge from otherwise inevitable dangers ahead; and it is only a question of a moderate allowance of time for the American voters to realise that without an adequate copartnership with the other pacific nations the outlook of the Republic is altogether precarious. Single-handed, America can not defend itself, except at a prohibitive cost; whereas in copartnership with these others the national defense becomes a virtually negligible matter. It is for America a choice between a policy of extravagant armament and aggressive diplomacy, with a doubtful issue, on the one side, and such abatement of national pretensions as would obviate bootless contention, on the other side.

Yet, it must be admitted, the patriotic temper of the American people is of such a susceptible kind as to leave the issue in doubt. Not that the Americans will not endeavor to initiate some form of compact for the keeping of the peace, when hostilities are concluded; barring unforeseen contingencies, it is virtually a foregone conclusion that the attempt will be made, and that the Americans will take an active part in its promotion. But the doubt is as to their taking such a course as will lead to a compact of the kind needed to safeguard the peace of the country. The business interests have much to say in the counsels of the Americans, and these business interests look to short-term gains—American business interests particularly—to be derived from the country's necessities. It is likely to appear that the business interests, through representatives in Congress and elsewhere, will disapprove of any peace compact that does not involve an increase of the national armament and a prospective demand for munitions and an increased expenditure of the national funds.

With or without the adherence of America, the pacific nations of Europe will doubtless endeavour to form a league or alliance designed to keep the peace. If America does not come into the arrangement it may well come to nothing much more than a further continued defensive alliance of the belligerent nations now opposed to the German coalition. In any case it is still a point in doubt whether the league so projected is to be merely a compact of defensive armament against a common enemy—in which case it will necessarily be transient, perhaps ephemeral—or a more inclusive coalition of a closer character designed to avoid any breach of the peace, by disarmament and by disallowance and disclaimer of such national pretensions and punctilio as the patriotic sentiment of the contracting parties will consent to dispense with. The nature of the resulting peace, therefore, as well as its chances of duration, will in great measure be conditioned on the fashion of peace-compact on which it is to rest; which will be conditioned in good part on the degree in which the warlike coalition under German Imperial control is effectually to be eliminated from the situation as a prospective disturber of the peace; which, in turn, is a question somewhat closely bound up with the further duration of the war, as has already been indicated in an earlier passage.

CHAPTER VII

Peace and the Price System

Evidently the conception of peace on which its various spokesmen are proceeding is by no means the same for all of them. In the current German conception, e.g., as seen in the utterances of its many and urgent spokesmen, peace appears to be of the general nature of a truce between nations, whose God-given destiny it is, in time, to adjust a claim to precedence by wager of battle. They will sometimes speak of it, euphemistically, with a view to conciliation, as "assurance of the national future," in which the national future is taken to mean an opportunity for the extension of the national dominion at the expense of some other national establishment. In the same connection one may recall the many eloquent passages on the State and its paramount place and value in the human economy. The State is useful for disturbing the peace. This German notion may confidently be set down as the lowest of the current conceptions of peace; or perhaps rather as the notion of peace reduced to the lowest terms at which it continues to be recognisable as such. Next beyond in that direction lies the notion of armistice; which differs from this conception of peace chiefly in connoting specifically a definite and relatively short interval between warlike operations.

The conception of peace as being a period of preparation for war has many adherents outside the Fatherland, of course. Indeed, it has probably a wider vogue and a readier acceptance among men who interest themselves in questions of peace and war than any other. It goes hand in hand with that militant nationalism that is taken for granted, conventionally, as the common ground of those international relations that play a part in diplomatic intercourse. It is the diplomatist's métier to talk war in parables of peace. This conception of peace as a precarious interval of preparation has come down to the present out of the feudal age and is, of course, best at home where the feudal range of preconceptions has suffered least dilapidation; and it carries the feudalistic presumption that all national establishments are competitors for dominion, after the scheme of Macchiavelli. The peace which is had on this footing, within the realm, is a peace of subjection, more or less pronounced according as the given national establishment is more or less on the militant order; a warlike organisation being necessarily of a servile character, in the same measure in which it is warlike.