American World Policies

The appeal to these millions though it be couched in terms of morality and sentiment, must be an appeal to interest. What is necessary is to recognise the economic motives that drive such populations to war and to reverse those motives. It does not suffice to preach that wars are never in the interest of the people; the nations know otherwise. It is necessary rather to change conditions so that wars will in actual fact lose their economic value to nations. Peace must be made not only to appear but actually to be in the interest of the peoples of the world.

The popular horror of war, the growing sense of its immense costs, the slowly maturing sympathy between individual members of hostile nations form the substantial groundwork upon which an opposition to war in general is based. Added to these are the waning of the romanticism of war and the growth of a sense of its mechanical (rather than human) quality. The present war has immensely increased this opposition. It has disenchanted the world. In all countries millions of men now realise that wars must be fought not alone by adventurous youths, who do not put a high value upon life, but by husbands and fathers and middle-aged men, who are somewhat less susceptible to the glamorous appeal of battle. They are beginning to recognise that wars are not won by courage alone but by numbers, by money, by intimidation, by intrigue, by mendacity and all manner of baseness. The lies spread broadcast throughout the world and the money spent by Germans and Allies to bribe Bulgarian patriots are quite as great factors in deciding the issue of the war as the valour of the poilus at Verdun. In a moral sense war has committed suicide.

This increasing comprehension of war's real nature and of war's new manifestations is leading the peoples to demand the right to decide for themselves when and how war is to be declared and to take part in negotiations which may lead up to war. The power to provoke wars is the last bulwark of autocracy; when the nation is in danger (and in present circumstances it is always in danger), democracy goes by the board. Let the Socialists and Liberals in all countries declaim as they will against armies, navies, imperialism, colonialism, and international friction, let Members of Parliament ask awkward questions in the House, the answer is always the same, "It is a matter of national safety. To reply to the question of the honourable gentleman is not in the public interest." Against this stone wall the efforts of organisations like the British "Union of Democratic Control" break ineffectually.

The Socialists have also failed, at least externally. Identifying the war-makers and imperialists with those classes to which they were already opposed in internal politics, the Socialists sought to make good their democratic antagonism to war. They opposed armies and proposed disarmament; they threatened national strikes in case aggressive wars were declared; they fought with a sure democratic instinct against every manifestation of militarism. In the crisis, however, they failed. They failed because their conception of war was too narrow, arbitrary and doctrinaire. They perceived the upper class interest in war but failed to recognise, or rather obstinately ignored, the national interest. When at last the nation was threatened, the Socialists and peace-makers not only closed ranks with those who desired war, but even lent a willing ear to proposals of annexation (for purposes of national security) and agreed to other international arrangements likely to be the cause or at least the occasion of future wars.

The general will for peace we have with us already; what is to-day most necessary is the knowledge and insight which will direct this will to the attempted solution of the causes of war. Towards this knowledge the present war has contributed. Never before have so many men recognised the strength of the economic impulses driving nations into the conflict. The war, it is true, has intensified national hatreds by its wholesale breach of plighted agreements; it has increased terror and distrust; it has sown broadcast the seeds of future wars by a series of secret, but known, agreements, creating a new Europe even more unstable than was the Europe of 1914. On the other hand, it has forced men to open their eyes to the real facts of war, and to recognise that wars will continue until the motives for war are reversed, until conditions are created in which nations may realise their more moderate hopes of development without recourse to fighting.

It is upon this recognition, upon this guide to the blind passion for peace, that any league for peace must be based. Such a league can probably not be immediately constructed and permanently maintained. It depends upon the slow growth of an international mind, upon a willingness, not indeed to sacrifice national interests but to recognise that national interests may be made to conform with the larger interests of humanity. It means the fulfilment not the destruction of nationality. It requires for its realisation the breaking of two chains, an inner chain which binds the nation to the will of a selfish minority class, an outer chain which binds its national interest to war.

How such a league will come about it is perhaps premature to discuss. In the immediate future we are likely to have not a true league of peace but rather a league of temporarily satisfied powers, seeking their group interest in the status quo and pursuing their common aims at the expense of excluded nations in much the same spirit in which a single nation now pursues its separate interest. Such a grouping of interested nations is likely to be only temporary, as dissensions will arise and new alignments be made comprising the nations formerly excluded. It is bound to break up when the status quo becomes intolerable to several of its members. On the other hand the spirit of such an organisation might not impossibly change. The league of satisfied nations might discover that it was to its real interest, or might be compelled by outer pressure, to make concessions to the excluded nations, and finally to admit them on certain terms. Such a development would be comparable to that by which autocracies have gradually become constitutional monarchies and republics.

But, however the League is formed, two things are essential to its continued existence. One is the acceptance of principles of international regulation, tending to reduce the incentive and increase the repugnance to war, in other words a measure of international agreement, secured either by an international body having legislative power, or in the beginning by a series of diplomatic arrangements as at present. The second essential is a machinery for enforcing agreements. Such machinery cannot be dispensed with. Peace cannot come by international machinery alone; neither can it come without machinery.

Peace between nations, like peace within a nation, does not depend upon force alone. Unless the effective majority of the nations (or of the citizens) are reconciled to the system to be enforced, unless they desire peace, whether international or internal, the application of force will be impossible. On the other hand, peace is equally impossible without force. If no compulsion can be applied the smallest minority can throw the world into war.

Such a compulsion of one nation by others does not necessarily mean a bombardment of cities or the shedding of blood. The force to be applied may be economic instead of military. No nation to-day, above all, no great industrial nation, is socially and economically self-sufficient, but all depend upon constant intercourse with other nations. It is therefore true, as one writer says,129 that "if all or most of these avenues of intercourse were stopped, it (the offending nation) would soon be reduced to worse straits than those which Germany is now experiencing. If all diplomatic intercourse were withdrawn; if the international postal and telegraphic systems were closed to a public law-breaker; if all inter-State railway trains stopped at his frontiers; if no foreign ships entered his ports, and ships carrying his flags were excluded from every foreign port; if all coaling stations were closed to him; if no acts of sale or purchase were permitted to him in the outside world—if such a political and commercial boycott were seriously threatened, what country could long stand out against it? Nay, the far less rigorous measure of a financial boycott, the closure of all foreign exchanges to members of the outlaw State, the prohibition of all quotations on foreign Stock Exchanges, and of all dealings in stocks and shares, all discounting and acceptances of trade bills, all loans for public or private purposes, and all payments of moneys due—such a withdrawal of financial intercourse, if thoroughly applied and persisted in, would be likely, to bring to its senses the least scrupulous of States. Assuming that the members of the League included all or most of the important commercial and financial nations, and that they could be relied upon to press energetically all or even a few of these forms of boycott, could any country long resist such pressure? Would not the threat of it and the knowledge that it could be used form a potent restraint upon the law-breaker? Even the single weapon of a complete postal and telegraphic boycott would have enormous efficiency were it rigorously applied. Every section of the industrial and commercial community would bring organised pressure upon its government to withdraw from so intolerable a position and to return to its international allegiance."

It cannot be assumed that the attempt to organise such a boycott would be invariably successful. Not all nations would be equally injured, for while a boycott of Italy or Greece would be fatal, the United States or Russia might survive such economic pressure. A boycott would not be easy to enforce. It would be necessary to secure a concert of opinion and action in states, which, however they may agree upon any particular question, have widely divergent interests in other matters. Different boycotting nations would be variously affected. A boycott of Germany, while it might injure the United States or Japan would almost certainly ruin Holland and Belgium. Even were these small countries to be partially reimbursed for their special losses, they might still hesitate. There would also remain the fear that some of the boycotting nations would be detached through economic bribery, with the result that the boycott broken, the nations faithful to their agreements would suffer. Finally, if Holland joined in a boycott of Germany, she might within a few days be compelled to resist a German invasion. An economic boycott might easily lead to war.

This obvious connection between economic and military compulsion is often disregarded by men who dislike war but are willing to commit their nation to participation in economic compulsion. The two, however, are inseparable, though they may not be inseparable for each nation. The boycotting nations must be prepared to prevent reprisals, must be willing if necessary to fight. It is not, however, necessary for each nation upholding international law to contribute equally to this military compulsion. Certain nations might use their armies and fleets while others, more remote from the struggle, might merely continue to boycott.

It would not be possible, to enforce a decision against nations having a preponderance of military power, nor even against a group with a large, though not the preponderant share of military and economic resources. Germany, Austria and Russia combined could not be compelled. The essence of the problem, however, is not the creation of a state of war between coalitions almost equal in size, but the gradual adoption of a policy of peace by securing a unity of interest among so large a group of nations that this group would hold a clearly preponderant power over any other group. Just as peace within a state cannot be secured where the law-breakers are a majority, so international peace cannot be secured unless the preponderance of power is clearly on the side of peace.

Even with a majority of nations agreeing "in principle," the difficulties of actually creating a League of Peace and International Polity would be great. To carry out such a plan, to work out modes of action which will conform to the world's evolving sense of the necessity for more stable international relations, requires an international machinery, concerning which nations and classes will disagree. Some channel, however, is necessary for the flow of the peace forces resident in the world. A machinery must be created which will approximate in some degree to that by which a nation, composed of conflicting classes and economic groups, manages to secure a degree of common interest and action among such groups. There must be an international executive, an international legislative body and some approach to an international court. That there are immense difficulties in the creation of such a machinery is obvious and admitted. That the machinery cannot work perfectly, that it may repeatedly break down; that it can be perfected only through trial and error, are facts, which though in themselves discouraging, need not lead to the abandonment of the effort. There is nothing inherently impossible in the gradual creation and elaboration of such machinery. The development of the future lies in that direction.130

Let the machinery be ever so perfect, however, it is useless unless principles are formulated which meet the requirements of the nations which are to be bound over to keep the peace. A league to enforce peace is a futility unless it is also a league to determine international polity. Peace cannot be negative, a mere abstention from war. It must be a dynamic process, an adjustment of the nations of the world to their international environment.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

We have seen that the problem of peace cannot be solved without at the same time avoiding the economic conflicts now sundering the nations. We have seen that these divisive interests which are real and vital, can be accommodated neither by the force of good will alone (although good will is essential), nor by an appeal to national unselfishness nor by proposals which merely mean the perpetuation of the status quo. We have also seen that in the last instance force, or at least the threat of force is necessary, that this force cannot be applied by the United States alone or by a group of two or three beneficent powers, but only by an all-inclusive league of nations, acting according to established rules and with a machinery previously elaborated. Only so can a programme of peace be made effective.

Such a programme will consist of three elements. The first is the freedom of the seas; the second is a joint imperialism; the third is the promotion of an economic internationalism.

The freedom of the seas is necessary because without it the other elements cannot be supplied. No division or joint use of colonies will promote peace unless each nation is assured of continuous access to such colonies. A promise of the products and the profits of the backward countries will not satisfy a nation if it believes that at the first outbreak of war it will be deprived not only of colonial but also of all commercial rights.

In recent decades the problem of the freedom of the seas has grown in significance as access to the oceans has become more important and the nations increasingly interdependent. To-day trans-oceanic colonies are worthless, commerce is insecure and a satisfactory economic life at home difficult without such access. In peace the vessels of all nations may travel anywhere, but in war a belligerent's merchant vessels may be seized and confiscated and her shores blockaded. She may even be deprived of the right to import goods through neighbouring neutral countries.

In the advocacy of the freedom of the seas the United States has taken a leading part, while England has pursued a policy of obstruction. In this respect England has been a menace to the world's peace. She has stood fairly consistently against a modernisation of naval law; has insisted on the right of capture of merchant vessels and the right to blockade, and in the present war has reverted, under grave provocation it is true, to the most rigorous maritime repression. It is by means of our influence on England that we can take the first step towards creating a better international system.

If we are to become friends with England, the price must be the freedom of the seas. It may seem incongruous to suggest as a condition of friendship that our friend weaken herself, but as will later be indicated such a surrender of rights by Great Britain might in the end redound to her security and greater strength. The reason is obvious. The insecurity of each nation is the weakness of all. So long as a nation is insecure it will arm. So long as one nation arms all must arm. Moreover, England is peculiarly vulnerable. The British Empire is threatened whenever any nation seeks an outlet to the sea. Nations will build navies against Great Britain so long as without navies their commerce and colonies are threatened.

The case of the German-British conflict is in point. England lies on Germany's naval base. It is an unfortunate thing for Germany, and indeed for England, but it is a geographical fact and unalterable. For Germany this situation is tolerable so long as peace endures, but when war breaks out, all her commerce is stopped. The future of Germany depends upon her developing industrially to a point where she can no longer feed her population from her own farms. She needs, if not colonies, at least markets. She requires a foreign base for her industry and uninterrupted access to that foreign base both in war and peace. She can be throttled, strangled, starved under the present usages of sea war. The war may not be of her own making. In other words twenty or fifty years of commercial development may be swept away at a moment's notice in a war, declared, it may be, by England for purely commercial purposes.

To these apprehensions of the Germans, England may answer that in peace times German commerce is secure. But immunity in war as well as in peace is necessary. Therefore, the Germans do what other nations would do in like circumstances, take the matter into their own hands. They build a navy strong enough to make England hesitate to attack their merchant marine. It is an understandable attempt to protect what is an absolutely vital interest. But for Germany to build a navy capable of measuring arms with the British Navy is intolerable to Great Britain. It is useless for Germany to protest that she will not use her fleet aggressively. So long as she can use it aggressively, she is a menace to England's life. England must prevent Germany from building a navy equal in power, for if she is defeated at sea, her fate is sealed. Germany must be threatened on land by France and Russia or she will be able to devote her energies exclusively to her navy and thus out-build England. Given this situation, an Anglo-German war is inevitable.

Nor is the situation in the North Sea unique. Once this conflict of interest begins, it spreads everywhere. Germany may not have Morocco or Tripoli because with a foothold and a naval base on the Mediterranean, she could exert pressure there in order to change conditions elsewhere. Similarly the Pacific commerce of Russia is at the mercy of Japan; her Black Sea traffic at the mercy of Turkey, or whoever controls Turkey, her Baltic Sea traffic at the mercy of Germany, Denmark and England. No wonder Russia demands Constantinople, which will at least open the inner doors of the Black Sea. But if she gets Constantinople, she controls the whole Danube traffic of Austria, Hungary and Roumania, and she herself is menaced by British and French fleets at Malta, Gibraltar and Aden.

What is the probable, or at least possible, policy of Russia in such circumstances? Not immediately, not inopportunely, but in the right season? Clearly it is to build a navy which will secure her control of the Mediterranean and thus protect her outgoing trade from Odessa and Batum as well as her incoming trade. Although not pre-eminently a naval power, Russia must ultimately seek to accomplish what Germany tried to do—make it dangerous for England to menace her Mediterranean and Red Sea trade even in war times. But to secure naval supremacy in the Mediterranean means to threaten Egypt and India, thus breaking the neck of the British Empire. Given the present unfreedom of the sea, therefore, Great Britain's vital interests oppose those of Russia as they now oppose those of Germany.

This is the meaning of the historic British policy of the right of capture at sea, the right of blockade, the right to use naval power to work injury to the trade of hostile countries and to prevent colonial expansion. The policy is a menace to the British Empire and to the independence of Great Britain herself. It stimulates other nations to outbuild Great Britain. And in the end that is at least a possible contingency. If a generation or two from now Russia and Germany should unite, Russia attacking in the Mediterranean and aiding Germany in the North Sea, the British Empire would be put to a severe test. There might be no way of saving Egypt and India or Holland and Denmark and these outposts gone, Great Britain might be menaced and attacked at leisure. If her navies were defeated she would starve. The rules of naval warfare, which Britain has so long upheld, would be turned against her.

It is thus to Great Britain's real interest to surrender this doctrine. In the present war it has been of value, but only because Germany and Austria were surrounded by powerful enemies, and all adjacent neutral powers with sea bases were small enough to be intimidated. The blockade of a nation is to-day of little value unless adjacent nations can also be blockaded. The railroad unites all land nations. If France had been neutral in this war, Germany could not have been blockaded, for a British threat to blockade France would have thrown her into the arms of Germany. Even if Italy had remained neutral, an effective blockade might have forced Italy into the war on the side of the Teutonic powers. England is using a weapon which at the most means a serious loss to her enemies but which effectively turned against her would mean instant death.

There are certain powerful groups in England who are obstinately opposed to any revision of the sea law in favour of neutral and belligerent nations. They feel to-day, as Pitt felt in 1801, when the doctrine was advanced that a neutral flag might protect enemy's property. "Shall we," asked Pitt, "give up our maritime consequence and expose ourselves to scorn, to derision, and contempt? No man can deplore more than I do the loss of human blood—the calamities and distresses of war; but will you silently stand by and, acknowledging these monstrous and unheard-of principles of neutrality, insure your enemy against the effects of your hostility!… Whatever shape it assumes, it (this doctrine) is a violation of the rights of England, and imperiously calls upon Englishmen to resist it, even to the last shilling and the last drop of blood, rather than tamely submit to degrading consequences or weakly yield the rights of this country to shameful usurpation."131 This doctrine, rather than accept which Pitt was willing that England should fight to the death, was quietly accepted by Great Britain in the Declaration of Paris (1856) and, half a century later (1909), the Declaration of London protected neutral rights even more strongly. But the spirit of Pitt is by no means dead. The Declaration of London failed of ratification in Parliament partly because of mere factional opposition and partly because of ancient pride in England's naval supremacy. It was held that Britain being the strongest naval power should uphold all naval rights and all necessary naval aggressions both against belligerents and neutrals.

The argument advanced in support of this position is that so long as the enemy disregards international law in land warfare Britain has the right to disregard the laws of sea war. If Germany violates Belgium's neutrality, why should England surrender her power to put the maximum pressure upon her unscrupulous enemy?

This argument, however, begs the whole question, whether it is to Britain's real advantage that the naval law go back to what it was in the days of Pitt and Napoleon instead of being progressively liberalised. Britain is not only the greatest naval but overwhelmingly the greatest maritime nation in the world. She has something to gain and everything to lose from a reaction towards the unregulated sea-warfare of 1801 (and 1916); she has much to gain and little to lose from the establishment of a true freedom of the sea.