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

Beyond this is the similar apprehension, similarly though more slowly and reluctantly rising to the level of settled conviction, that the American commonwealth is not fit to take care of its own case single-handed. This apprehension is enforced more and more unmistakably with every month that passes on the theatre of war. And it is reenforced by the constantly more obvious reflection that the case of the American commonwealth in this matter is the same as that of the democratic countries of Europe, and of the other European colonies. It is not, or at least one may believe it is not yet, that in the patriotic apprehension of the common man, or of the administration which speaks for him, the resources of the country would be inadequate to meet any contingencies of the kind that might arise, whether in respect of industrial capacity or in point of man-power, if these resources were turned to this object with the same singleness of purpose and the same drastic procedure that marks the course of a national establishment guided by no considerations short of imperial dominion. The doubt presents itself rather as an apprehension that the cost would be extravagantly high, in all respects in which cost can be counted; which is presently seconded, on very slight reflection and review of experience, by recognition of the fact that a democracy is, in point of fact, not to be persuaded to stand under arms interminably in mere readiness for a contingency, however distasteful the contingency may be.

In point of fact, a democratic commonwealth is moved by other interests in the main, and the common defense is a secondary consideration, not a primary interest,—unless in the exceptional case of a commonwealth so placed under the immediate threat of invasion as to have the common defense forced into the place of paramount consequence in its workday habits of thought. The American republic is not so placed. Anyone may satisfy himself by reasonable second thought that the people of this nation are not to be counted on to do their utmost in time of peace to prepare for war. They may be persuaded to do much more than has been their habit, and adventurous politicians may commit them to much more than the people at large would wish to undertake, but when all is done that can be counted on for a permanency, up to the limit of popular tolerance, it would be a bold guess that should place the result at more than one-half of what the country is capable of. Particularly would the people's patience balk at the extensive military training requisite to put the country in an adequate position of defense against a sudden and well-prepared offensive. It is otherwise with a dynastic State, to the directorate of which all other interests are necessarily secondary, subsidiary, and mainly to be considered only in so far as they are contributory to the nation's readiness for warlike enterprise.

America at the same time is placed in an extra-hazardous position, between the two seas beyond which to either side lie the two Imperial Powers whose place in the modern economy of nations it is to disturb the peace in an insatiable quest of dominion. This position is no longer defensible in isolation, under the later state of the industrial arts, and the policy of isolation that has guided the national policy hitherto is therefore falling out of date. The question is as to the manner of its renunciation, rather than the fact of it. It may end in a defensive copartnership with other nations who are placed on the defensive by the same threatening situation, or it may end in a bootless struggle for independence, but the choice scarcely extends beyond this alternative. It will be said, of course, that America is competent to take care of itself and its Monroe doctrine in the future as in the past. But that view, spoken for cogently by thoughtful men and by politicians looking for party advantage, overlooks the fact that the modern technology has definitively thrown the advantage to the offensive, and that intervening seas can no longer be counted on as a decisive obstacle. On this latter head, what was reasonably true fifteen years ago is doubtful today, and it is in all reasonable expectation invalid for the situation fifteen years hence.

The other peoples that are of a neutral temper may need the help of America sorely enough in their endeavours to keep the peace, but America's need of cooperation is sorer still, for the Republic is coming into a more precarious place than any of the others. America is also, at least potentially, the most democratic of the greater Powers, and is handicapped with all the disabilities of a democratic commonwealth in the face of war. America is also for the present, and perhaps for the calculable future, the most powerful of these greater Powers, in point of conceivably available resources, though not in actually available fighting-power; and the entrance of America unreservedly into a neutral league would consequently be decisive both of the purposes of the league and of its efficiency for the purpose; particularly if the neutralisation of interests among the members of the league were carried so far as to make withdrawal and independent action disadvantageous.

On the establishment of such a neutral league, with such neutralisation of national interests as would assure concerted action in time of stress, the need of armament on the part of the American republic would disappear, at least to the extent that no increase of armed force would be advisable. The strength of the Republic lies in its large and varied resources and the unequalled industrial capacity of its population,—a capacity which is today seriously hampered by untoward business interests and business methods sheltered under national discrimination, but which would come more nearly to its own so soon as these national discriminations were corrected or abrogated in the neutralisation of national pretensions. The neutrally-minded countries of Europe have been constrained to learn the art of modern war, as also to equip themselves with the necessary appliances, sufficient to meet all requirements for keeping the peace through such a period as can or need be taken into account,—provided the peace that is to come on the conclusion of the present war shall be placed on so "conclusive" a footing as will make it anything substantially more than a season of recuperation for that warlike Power about whose enterprise in dominion the whole question turns. Provided that suitably "substantial guarantees" of a reasonable quiescence on the part of this Imperial Power are had, there need be no increase of the American armament. Any increased armament would in that case amount to nothing better than an idle duplication of plant and personnel already on hand and sufficient to meet the requirements.

To meet the contingencies had in view in its formation, such a league would have to be neutralised to the point that all pertinent national pretensions would fall into virtual abeyance, so that all the necessary resources at the disposal of the federated nations would automatically come under the control of the league's appointed authorities without loss of time, whenever the need might arise. That is to say, national interests and pretensions would have to give way to a collective control sufficient to insure prompt and concerted action. In the face of such a neutral league Imperial Japan alone would be unable to make a really serious diversion or to entertain much hope of following up its quest of dominion. The Japanese Imperial establishment might even be persuaded peaceably to let its unoffending neighbours live their own life according to their own light. It is, indeed, possibly the apprehension of some such contingency that has hurried the rapacity of the Island Empire into the headlong indecencies of the past year or two.

CHAPTER VI

Elimination of the Unfit

It may seem early (January 1917) to offer a surmise as to what must be the manner of league into which the pacific nations are to enter and by which the peace will be kept, in case such a move is to be made. But the circumstances that are to urge such a line of action, and that will condition its carrying out in case it is entered on, have already come into bearing and should, on the whole, no longer be especially obscure to anyone who will let the facts of the case rather than his own predilections decide what he will believe. By and large, the pressure of these conditioning circumstances may be seen, and the line of least resistance under this pressure may be calculated, with due allowance of a margin of error owing to unknown contingencies of time and minor variables.

Time is of the essence of the case. So that what would have been dismissed as idle vapour two years ago has already become subject of grave deliberation today, and may rise to paramount urgency that far hence. Time is needed to appreciate and get used to any innovation of appreciable gravity, particularly where the innovation depends in any degree on a change in public sentiment, as in this instance. The present outlook would seem to be that no excess of time is allowed in these premises; but it should also be noted that events are moving with unexampled celerity, and are impinging on the popular apprehension with unexampled force,—unexampled on such a scale. It is hoped that a recital of these circumstances that provoke to action along this line will not seem unwarrantably tedious, and that a tentative definition of the line of least resistance under pressure of these circumstances may not seem unwarrantably presumptuous.

The major premise in the case is the felt need of security from aggression at the hands of Imperial Germany and its auxiliary Powers; seconded by an increasingly uneasy apprehension as to the prospective line of conduct on the part of Imperial Japan, bent on a similar quest of dominion. There is also the less articulate apprehension of what, if anything, may be expected from Imperial Russia; an obscure and scarcely definable factor, which comes into the calculation chiefly by way of reenforcing the urgency of the situation created by the dynastic ambitions of these other two Imperial States. Further, the pacific nations, the leading ones among them being the French and English-speaking peoples, are coming to recognise that no one among them can provide for its own security single-handed, even at the cost of their utmost endeavour in the way of what is latterly called "preparedness;" and they are at the same time unwilling to devote their force unreservedly to warlike preparation, having nothing to gain. The solution proposed is a league of the pacific nations, commonly spoken of at the present stage as a league to enforce peace, or less ambitiously as a league to enforce arbitration. The question being left somewhat at loose ends, whether the projected league is to include the two or three Imperial Powers whose pacific intentions are, euphemistically, open to doubt.

Such is the outline of the project and its premises. An attempt to fill in this outline will, perhaps, conduce to an appreciation of what is sought and of what the conditioning circumstances will enforce in the course of its realisation. As touches the fear of aggression, it has already been indicated, perhaps with unnecessary iteration, that these two Imperial Powers are unable to relinquish the quest of dominion through warlike enterprise, because as dynastic States they have no other ulterior aim; as has abundantly appeared in the great volume of expository statements that have come out of the Fatherland the past few years, official, semi-official, inspired, and spontaneous. "Assurance of the nation's future" is not translatable into any other terms. The Imperial dynasty has no other ground to stand on, and can not give up the enterprise so long as it can muster force for any formidable diversion, to get anything in the way of dominion by seizure, threat or chicane.

This is coming to be informally and loosely, but none the less definitively, realised by the pacific nations; and the realisation of it is gaining in clearness and assurance as time passes. And it is backed by the conviction that, in the nature of things, no engagement on the part of such a dynastic State has any slightest binding force, beyond the material constraint that would enforce it from the outside. So the demand has been diplomatically phrased as a demand for "substantial guarantees." Any gain in resources on the part of these Powers is to be counted as a gain in the ways and means of disturbing the peace, without reservation.

The pacific nations include among them two large items, both of which are indispensable to the success of the project, the United States and the United Kingdom. The former brings in its train, virtually without exception or question, the other American republics, none of which can practicably go in or stay out except in company and collusion with the United States. The United Kingdom after the same fashion, and with scarcely less assurance, may be counted on to carry the British colonies. Evidently, without both of these groups the project would not even make a beginning. Beyond this is to be counted in as elements of strength, though scarcely indispensable, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. The other west-European nations would in all probability be found in the league, although so far as regards its work and its fortunes their adhesion would scarcely be a matter of decisive consequence; they may therefore be left somewhat on one side in any consideration of the circumstances that would shape the league, its aims and its limitations. The Balkan states, in the wider acceptance, they that frequent the Sign of the Double Cross, are similarly negligible in respect of the organisation of such a league or its resources and the mutual concessions necessary to be made between its chief members. Russia is so doubtful a factor, particularly as regards its place and value in industry, culture and politics, in the near future, as to admit nothing much more than a doubt on what its relation to the situation will be. The evil intentions of the Imperial-bureaucratic establishment are probably no more to be questioned than the good intentions of the underlying peoples of Russia. China will have to be taken in, if for no other reason than the use to which the magnificent resources of that country would be turned by its Imperial neighbour in the absence of insurmountable interference from outside. But China will come in on any terms that include neutrality and security.

The question then arises as to the Imperial Powers whose dynastic enterprise is primarily to be hedged against by such a league. Reflection will show that if the league is to effect any appreciable part of its purpose, these Powers will also be included in the league, or at least in its jurisdiction. A pacific league not including these Powers, or not extending its jurisdiction and surveillance to them and their conduct, would come to the same thing as a coalition of nations in two hostile groups, the one standing on the defensive against the warlike machinations of the other, and both groups bidding for the favor of those minor Powers whose traditions and current aspirations run to national (dynastic) aggrandizement by way of political intrigue. It would come to a more articulate and accentuated form of that balance of power that has latterly gone bankrupt in Europe, with the most corrupt and unreliable petty monarchies of eastern Europe vested with a casting vote; and it would also involve a system of competitive armaments of the same general character as what has also shown itself bankrupt. It would, in other words, mean a virtual return to the status quo ante, but with an overt recognition of its provisional character, and with the lines of division more sharply drawn. That is to say, it would amount to reinstating the situation which the projected league is intended to avert. It is evidently contained in the premises that the projected league must be all-inclusive, at least as regards its jurisdiction and surveillance. The argument will return to this point presently.

The purpose of the projected league is peace and security, commonly spoken of under patriotic preconceptions as "national" peace and security. This will have to mean a competent enforcement of peace, on such a footing of overmastering force at the disposal of the associated pacific nations as to make security a matter of ordinary routine. It is true, the more genial spokesmen of the project are given to the view that what is to come of it all is a comity of neutral nations, amicably adjusting their own relations among themselves in a spirit of peace and good-will. But this view is over-sanguine, in that it overlooks the point that into this prospective comity of nations Imperial Germany (and Imperial Japan) fit like a drunken savage with a machine gun. It also overlooks the patent fatality that these two are bound to come into a coalition at the next turn, with whatever outside and subsidiary resources they can draw on; provided only that a reasonable opening for further enterprise presents itself. The league, in other terms, must be in a position to enforce peace by overmastering force, and to anticipate any move at cross purposes with the security of the pacific nations.

This end can be reached by either one of two ways. If the dynastic States are left to their own devices, it will be incumbent on the associated nations to put in the field a standing force sufficient to prevent a recourse to arms; which means competitive armament and universal military rule. Or the dynastic States may be taken into partnership and placed under such surveillance and constraint as to practically disarm them; which would admit virtual disarmament of the federated nations. The former arrangement has nothing in its favour, except the possibility that no better or less irksome arrangement can be had under existing circumstances; that is to say that the pacific nations may not be able to bring these dynastic states to terms of disarmament under surveillance. They assuredly can not except by force; and this is the precise point on which the continued hostilities in Europe turn today. In diplomatic parable the German Imperial spokesmen say that they can accept (or as they prefer to phrase it, grant) no terms that do not fully safeguard the Future of the Fatherland; and in similarly diplomatic parable the spokesmen of the Entente insist that Prussian militarism must be permanently put out of commission; but it all means the same thing, viz. that the Imperial establishment is to be (or is not to be) disabled beyond the possibility of its entering on a similar warlike enterprise again, when it has had time for recuperation. The dynastic statesmen, and the lay subjects of the Imperial establishment, are strenuously set on securing a fair opportunity for recuperation and a wiser endeavour to achieve that dominion which the present adventure promises to defeat; while the Entente want no recurrence, and are persuaded that a recurrence can be avoided only on the footing of a present collapse of the Imperial power and a scrupulously enforced prostration of it henceforth.

Without the definitive collapse of the Imperial power no pacific league of nations can come to anything much more than armistice. On the basis of such a collapse the league may as well administer its affairs economically by way of an all-around reduction of armaments, as by the costlier and more irksome way of "preparedness." But a sensible reduction of armaments on the part of the neutral nations implies disarmament of the dynastic States. Which would involve a neutral surveillance of the affairs of these dynastic States in such detail and with such exercise of authority as would reduce their governments to the effective status of local administrative officials. Out of which, in turn, would arise complications that would lead to necessary readjustments all along the line. It would involve the virtual, if not also the formal, abolition of the monarchy, since the monarchy has no other use than that of international war and intrigue; or at least it would involve the virtual abrogation of its powers, reducing it to the same status of faineantise as now characterises the British crown. Evidently this means a serious intermeddling in the domestic concerns and arrangements of the Fatherland, such as is not admissible under the democratic principle that any people must be left free to follow their own inclinations and devices in their own concerns; at the same time that this degree of interference is imperative if the peace is to be kept on any other footing than that of eternal vigilance and superior armed force, with a people whose own inclinations and devices are of the kind now grown familiar in the German case,—all of which also applies, with accentuation, in the case of Imperial Japan.

Some such policy of neutral surveillance in the affairs of these peoples whose pacific temper is under suspicion, is necessarily involved in a plan to enforce peace by concert of the pacific nations, and it will necessarily carry implications and farther issues, touching not only these supposedly recalcitrant peoples, but also as regards the pacific nations themselves. Assuming always that the prime purpose and consistent aim of the projected league is the peace and security of those pacific nations on whose initiative it is to be achieved, then it should be reasonable to assume that the course of procedure in its organisation, administration and further adaptations and adjustments must follow the logic of necessities leading to that end. He who wills the end must make up his account with the means.

The end in this case is peace and security; which means, for practical purposes, peace and good-will. Ill-will is not a secure foundation of peace. Even the military strategists of the Imperial establishment recommend a programme of "frightfulness" only as a convenient military expedient, essentially a provisional basis of tranquility. In the long run and as a permanent peace measure it is doubtless not to the point. Security is finally to be had among or between modern peoples only on the ground of a common understanding and an impartially common basis of equity, or something approaching that basis as nearly as circumstances will permit. Which means that in so far as the projected peace-compact is to take effect in any enduring way, and leave the federated nations some degree of freedom from persistent apprehension and animosity, as well as from habitual insecurity of life and limb, the league must not only be all-inclusive, but it must be inclusively uniform in all its requirements and regulations.

The peoples of the quondam Imperial nations must come into the league on a footing of formal equality with the rest. This they can not do without the virtual abdication of their dynastic governmental establishments and a consequent shift to a democratic form of organisation, and a formal abrogation of class privileges and prerogatives.

However, a virtual abdication or cancelment of the dynastic rule, such as to bring it formally into the same class with the British crown, would scarcely meet the requirements in the case of the German Imperial establishment; still more patently not in the case of Imperial Japan. If, following the outlines of the decayed British crown, one or the other of these Imperial establishments were by formal enactment reduced to a state of nominal desuetude, the effect would be very appreciably different from what happens in the British community, where the crown has lost its powers by failure of the requisite subordination on the part of the people, and not by a formal abdication of rights. In the German case, and even more in the Japanese case, the strength of the Imperial establishment lies in the unimpaired loyalty of the populace; which would remain nearly intact at the outset, and would thin out only by insensible degrees in the sequel; so that if only the Imperial establishment were left formally standing it would command the fealty of the common run in spite of any formal abrogation of its powers, and the course of things would, in effect, run as before the break. In effect, to bring about a shift to a democratic basis the dynastic slate would have to be wiped very clean indeed. And this shift would be indispensable to the successful conduct of such a pacific league of nations, since any other than an effectually democratic national establishment is to be counted on unfailingly to intrigue for dynastic aggrandizement, through good report and evil.