Part 3 (1/2)
[15] It seems that the same remark is made about the Germans in the U.S.A., that they take little interest in politics there.
[16] This att.i.tude is exactly corroborated by Herr Maximilian Harden's manifesto, originally published in _Die Zukunft,_ and lately reprinted in the _New York Times_.
[17] Though this is only, perhaps, true of their State colonies. In their individual and missionary colonizing groups, and as pioneer settlers, they seem to have succeeded well.
VI
THE HEALING OF, NATIONS[18]
It is quite possible that the little rift within the lute, alluded to in the concluding paragraph of last chapter, may widen so far as to cause before long great internal changes and reconstructions in Germany herself; but short of that happening, it would seem that there is no alternative for the Allies but to continue the war until her Militarism can be put out of court, and that for long years to come. There is no alternative, because she has revealed her hand too clearly as a menace--if she should prevail--of barbarous force to the whole world. It is this menace which has roused practically the whole world against her.
And there is this amount of good in the situation, namely, that while with the victory of Germany a German ”terror” might be established through the world, with the victory of the Allies neither England, nor France, nor Russia, nor little Belgium, nor any other country, could claim a final credit and supremacy. With the latter victory we shall be freed from the nightmare claim of any one nation's world-empire.
But in order to substantiate this result England must also abdicate her claim. She must abdicate her mere cra.s.s insistence on commercial supremacy. The ”Nation of Shopkeepers” theory, which has in the past made her the hated of other nations, which has created within her borders a vulgar and unpleasant cla.s.s--the repository of much arrogant wealth--must cease to be the standard of her life. I have before me at this moment a manifesto of ”The British Empire League,” patronized by royalty and the dukes, and of which Lord Rothschild is treasurer. The const.i.tution of the League was framed in 1895; and I note with regret that positively the five ”princ.i.p.al objects of the League” mentioned therein have solely to do with the extension and facilitation of Britain's trade, and the ”co-operation of the military and naval forces of the Empire with a special view to the due protection of the trade routes.” Not a word is said _in the whole manifesto_ about the human and social responsibilities of this vast Empire; not a word about the guardians.h.i.+p and nurture of native races, their guidance and a.s.sistance among the pitfalls of civilization; not a word about the principles of honour and just dealing with regard to our civilized neighbour-nations in Europe and elsewhere; not a word about the political freedom and welfare of all cla.s.ses at home. One rubs one's eyes, and looks at the doc.u.ment again; but it is so. Its one inspiration is--Trade. Seeing that, I confess to a sinking of the heart. Can we blame Germany for struggling at all costs to enlarge her borders, when _that_ is what the British Empire means?
Until we rise, as a nation, to a conception of what we mean by our national life, finer and grander than a mere counting of trade-returns, what can we expect save failure and ill-success?
Possibly in the conviction that she is fighting for a worthy object (the ending of militarism), and in the determination (if sincerely carried out) of once more playing her part in the world as the protector of small nations, Britain may find her salvation, and a cause which will save her soul. It is certainly encouraging to find that there is a growing feeling in favour of the recognition and rehabilitation of the small peoples of the world. If it is true that Britain by her grasping Imperial Commercialism in the past (and let us hope that period _is_ past) has roused jealousy and hatred among the other nations, equally is it true that Germany to-day, by her dreams of world-conquest, has been rousing hatred and fear. But the day has gone by of world-empires founded on the l.u.s.t of conquest, whether that conquest be military or commercial. The modern peoples surely are growing out of dreams so childish as that. The world-empire of Goethe and Beethoven is even now far more extensive, far more powerful, than that which Wilhelm II and his Junkers are seeking to encompa.s.s. There is something common, unworthy, in the effort of domination; and while the Great Powers have thus vulgarized themselves, it is the little countries who have gone forward in the path of progress. ”In modern Europe what do we not owe to little Switzerland, lighting the torch of freedom six hundred years ago, and keeping it alight through all the centuries when despotic monarchies held the rest of the European Continent? And what to free Holland, with her great men of learning and her painters surpa.s.sing those of all other countries save Italy? So the small Scandinavian nations have given to the world famous men of science, from Linnaeus downwards, poets like Tegner and Bjornson, scholars like Madvig, dauntless explorers like Fridthiof Nansen. England had, in the age of Shakespeare, Bacon, and Milton, a population little larger than that of Bulgaria to-day. The United States, in the days of Was.h.i.+ngton and Franklin and Jefferson and Hamilton and Marshall, counted fewer inhabitants than Denmark or Greece.”[19]
In all their internal politics and social advancement, Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Finland (until the paw of the Bear was on her) and Belgium (till the claw of the Spread-Eagle) have been well to the fore. It is they who have carried on the banner of idealism which Germany herself uplifted when she was a small people or a group of small peoples. It is they who have really had prosperous, healthy, independent, and alert populations. How much more interesting, we may say, would Europe be under the variety of such a regime than under the monotonous bureaucracy and officialism of any Great Power! And to some such scheme we must adhere. It would mean, of course, the alliance of all the States of Western Europe, large and small (and including both a remodelled Germany and a largely remodelled Austria) in one great Federation--whose purpose would be partly to unite and preserve Europe against any common foe, from the East or elsewhere, and partly to regulate any overweening ambition of a member of the Federation, such as might easily become a menace to the other members. A secondary but most important result of the formation of such a United States of Europe would be that while each State would probably preserve a small military establishment of its own, the enormous and fatal incubus of the present armaments system would be rendered unnecessary, and so at last the threat of national bankruptcy and ruin, which has of late pursued the nations Like an evil dream, might pa.s.s away. But in that matter of finance it cannot be disguised that a terrible period still awaits the European peoples. Already the moneylenders sitting on their chests form a veritable nightmare; but with fresh debts by the thousand million sterling being contracted, there is great danger that the ma.s.s-peoples beneath will be worse paralysed and broken even than they are now--unless, indeed, with a great effort they rouse themselves and throw off the evil burden.
That the world is waking up to a recognition of _racial_ rights--that is, the right of each race to have as far as possible its own Government, instead of being lorded over by an alien race--is a good sign; and a European settlement along that line must be pressed for. At last, after centuries of discomfort, we at home are finding our solution of the Irish question in this very obvious way; and it may be that Europe, tired of war, may finally have the sense to adopt the same principle. Of course, there are cases where populations are so mixed, as, for instance, the Czechs and Slovaks and Germans in Bohemia and Moravia, or where small colonies of one race are so embedded in the midst of another race, as are the Germans among the Roumanians of Transylvania, that this solution may be difficult. That is no reason, however, why the general principle should not be applied. It _must_, indeed, be applied if Europe is not to return to barbarism.
And it interests us--having regard to what I have said about _cla.s.s_ rule being so fruitful a cause of war--to remember that the rule of one race by another always does mean cla.s.s rule. The alien conquerors who descend upon a country become the military and landlord caste there.
Thus the Norman barons in England, the English squires in Ireland, the Magyars in Hungary, the German barons in East Prussia and the Baltic provinces, and so forth. They make their profit and maintain themselves out of the labour and the taxation of the subject peoples.
In the earlier forms of social life, when men lived in tribes, a rude equality and democracy prevailed; there was nothing that could well be called cla.s.s-government; there was simply custom and the leaders.h.i.+p of the elders of the tribe. Then with the oncoming of what we call civilization, and the growth of the sense of property, differences arose--acc.u.mulations of wealth and power by individuals, enslavements of tribes by other tribes; and cla.s.ses sprang up, and cla.s.s-government, and so the material of endless suffering and oppression and hatred and warfare. I have already explained (in the Introduction) that Cla.s.s in itself as the mere formation within a nation of groups of similar occupation and activity--working harmoniously with each other and with the nation--is a perfectly natural and healthy phenomenon; it is only when it means groups pursuing their own interests counter to each other and to the nation that it becomes diseased. There will come a time when the cla.s.s-element in this latter sense will be ejected from society, and society will return again to its democratic form and structure. There will be no want, in that time, of variety of occupation and talent, or of differentiation in the social organism; quite the contrary; but simply there will be no predatory or parasitical groups within such organism, whose, interests will run counter to the whole, and which will act (as such cla.s.ses act now) as foci and seedbeds of disease and strife within the whole. With a return to the recognition of racial rights and autonomies over the world, it is clear that one great cause of strife will be removed, and we shall be one step nearer to the ending of the preposterous absurdity of war.
And talking about the difficulty of sorting out mixed populations, or of dealing with small colonies of one race embedded in the midst of another race, it is evident that once you get rid of autocratic or military or cla.s.s-government of any kind, and return to democratic forms, this difficulty will be much reduced or disappear. Small democratic communes are perfectly simple to form in groups of any magnitude or minuteness which may be desirable; and such groups would easily federate or ally themselves with surrounding democracies of alien race, whereas if lorded over by alien conquerors they would be in a state of chronic rebellion. Of such democratic alliance and federation of peoples of totally different race, Switzerland supplies a well-recognized and far-acclaimed example.
That in the future there will be an outcry in favour of Conscription made by certain parties in Britain goes without saying; but that must be persistently opposed. The nation says it is fighting to put down Militarism. Why, then, make compulsory militarism foundational in our national life? To abolish militarism _by_ militarism is like ”putting down Drink” by swallowing it! The whole lesson of this war is against conscription. Germany could never have ”imposed herself” on Europe without it. And yet her soldiers, brave as they naturally are, and skilfully as they have fought, have not done themselves justice. How could they under such conditions--forced into battle by their officers, flung in heaps on the enemy's guns? The voluntary response in Britain to the call to arms has been inspiriting; and if voluntaryism means momentary delay in a crisis, still it means success in the end. No troops have fought more finely than the British. Said Surgeon-General Evatt, speaking in London in October--and General Evatt's word in such a matter ought to carry weight: ”After long experience in studying Russian, German, Bavarian, Saxon, French, Spanish, and American fighting units, my verdict is unhesitatingly in favour of the British.... What has occurred lately has been a splendid triumph of citizens.h.i.+p, because people were allowed their proper liberty and the consciousness of freely, sharing in a great Empire.”
Besides it must always be remembered that conscription gives a Government power to initiate an iniquitous war, whereas voluntaryism keeps the national life clean and healthy. A free people will not fight for the trumped-up schemes and selfish machinations of a cla.s.s--not, indeed, unless they are grossly deceived by, Press and Cla.s.s plots.
Anyhow, to force men to fight in causes which they do not approve, to compel them to adopt a military career when their temperaments are utterly unsuited to such a thing, or when their consciences or their religion forbid them--these things are both foolish and wicked.
If the nation wants soldiers it must pay for them. England, for example, is rolling in wealth; and it is simply a scandal that the wealthy cla.s.ses should sit at home in comfort and security and pay to the man in the trenches--who is risking his life at every moment, and often living in such exhaustion and misery as actually to wish for the bullet which will _end_ his life--no more than the minimum wage of an ordinary day-labourer; and that they should begrudge every penny paid to his dependents--whether he be living or dead--or to himself when he returns, a lifelong cripple, to his home. To starve and stint your own soldiers, to discourage recruiting, and then to make the consequent failure of men to come forward into an excuse for conscription is the meanest of policies. As a matter of fact, the circ.u.mstances of the present war show that with anything like decent reward for their services there is an abundant, an almost over-abundant, supply of men ready to flock to the standard of their country in a time of necessity. Nor must it be forgotten, in this matter of pay, that the general type and average of our forces to-day, whether naval or military, is far higher than it was fifty, years ago. The men are just as plucky, and more educated, more alert, more competent in every way. To keep them up to this high standard of efficiency they need a high standard of care and consideration.
It may, however, be said--in view of our present industrial conditions, and the low standard of physical health and vitality prevailing among the young folk of our large towns--that physical drill and scout training, including ambulance and other work, and qualification in _some_ useful trade, might very well be made a part of our general educational system, for rich and poor alike, say, between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Such a training would to each individual boy be immensely valuable, and by providing some rudimentary understanding of military, affairs and the duties of public service and citizens.h.i.+p, would enable him to choose _how_ he could be helpful to the nation--provided always he were not forced to make his choice in a direction distasteful or repugnant to him. In any good cause, as in a war of _defence_ against a foreign enemy, it is obvious enough, as I have said, that there would be plenty of native enthusiasm forthcoming without legal or official pressure. However, I have enlarged a little on the subject of Conscription in a later chapter, and will say no more here.
But the burning and pressing question is: Why should we--we, the ”enlightened and civilized” nations of Europe--get involved in these senseless wars at all? And surely _this_ war will, of all wars, force an answer to the question. Here, for the last twenty years, have these so-called Great Powers been standing round, all professing that their one desire is peace, and all meanwhile arming to the teeth; each accusing the others of militant intentions, and all lamenting that ”war is inevitable.” Here they have been forming their _Ententes_ and Alliances, carrying on their diplomatic cabals and intrigues, studying the map and adjusting the Balance of Power--all, of course, with the best intentions--and lo! with the present result! What nonsense! What humbug! What an utter bankruptcy of so-called diplomacy! When will the peoples themselves arise and put a stop to this fooling--the people who give their lives and pay the cost of it all? If the present-day, diplomats and Foreign Ministers have sincerely striven for peace, then their utter incapacity and futility have been proved to the hilt, and they must be swept away. If they have not sincerely striven for peace, but only pretended to so strive, then also they must be swept away, for deceit in such a matter is unpardonable.
And no doubt the latter alternative is the true one. There has been a pretence of the Governments all round--a pretence of deep concern for humanity and the welfare of the ma.s.s-peoples committed to their charge; but the real moving power beneath has been _cla.s.s_-interest--the interest of the great commercial cla.s.s in each nation, with its acolyte and attendant, the military or aristocratic. It is this cla.s.s, with its greeds and vanities and suspicions and jealousies, which is the cause of strife; the working-ma.s.ses of the various nations have no desire to quarrel with each other. Nay, they are animated by a very different spirit.
In an interesting article published by the German Socialist paper _Vorwarts_, on September 27, 1914, and reproduced in our Press, occurred the following pa.s.sage, in which the war is traced to its commercial sources: ”Germany has enjoyed an economical prosperity such as no other country has experienced during the last decade. That meant with the capitalist cla.s.s a revival of strong Imperialist tendencies, which have been evident enough. This, again, gave rise to mistrust abroad, at least in capitalist circles, who did their best to communicate their feelings to the great ma.s.ses, ... and so the German people as a whole has been made responsible for what has been the work of a small cla.s.s.... The comrades abroad can be a.s.sured that though German workmen are ready to defend their country they will, above all, not forget that their interests are the same as those of the proletariat in other countries, who also against their will were forced into the war and now do their duty. They can rest a.s.sured that the German people are not less humane than others--a result to which education through workmen's organizations has greatly contributed. If German soldiers in the excitement of war should commit atrocities, it can be said that among us--and also in other circles--there will not be a single person to approve of them.”
Reading this statement--so infinitely more sensible and human than anything to be found in the ordinary Capitalist Press of England and Germany--one cannot help feeling that there is practically little hope for the future _until_ the international working ma.s.ses throughout Europe come forward and, joining hands with each other, take charge of the foolish old Governments (who represent the remains of the decadent feudal and commercial systems), and shape the Western world at last to the heart's desire of the peoples that inhabit it.