rather on the rivalry of classes and interests than on State divisions. War has no longer the justification that it makes for the survival of the fittest; it involves the survival of the less fit. The idea that the struggle between nations is a part of the evolutionary law of man's advance involves a profound misreading of the biological analogy.The warlike nations do not inherit the earth; they represent the decaying human element. The diminishing[Pg xiii] role of physical
force in all spheres of human activity carries with it profound psychological modifications.
These tendencies, mainly the outcome of purely modern conditions (e.g. rapidity of communication), have rendered the problems of modern international politics profoundly and essentially different from the ancient; yet our ideas are still dominated by the principles and axioms, images and terminology of the bygone days.
4
The author urges that these little-recognized facts may be utilized for the solution of the armament difficulty on at present untried lines--by such modification of opinion in Europe that much of the present motive to aggression will cease to be operative, and by thus diminishing the risk of attack, diminishing to the same extent the need for defence. He shows how such a political reformation is within the scope of practical politics, and the methods which should be employed to bring it about.
[Pg xv] CONTENTS
PART I
ECONOMICS OF THE CASE CHAPTER PAGE
I. STATEMENT OF THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR WAR 3
II. THE AXIOMS OF MODERN STATECRAFT 14
III. THE GREAT ILLUSION 28
IV. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CONFISCATION 50
V. FOREIGN TRADE AND MILITARY POWER 68
VI. THE INDEMNITY FUTILITY 88
VII. HOW COLONIES ARE OWNED 107
VIII. THE FIGHT FOR "THE PLACE IN THE SUN." 131
PART II
THE HUMAN NATURE AND MORALS OF THE CASE I. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE FOR WAR 155
II. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE FOR PEACE 168
III. UNCHANGING HUMAN NATURE 198
IV. DO THE WARLIKE NATIONS INHERIT THE EARTH? 222
V.
THE DIMINISHING FACTOR OF PHYSICAL FORCE: PSYCHOLOGICAL RESULTS
261
VI.
THE STATE AS A PERSON: A FALSE ANALOGY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
296
PART III
THE PRACTICAL OUTCOME
I. THE RELATION OF DEFENCE TO AGGRESSION 329
II. ARMAMENT, BUT NOT ALONE ARMAMENT 341
III. IS THE POLITICAL REFORMATION POSSIBLE? 353
IV. METHODS 368
APPENDIX ON RECENT EVENTS IN EUROPE 383
[Pg xvi]
PART I
THE ECONOMICS OF THE CASE
CHAPTER I
STATEMENT OF THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR WAR PAGES
Where can the Anglo-German rivalry of armaments end?--Why peace advocacy fails--Why it deserves to fail--The attitude of the peace advocate--The presumption that the prosperity of nations depends upon their political power, and consequent necessity of protection against aggression of other nations who would diminish our power to their advantage--These the universal axioms of international politics 3-13
CHAPTER II
THE AXIOMS OF MODERN STATECRAFT
Are the foregoing axioms unchallengeable?--Some typical statements of them--German dreams of conquest--Mr. Frederic Harrison on results of defeat of British arms and invasion of England--Forty millions starving 14-27
CHAPTER III
THE GREAT ILLUSION
These views founded on a gross and dangerous misconception--What a German victory could and could not accomplish--What an English victory could and could not accomplish--The optical illusion of conquest--There can be no transfer of wealth--The prosperity of the little States in Europe--German Three per Cents. at 82 and Belgian at 96--Russian Three and a [Pg xvii] Half per Cents. at 81, Norwegian at 102--What this really means--If Germany annexed Holland, would any German benefit or any Hol-
5
lander?--The "cash value" of Alsace-Lorraine 28-49
CHAPTER IV
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CONFISCATION
Our present terminology of international politics an historical survival--Wherein modern conditions differ from ancient--The profound change effected by Division of Labor--The delicate interdependence of international finance--Attila and the Kaiser--What would happen if a German invader looted the Bank of England--German trade dependent upon English credit--Confiscation of
an enemy's property an economic impossibility under modern conditions--Intangibility of a community's wealth 50-67
CHAPTER V
FOREIGN TRADE AND MILITARY POWER
Why trade cannot be destroyed or captured by a military Power--What the processes of trade really are, and how a navy affects them--Dreadnoughts and business--While Dreadnoughts protect British trade from hypothetical German warships, the real Ger-man merchant is carrying it off, or the Swiss or the Belgian--The "commercial aggression" of Switzerland--What lies at the bottom of the futility of military conquest--Government brigandage becomes as profitless as private brigandage--The real basis of commercial honesty on the part of Government 68-87
CHAPTER VI
THE INDEMNITY FUTILITY
[Pg xviii]The real balance-sheet of the Franco-German War--Disregard of Sir Robert Giffen's warning in interpreting the figures-- What really happened in France and Germany during the decade following the war--Bismarck's disillusionment--The necessary discount to be given an indemnity--The bearing of the war and its result on German prosperity and progress 88-106
CHAPTER VII
HOW COLONIES ARE OWNED
Why twentieth-century methods must differ from eighteenth--The vagueness of our conceptions of statecraft--How Colonies are "owned"--Some little-recognized facts--Why foreigners could not fight England for her self-governing Colonies--She does not "own" them, since they are masters of their own destiny--The paradox of conquest: England in a worse position in regard to her own Colonies than in regard to foreign nations--Her experience as the oldest and most practised colonizer in history--Recent French experience--Could Germany hope to do what England cannot do 107-130
