the great interests which have been confided to him can be advanced? If it be true, as even the pacifist admits that it may be true, that the tangible material interests of a nation can be advanced by warfare; if, in other words, warfare can play some large part in the protection of the interests of humanity, the rulers of a courageous people are justified in disregarding the suffering and the sacrifice that it may involve.Of course, the pacifist falls back upon the moral[Pg 11] plea: we have no right to take by force. But here again the common sense of ordinary humanity does not follow the peace advocate. If the individual manufacturer is entitled to use all the advantages which great financial and industrial resources may give him against a less powerful competitor, if he is entitled, as under our present industrial scheme he is entitled, to overcome competition by a costly and perfected organization of manufacture, of advertisement, of sales-manship, in a trade in which poorer men gain their livelihood, why should not the nation be entitled to overcome the rivalry of other nations by utilizing the force of its public services? It is a commonplace of industrial competition that the "big man" takes advantage of all the weaknesses of the small man--his narrow means, his ill-health even--to undermine and to undersell. If it were true that industrial competition were always merciful, and national or political competition always cruel, the plea of the peace man might be unanswerable; but we know, as a matter of fact, that this is not the case, and, returning to our starting-point, the common man feels that he is obliged to accept the world as he finds it, that struggle and warfare, in one form or another, are among the conditions of life, conditions which he did not make. Moreover he is not at all sure that the warfare of arms is necessarily either the hardest or the most cruel form of that struggle which exists throughout the universe. In any case, he is willing to take the risks, because he feels that military predominance gives him a real and tangible advantage,[Pg 12] a material advantage translatable into terms of general social well-being, by enlarged commercial opportunities, wider markets, protection against the aggression of commercial rivals, and
so on. He faces the risk of war in the same spirit as that in which a sailor or a fisherman faces the risk of drowning, or a miner that
of the choke damp, or a doctor that of a fatal disease, because he would rather take the supreme risk than accept for himself and
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his dependents a lower situation, a narrower and meaner existence, with complete safety. He also asks whether the lower path is altogether free from risks. If he knows much of life he knows that in very many circumstances the bolder way is the safer way.
That is why it is that the peace propaganda has so signally failed, and why the public opinion of the countries of Europe, far from restraining the tendency of their Governments to increase armaments, is pushing them into still greater expenditure. It is universally assumed that national power means national wealth, national advantage; that expanding territory means increased opportunity for industry; that the strong nation can guarantee opportunities for its citizens that the weak nation cannot. The Englishman, for instance, believes that his wealth is largely the result of his political power, of his political domination, mainly of his sea power; that Germany with her expanding population must feel cramped; that she must fight for elbow-room; and that if he does not defend himself he will illustrate that universal law which makes of every stomach a graveyard.[Pg 13] He has a natural preference for being the diner rather than the dinner. As it is universally admitted that wealth and prosperity and well-being go with strength and power and national greatness, he intends, so long as he is able, to maintain that strength and power and greatness, and not to yield it even
in the name of altruism. And he will not yield it, because should he do so it would be simply to replace British power and greatness by the power and greatness of some other nation, which he feels sure would do no more for the well-being of civilization as a whole than he is prepared to do. He is persuaded that he can no more yield in the competition of armaments, than as a business man or as
a manufacturer he could yield in commercial competition to his rival; that he must fight out his salvation under conditions as he finds
them, since he did not make them, and since he cannot change them.
Admitting his premises--and these premises are the universally accepted axioms of international politics the world over--who shall say that he is wrong?
[Pg 14] 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.
Are the axioms set out in the last chapter unchallengeable?
Is it true that the wealth, prosperity and well-being of a nation depend upon its military power, or have necessarily anything whatever to do therewith?
Can one civilized nation gain moral or material advantage by the military conquest of another? Does conquered territory add to the wealth of the conquering nation?
Is it possible for a nation to "own" the territory of another in the way that a person or corporation would "own" an estate? Could Germany "take" English trade and Colonies by military force?
Could she turn English Colonies into German ones, and win an overseas empire by the sword, as England won hers in the past? Does a modern nation need to expand its political[Pg 15] boundaries in order to provide for increasing population?
If England could conquer Germany to-morrow, completely conquer her, reduce her nationality to so much dust, would the ordinary
British subject be the better for it?
If Germany could conquer England, would any ordinary German subject be the better for it?
The fact that all these questions have to be answered in the negative, and that a negative answer seems to outrage common sense,
shows how much our political axioms are in need of revision.
The literature on the subject leaves no doubt whatever that I have correctly stated the premises of the matter in the foregoing chapter. Those whose special vocation is the philosophy of statecraft in the international field, from Aristotle and Plato, passing by Machiavelli and Clausewitz down to Mr. Roosevelt and the German Emperor, have left us in no doubt whatever on the point. The
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whole view has been admirably summarized by two notable writers--Admiral Mahan, on the Anglo-Saxon side, and Baron Karl von
Stengel (second German delegate to the First Hague Conference) on the German. Admiral Mahan says:
The old predatory instinct that he should take who has the power survives ... and moral force is not sufficient to determine issues unless supported by physical. Governments[Pg 16] are corporations, and corporations have no souls; governments, moreover, are trustees, and as such must put first the lawful interests of their wards--their own people.... More and more Germany needs the assured importation of raw materials, and, where possible, control of regions productive of such materials. More and more she requires assured markets and security as to the importation of food, since less and less comparatively is produced within her own borders by her rapidly increasing population. This all means security at sea.... Yet the supremacy of Great Britain in European seas means a perpetually latent control of German commerce.... The world has long been accustomed to the idea of a predominant naval power, coupling it with the name of Great Britain, and it has been noted that such power, when achieved, is commonly often associated with commercial and industrial predominance, the struggle for which is now in progress between Great Britain and Germany. Such predominance forces a nation to seek markets, and, where possible, to
