An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation

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There are at least two lines of argument, or of persuasion, running to
the support of such a view; readiness for a warlike defense, by
providing equipment and trained men, might prove a doubtfully effectual
measure even when carried to the limit of tolerance that will always be
reached presently in any democratic country; and then, too, there is
hope of avoiding the necessity of such warlike preparation, at least in
the same extreme degree, by means of some practicable working
arrangement to be effected with other nations who are in the same case.
Hitherto the farthest reach of these pacific schemes for maintaining the
peace, or for the common defense, has taken the shape of a projected
league of neutral nations to keep the peace by enforcement of specified
international police regulations or by compulsory arbitration of
international disputes. It is extremely doubtful how far, if at all,
popular sentiment of any effectual force falls in with this line of
precautionary measures. Yet it is evident that popular sentiment, and
popular apprehension, has been stirred profoundly by the events of the
past two years, and the resulting change that is already visible in the
prevailing sentiment as regards the national defense would argue that
more far-reaching changes in the same connection are fairly to be looked
for within a reasonable allowance of time.

In this American case the balance of effectual public opinion hitherto
is to all appearance quite in doubt, but it is also quite unsettled. The
first response has been a display of patriotic emotion and national
self-assertion. The further, later and presumably more deliberate,
expressions of opinion carry a more obvious note of apprehension and
less of stubborn or unreflecting national pride. It may be too early to
anticipate a material shift of base, to a more neutral, or less
exclusively national footing in matters of the common defense.

The national administration has been moving at an accelerated rate in
the direction not of national isolation and self-reliance resting on a
warlike equipment formidable enough to make or break the peace at
will--such as the more truculent and irresponsible among the politicians
have spoken for--but rather in the direction of moderating or curtailing
all national pretensions that are not of undoubted material consequence,
and of seeking a common understanding and concerted action with those
nationalities whose effectual interests in the matters of peace and war
coincide with the American. The administration has grown visibly more
pacific in the course of its exacting experience,--more resolutely, one
might even say more aggressively pacific; but the point of chief
attention in all this strategy of peace has also visibly been shifting
somewhat from the maintenance of a running equilibrium between
belligerents and a keeping of the peace from day to day, to the ulterior
and altogether different question of what is best to be done toward a
conclusive peace at the close of hostilities, and the ways and means of
its subsequent perpetuation.

This latter is, in effect, an altogether different question from that of
preserving neutrality and amicable relations in the midst of importunate
belligerents, and it may even, conceivably, perhaps not unlikely, come
to involve a precautionary breach of the current peace and a taking of
sides in the war with an urgent view to a conclusive outcome. It would
be going too far to impute to the administration, at the present stage,
such an aggressive attitude in its pursuit of a lasting peace as could
be called a policy of defensive offense; but it will shock no one's
sensibilities to say that such a policy, involving a taking of sides and
a renouncing of national isolation, is visibly less remote from the
counsels of the administration today than it has been at any earlier
period.

In this pacific attitude, increasingly urgent and increasingly
far-reaching and apprehensive, the administration appears to be speaking
for the common man rather than for the special interests or the
privileged classes. Such would appear, on the face of the returns, to be
the meaning of the late election. It is all the more significant on that
account, since in the long run it is after all the common man that will
have to pass on the expediency of any settled line of policy and to bear
the material burden of carrying it into effect.

It may seem rash to presume that a popularly accredited administration
in a democratic country must approximately reflect the effectual changes
of popular sentiment and desire. Especially would it seem rash to anyone
looking on from the point of view of an undemocratic nation, and
therefore prone to see the surface fluctuations of excitement and
shifting clamor. But those who are within the democratic pale will know
that any administration in such a country, where official tenure and
continued incumbency of the party rest on a popular vote,--any such
administration is a political organisation and is guided by political
expediency, in the tawdry sense of the phrase. Such a political
situation has the defects of its qualities, as has been well and
frequently expounded by its critics, but it has also the merits of its
shortcomings. In a democracy of this modern order any incumbent of high
office is necessarily something of a politician, quite indispensably so;
and a politician at the same time necessarily is something of a
demagogue. He yields to the popular drift, or to the set of opinion and
demands among the effective majority on whom he leans; and he can not
even appear to lead, though he may surreptitiously lead opinion in
adroitly seeming to reflect it and obey it. Ostensible leadership, such
as has been staged in this country from time to time, has turned out to
be ostensible only. The politician must be adroit; but if he is also to
be a statesman he must be something more. He is under the necessity of
guessing accurately what the drift of events and opinion is going to be
on the next reach ahead; and in taking coming events by the forelock he
may be able to guide and shape the drift of opinion and sentiment
somewhat to his own liking. But all the while he must keep within the
lines of the long-term set of the current as it works out in the habits
of thought of the common man.

Such foresight and flexibility is necessary to continued survival, but
flexibility of convictions alone does not meet the requirements. Indeed,
it has been tried. It is only the minor politicians--the most numerous
and long-lived, it is true--who can hold their place in the crevices of
the party organisation, and get their livelihood from the business of
party politics, without some power of vision and some hazard of
forecast. It results from this state of the case that the drift of
popular sentiment and the popular response to the stimulus of current
events is reflected more faithfully and more promptly by the short-lived
administrations of a democracy than by the stable and formally
irresponsible governmental establishments of the older order. It should
also be noted that these democratic administrations are in a less
advantageous position for the purpose of guiding popular sentiment and
shaping it to their own ends.

* * * * *

Now, it happens that at no period within the past half-century has the
course of events moved with such celerity or with so grave a bearing on
the common good and the prospective contingencies of national life as
during the present administration. This apparent congruity of the
administration's policy with the drift of popular feeling and belief
will incline anyone to put a high rating on the administration's course
of conduct, in international relations as well as in national measures
that have a bearing on international relations, as indicating the course
taken by sentiment and second thought in the community at large,--for,
in effect, whether or not in set form, the community at large reflects
on any matters of such gravity and urgency as to force themselves upon
the attention of the common man.

Two main lines of reflection have visibly been enforced on the
administration by the course of events in the international field. There
has been a growing apprehension, mounting in the later months to
something like the rank of a settled conviction, that the Republic has
been marked down for reduction to a vassal state by the dynastic Empire
now engaged with its European adversaries. In so saying that the
Republic has been marked down for subjection it is not intended to
intimate that deliberate counsel has been had by the Imperial
establishment on that prospective enterprise; still less that a
resolution to such effect, with specification of ways and means, has
been embodied in documentary form and deposited for future reference in
the Imperial archives. All that is intended, and all that is necessary
to imply, is that events are in train to such effect that the
subjugation of the American republic will necessarily find its place in
the sequence presently, provided that the present Imperial adventure is
brought to a reasonably auspicious issue; though it does not follow that
this particular enterprise need be counted on as the next large
adventure in dominion to be undertaken when things again fall into
promising shape. This latter point would, of course, depend on the
conjuncture of circumstances, chief of which would have to be the
exigencies of imperial dominion shaping the policy of the Empire's
natural and necessary ally in the Far East. All this has evidently been
coming more and more urgently into the workday deliberations of the
American administration. Of course, it is not spoken of in set terms to
this effect in official utterances, perhaps not even within doors; that
sort of thing is not done. But it can do no harm to use downright
expressions in a scientific discussion of these phenomena, with a view
to understanding the current drift of things in this field.

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.

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