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

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* * * * *

At the hands of this British commonwealth the new situation requires the
putting away of the German Imperial establishment and the military
caste; the reduction of the German peoples to a footing of unreserved
democracy with sufficient guarantees against national trade
discriminations; surrender of all British tutelage over outlying
possessions, except what may go to guarantee their local autonomy;
cancelment of all extra-territorial pretensions of the several nations
entering into the league; neutralisation of the several national
establishments, to comprise virtual disarmament, as well as cancelment
of all restrictions on trade and of all national defense of
extra-territorial pecuniary claims and interests on the part of
individual citizens. The naval control of the seas will best be left in
British hands. No people has a graver or more immediate interest in the
freedom and security of the sea-borne trade; and the United Kingdom has
shown that it is to be trusted in that matter. And then it may well be
that neither the national pride nor the apprehensions of the British
people would allow them to surrender it; whereas, if the league is to
be formed it will have to be on terms to which the British people are
willing to adhere. A certain provision of armed force will also be
needed to keep the governments of unneutral nations in check,--and for
the purpose in hand all effectively monarchical countries are to be
counted as congenitally unneutral, whatever their formal professions and
whether they are members of the league or not. Here again it will
probably appear that the people of the United Kingdom, and of the
English-speaking countries at large, will not consent to this armed
force and its discretionary use passing out of British hands, or rather
out of French-British hands; and here again the practical decision will
have to wait on the choice of the British people, all the more because
the British community has no longer an interest, real or fancied, in the
coercive use of this force for their own particular ends. No other power
is to be trusted, except France, and France is less well placed for the
purpose and would assuredly also not covet so invidious an honour and so
thankless an office.

* * * * *

The theory, i.e. the logical necessities, of such a pacific league of
neutral nations is simple enough, in its elements. War is to be avoided
by a policy of avoidance. Which signifies that the means and the motives
to warlike enterprise and warlike provocation are to be put away, so far
as may be. If what may be, in this respect, does not come up to the
requirements of the case, the experiment, of course, will fail. The
preliminary requirement,--elimination of the one formidable dynastic
State in Europe,--has been spoken of. Its counterpart in the Far East
will cease to be formidable on the decease of its natural ally in
Central Europe, in so far as touches the case of such a projected
league. The ever increasingly dubious empire of the Czar would appear to
fall in the same category. So that the pacific league's fortunes would
seem to turn on what may be called its domestic or internal
arrangements.

Now, the means of warlike enterprise, as well as of unadvised
embroilment, is always in the last analysis the patriotic spirit of the
nation. Given this patriotic spirit in sufficient measure, both the
material equipment and the provocation to hostilities will easily be
found. It should accordingly appear to be the first care of such a
pacific league to reduce the sources of patriotic incitement to the
practicable minimum. This can be done, in such measure as it can be done
at all, by neutralisation of national pretensions. The finished outcome
in this respect, such as would assure perpetual peace among the peoples
concerned, would of course be an unconditional neutralisation of
citizenship, as has already been indicated before. The question which,
in effect, the spokesmen for a pacific league have to face is as to how
nearly that outcome can be brought to pass. The rest of what they may
undertake, or may come to by way of compromise and stipulation, is
relatively immaterial and of relatively transient consequence.

A neutralisation of citizenship has of course been afloat in a somewhat
loose way in the projects of socialistic and other "undesirable"
agitators, but nothing much has come of it. Nor have specific projects
for its realisation been set afoot. That anything conclusive along that
line could now be reached would seem extremely doubtful, in view of the
ardent patriotic temper of all these peoples, heightened just now by the
experience of war. Still, an undesigned and unguided drift in that
direction has been visible in all those nations that are accounted the
vanguard among modern civilised peoples, ever since the dynastic rule
among them began to be displaced by a growth of "free" institutions,
that is to say institutions resting on an accepted ground of
insubordination and free initiative.

The patriotism of these peoples, or their national spirit, is after all
and at the best an attenuated and impersonalised remnant of dynastic
loyalty, and it amounts after all, in effect, to nothing much else than
a residual curtailment or partial atrophy of that democratic habit of
mind that embodies itself in the formula: Live and let live. It is, no
doubt, both an ancient and a very meritorious habit. It is easily
acquired and hard to put away. The patriotic spirit and the national
life (prestige) on which it centers are the subject of untiring eulogy;
but hitherto its encomiasts have shown no cause and put forward no claim
to believe that it all is of any slightest use for any purpose that does
not take it and its paramount merit for granted. It is doubtless a very
meritorious habit; at least so they all say. But under the circumstances
of modern civilised life it is fruitful of no other net material result
than damage and discomfort. Still it is virtually ubiquitous among
civilised men, and in an admirable state of repair; and for the
calculable future it is doubtless to be counted in as an enduring
obstacle to a conclusive peace, a constant source of anxiety and
unremitting care.

The motives that work out through this national spirit, by use of this
patriotic ardor, fall under two heads: dynastic ambition, and business
enterprise. The two categories have the common trait that neither the
one nor the other comprises anything that is of the slightest material
benefit to the community at large; but both have at the same time a
high prestige value in the conventional esteem of modern men. The
relation of dynastic ambition to warlike enterprise, and the uses of
that usufruct of the nation's resources and man-power which the nation's
patriotism places at the disposal of the dynastic establishment, have
already been spoken of at length above, perhaps at excessive length, in
the recurrent discussion of the dynastic State and its quest of dominion
for dominion's sake. What measures are necessary to be taken as regards
the formidable dynastic States that threaten the peace, have also been
outlined, perhaps with excessive freedom.

But it remains to call attention to that mitigated form of dynastic rule
called a constitutional monarchy. Instances of such a constitutional
monarchy, designed to conserve the well-beloved abuses of dynastic rule
under a cover of democratic formalities, or to bring in effectual
democratic insubordination under cover of the ancient dignities of an
outworn monarchical system,--the characterisation may run either way
according to the fancy of the speaker, and to much the same practical
effect in either case,--instances illustrative of this compromise
monarchy at work today are to be had, as felicitously as anywhere, in
the Balkan states; perhaps the case of Greece will be especially
instructive. At the other, and far, end of the line will be found such
other typical instances as the British, the Dutch, or, in pathetic and
droll miniature, the Norwegian.

There is, of course, a wide interval between the grotesque effrontery
that wears the Hellenic crown and the undeviatingly decorous
self-effacement of the Dutch sovereign; and yet there is something of a
common complexion runs through the whole range of establishments, all
the way from the quasi-dynastic to the pseudo-dynastic. For reasons
unavoidable and persistent, though not inscribed in the constituent law,
the governmental establishment associated with such a royal concern will
be made up of persons drawn from the kept classes, the nobility or
lesser gentlefolk, and will be imbued with the spirit of these "better"
classes rather than that of the common run.

With what may be uncanny shrewdness, or perhaps mere tropismatic
response to the unreasoned stimulus of a "consciousness of kind," the
British government--habitually a syndicate of gentlefolk--has uniformly
insisted on the installation of a constitutional monarchy at the
formation of every new national organisation in which that government
has had a discretionary voice. And the many and various constitutional
governments so established, commonly under British auspices in some
degree, have invariably run true to form, in some appreciable degree.
They may be quasi-dynastic or pseudo-dynastic, but at this nearest
approach to democracy they always, and unavoidably, include at least a
circumlocution office of gentlefolk, in the way of a ministry and court
establishment, whose place in the economy of the nation's affairs it is
to adapt the run of these affairs to the needs of the kept classes.

There need be no imputation of sinister designs to these gentlefolk, who
so are elected by force of circumstances to guard and guide the nation's
interests. As things go, it will doubtless commonly be found that they
are as well-intentioned as need be. But a well-meaning gentleman of good
antecedents means well in a gentlemanly way and in the light of good
antecedents. Which comes unavoidably to an effectual bias in favor of
those interests which honorable gentlemen of good antecedents have at
heart. And among these interests are the interests of the kept classes,
as contrasted with that common run of the population from which their
keep is drawn.

Under the auspices, even if they are only the histrionic and decorative
auspices, of so decorous an article of institutional furniture as
royalty, it follows of logical necessity that the personnel of the
effectual government must also be drawn from the better classes, whose
place and station and high repute will make their association with the
First Gentleman of the Realm not too insufferably incongruous. And then,
the popular habit of looking up to this First Gentleman with that
deference that royalty commands, also conduces materially to the
attendant habitual attitude of deference to gentility more at large.

Even in so democratic a country, and with so exanimate a crown as is to
be found in the United Kingdom, the royal establishment visibly, and
doubtless very materially, conduces to the continued tenure of the
effectual government by representatives of the kept classes; and it
therefore counts with large effect toward the retardation of the
country's further move in the direction of democratic insubordination
and direct participation in the direction of affairs by the underbred,
who finally pay the cost. And on the other hand, even so moderately
royal an establishment as the Norwegian has apparently a sensible effect
in the way of gathering the reins somewhat into the hands of the better
classes, under circumstances of such meagerness as might be expected to
preclude anything like a "better" class, in the conventional acceptation
of that term. It would appear that even the extreme of pseudo-dynastic
royalty, sterilised to the last degree, is something of an effectual
hindrance to democratic rule, and in so far also a hindrance to the
further continued neutralisation of nationalist pretensions, as also an
effectual furtherance of upper-class rule for upper-class ends.

Now, a government by well-meaning gentlemen-investors will, at the
nearest, come no nearer representing the material needs and interests of
the common run than a parable comes to representing the concrete facts
which it hopes to illuminate. And as bears immediately on the point in
hand, these gentlemanly administrators of the nation's affairs who so
cluster about the throne, vacant though it may be of all but the bodily
presence of majesty, are after all gentlemen, with a gentlemanly sense
of punctilio touching the large proprieties and courtesies of political
life. The national honor is a matter of punctilio, always; and out of
the formal exigencies of the national honor arise grievances to be
redressed; and it is grievances of this character that commonly afford
the formal ground of a breach of the peace. An appeal on patriotic
grounds of wounded national pride, to the common run who have no trained
sense of punctilio, by the gentlemanly responsible class who have such a
sense, backed by assurances that the national prestige or the national
interests are at stake, will commonly bring a suitable response. It is
scarcely necessary that the common run should know just what the stir is
about, so long as they are informed by their trusted betters that there
is a grievance to redress. In effect, it results that the democratic
nation's affairs are administered by a syndicate composed of the least
democratic class in the population.

Excepting what is to be excepted, it will commonly hold true today that
these gentlemanly governments are conducted in a commendably clean and
upright fashion, with a conscious rectitude and a benevolent intention.
But they are after all, in effect, class governments, and they
unavoidably carry the bias of their class. The gentlemanly officials and
law-givers come, in the main, from the kept classes, whose living comes
to them in the way of income from investments, at home or in foreign
parts, or from an equivalent source of accumulated wealth or official
emolument. The bias resulting from this state of the case need not be of
an intolerant character in order to bring its modicum of mischief into
the national policy, as regards amicable relations with other
nationalities. A slight bias running on a ground of conscious right and
unbroken usage may go far. So, e.g., anyone of these gentlemanly
governments is within its legitimate rights, or rather within its
imperative duty, in defending the foreign investments of its citizens
and enforcing due payment of its citizens' claims to income or principal
of such property as they may hold in foreign parts; and it is within its
ordinary lines of duty in making use of the nation's resources--that is
to say of the common man and his means of livelihood--in enforcing such
claims held by the investing classes. The community at large has no
interest in the enforcement of such claims; it is evidently a class
interest, and as evidently protected by a code of rights, duties and
procedure that has grown out of a class bias, at the cost of the
community at large.

This bias favoring the interests of invested wealth may also, and indeed
it commonly does, take the aggressive form of aggressively forwarding
enterprise in investment abroad, particularly in commercially backward
countries abroad, by extension of the national jurisdiction and the
active countenancing of concessions in foreign parts, by subventions,
or by creation of offices to bring suitable emoluments to the younger
sons of deserving families. The protective tariffs to which recourse is
sometimes had, are of the same general nature and purpose. Of course, it
is in this latter, aggressive or excursive, issue of the well-to-do bias
in favor of investment and invested wealth that its most pernicious
effect on international relations is traceable.

Free income, that is to say income not dependent on personal merit or
exertion of any kind, is the breath of life to the kept classes; and as
a corollary of the "First Law of Nature," therefore, the invested wealth
which gives a legally equitable claim to such income has in their eyes
all the sanctity that can be given by Natural Right. Investment--often
spoken of euphemistically as "savings"--is consequently a meritorious
act, conceived to be very serviceable to the community at large, and
properly to be furthered by all available means. Invested wealth is so
much added to the aggregate means at the community's disposal, it is
believed. Of course, in point of fact, income from investment in the
hands of these gentlefolk is a means of tracelessly consuming that much
of the community's yearly product; but to the kept classes, who see the
matter from the point of view of the recipient, the matter does not
present itself in that light. To them it is the breath of life. Like
other honorable men they are faithful to their bread; and by authentic
tradition the common man, in whose disciplined preconceptions the kept
classes are his indispensable betters, is also imbued with the
uncritical faith that the invested wealth which enables these betters
tracelessly to consume a due share of the yearly product is an addition
to the aggregate means in hand.

The advancement of commercial and other business enterprise beyond the
national frontiers is consequently one of the duties not to be
neglected, and with which no trifling can be tolerated. It is so bound
up with national ideals, under any gentlemanly government, that any
invasion or evasion of the rights of investors in foreign parts, or of
other business involved in dealings with foreign parts, immediately
involves not only the material interest of the nation but the national
honour as well. Hence international jealousies and eventual embroilment.

The constitutional monarchy that commonly covers a modern democratic
community is accordingly a menace to the common peace, and any pacific
league of neutrals will be laying up trouble and prospective defeat for
itself in allowing such an institution to stand over in any instance.
Acting with a free hand, if such a thing were possible, the projected
league should logically eliminate all monarchical establishments,
constitutional or otherwise, from among its federated nations. It is
doubtless not within reason to look for such a move in the negotiations
that are to initiate the projected league of neutrals; but the point is
called to mind here chiefly as indicating one of the difficult passages
which are to be faced in any attempted formation of such a league, as
well as one of the abiding sources of international irritation with
which the league's jurisdiction will be burdened so long as a decisive
measure of the kind is not taken.

The logic of the whole matter is simple enough, and the necessary
measures to be taken to remedy it are no less simple--barring
sentimental objections which will probably prove insuperable. A
monarchy, even a sufficiently inane monarchy, carries the burden of a
gentlemanly governmental establishment--a government by and for the
kept classes; such a government will unavoidably direct the affairs of
state with a view to income on invested wealth, and will see the
material interests of the country only in so far as they present
themselves under the form of investment and business enterprise designed
to eventuate in investment; these are the only forms of material
interest that give rise to international jealousies, discriminations and
misunderstanding, at the same time that they are interests of
individuals only and have no material use or value to the community at
large. Given a monarchical establishment and the concomitant gentlemanly
governmental corps, there is no avoiding this sinister prime mover of
international rivalry, so long as the rights of invested wealth continue
in popular apprehension to be held inviolable.

Quite obviously there is a certain _tu quoque_ ready to the hand of
these "gentlemen of the old school" who see in the constitutional
monarchy a God-given shelter from the unreserved vulgarisation of life
at the hands of the unblest and unbalanced underbred and underfed. The
formally democratic nations, that have not retained even a
pseudo-dynastic royalty, are not much more fortunately placed in respect
of national discrimination in trade and investment. The American
republic will obviously come into the comparison as the type-form of
economic policy in a democratic commonwealth. There is little to choose
between the economic policy pursued by such republics as France or
America on the one side and their nearest counterparts among the
constitutional monarchies on the other. It is even to be admitted out of
hand that the comparison does no credit to democratic institutions as
seen at work in these republics. They are, in fact, somewhat the crudest
and most singularly foolish in their economic policy of any peoples in
Christendom. And in view of the amazing facility with which these
democratic commonwealths are always ready to delude themselves in
everything that touches their national trade policies, it is obvious
that any league of neutrals whose fortunes are in any degree contingent
on their reasonable compliance with a call to neutralise their trade
regulations for the sake of peace, will have need of all the persuasive
power it can bring to bear.

However, the powers of darkness have one less line of defense to shelter
them and their work of malversation in these commonwealths than in the
constitutional monarchies. The American national establishment, e.g.,
which may be taken as a fairly characteristic type-form in this bearing,
is a government of businessmen for business ends; and there is no tabu
of axiomatic gentility or of certified pedigree to hedge about this
working syndicate of business interests. So that it is all nearer by one
remove to the disintegrating touch of the common man and his commonplace
circumstances. The businesslike regime of these democratic politicians
is as undeviating in its advocacy and aid of enterprise in pursuit of
private gain under shelter of national discrimination as the
circumstances will permit; and the circumstances will permit them to do
much and go far; for the limits of popular gullibility in all things
that touch the admirable feats of business enterprise are very wide in
these countries. There is a sentimental popular belief running to the
curious effect that because the citizens of such a commonwealth are
ungraded equals before the law, therefore somehow they can all and
several become wealthy by trading at the expense of their neighbours.

Yet, the fact remains that there is only the one line of defense in
these countries where the business interests have not the countenance of
a time-honored order of gentlefolk, with the sanction of royalty in the
background. And this fact is further enhanced by one of its immediate
consequences. Proceeding upon the abounding faith which these peoples
have in business enterprise as a universal solvent, the unreserved
venality and greed of their businessmen--unhampered by the gentleman's
_noblesse oblige_--have pushed the conversion of public law to private
gain farther and more openly here than elsewhere. The outcome has been
divers measures in restraint of trade or in furtherance of profitable
abuses, of such a crass and flagrant character that if once the popular
apprehension is touched by matter-of-fact reflection on the actualities
of this businesslike policy the whole structure should reasonably be
expected to crumble. If the present conjuncture of circumstances should,
e.g., present to the American populace a choice between exclusion from
the neutral league, and a consequent probable and dubious war of
self-defense, on the one hand; as against entrance into the league, and
security at the cost of relinquishing their national tariff in restraint
of trade, on the other hand, it is always possible that the people might
be brought to look their protective tariff in the face and recognise it
for a commonplace conspiracy in restraint of trade, and so decide to
shuffle it out of the way as a good riddance. And the rest of the
Republic's businesslike policy of special favors would in such a case
stand a chance of going in the discard along with the protective tariff,
since the rest is of substantially the same disingenuous character.

Not that anyone need entertain a confident expectation of such an
exploit of common sense on the part of the American voters. There is
little encouragement for such a hope in their past career of gullibility
on this head. But this is again a point of difficulty to be faced in
negotiations looking to such a pacific league of neutrals. Without a
somewhat comprehensive neutralisation of national trade regulations, the
outlook for lasting peace would be reduced by that much; there would be
so much material for international jealousy and misunderstanding left
standing over and requiring continued readjustment and compromise,
always with the contingency of a breach that much nearer. The
infatuation of the Americans with their protective tariff and other
businesslike discriminations is a sufficiently serious matter in this
connection, and it is always possible that their inability to give up
this superstition might lead to their not adhering to this projected
neutral league. Yet it is at least to be said that the longer the time
that passes before active measures are taken toward the organisation of
such a league--that is to say, in effect, the longer the great war
lasts--the more amenable is the temper of the Americans likely to be,
and the more reluctantly would they see themselves excluded. Should the
war be protracted to some such length as appears to be promised by
latterday pronunciamentos from the belligerents, or to something
passably approaching such a duration; and should the Imperial designs
and anomalous diplomacy of Japan continue to force themselves on the
popular attention at the present rate; at the same time that the
operations in Europe continue to demonstrate the excessive cost of
defense against a well devised and resolute offensive; then it should
reasonably be expected that the Americans might come to such a
realisation of their own case as to let no minor considerations of trade
discrimination stand in the way of their making common cause with the
other pacific nations.

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