<continued from previous post>
IV
Under the political civilization that has been evolved in the Western world, a type of government has come into being which may be said to have two faces, the one combative and warlike, the other noncombative and pacific.
As trustee for the nation's power, possessions, territory, and former conquests, as guardian of its military traditions, as protector of its sovereign rights against infringement by other nations similarly organized, each of these Western governments, whether democratic or otherwise, stands for combative nationalism. In this capacity it walks abroad among its foreign neighbors, with armies and navies at its back, sometimes hiding them as much as possible, sometimes displaying them with considerable truculence.
To its own subjects it turns the other face, or, shall we say, the inner side. They see it, not as a fighting institution, but as a repressor of domestic strife, substituting civil procedure for the lawless and violent clash of conflicting aims. They see it occupied with interests that are not combative, promoting education, fostering the arts and sciences, legislating for the public health, mediating in conflicts between labor and capital, and attending, as best it can, to economic prosperity. Normally, the citizens are unaware of any connection between this side of the government and the other, though they know, of course, that the other exists. Now and then, however, they discover the unpleasant fact that all these pacific goods are liable to sudden conscription for the combative purpose.
It may be noted in passing that this phenomenon of the double face is to be found only where civilization has taken a distinctly political or nationalistic turn. When civilization rests on a cultural basis, as it does, or once did in certain Eastern countries, the double face does not exist. The civilization of China, for example, based on a system of education, had no combative side until contact with western nations taught it to acquire one. Now, may we not say that America's aversion to 'entangling alliances' betokens her desire for a noncombative nationalism -- a desire imperfectly fulfilled?
If a league of nations -- a true league, and not a mere cockpit of narrower dimensions -- is ever to arise, how else can it come about than through contact of the peoples on their pacific or noncombative sides? Were it possible for the various governments to meet and confer together, not as representing combative nationalism, but as representing creative humanism, with their inner sides turned outward, so to speak, would not the antinomy between a league of nations and a league of governments at once begin to disappear? Or, phrasing the matter somewhat differently, if these governments would only dismiss the idea, to which they are now wedded, that what they have to do is to make a league among themselves, and take it to heart, instead, that what they have to do is to make a league of the peoples behind them, should we not at least come in sight of the goal? Unfortunately, the habits of governments, in dealing with one another on the field of foreign policy, have fallen into ruts so deep, and acquired a momentum so prodigious, that they are not in the least likely to be turned aside by suggestions of this kind. It was easy enough for Mr. Woodrow Wilson to speak the language of humanism -- so long as he stood outside the machine. But he found a difference after he came to Paris.
It is the profound misfortune of our political civilization, that nations have developed no organ through which they can address each other, as nations, in terms of the human interests they have in common. They speak with one another through the Foreign Office -- which has the War Office next door. They negotiate on the field where their interests have least in common, and their relationships have become most dangerous. Of no nation can it be said that its soul is to be found in its own particular brand of combative nationalism, or that statesmen who address each other with armed hosts behind them are the true representatives of that soul. Is it not a fact that the good-will of each nation toward the others somehow gets spoiled, sterilized, or even poisoned, by having to pass through that medium before it can reach its object? One cannot help wishing it were otherwise. It is an abominable limitation.
V
The best fruits of political civilization are to be found in the systems of law and order which each government has established in its own territory. In this respect the records of some, notably the Roman and the British, stand exceptionally high, though not uniformly so -- witness the history of Ireland for the last three hundred years. But, while remembering what governments have done in keeping the peace at home, we must not forget what they have done in breaking the peace abroad -- a department of their activities in which the achievements of some of them have been quite remarkable. The wars of the past, with their terrible sequels of lawlessness and disorder. have been mainly their doing. Against their good record for keeping order in the parts of mankind must be set off their bad record for creating disorder in the whole of mankind.
That the balance comes out in their favor is by no means clear. Looking at the facts in this comprehensive manner, may we not say that governments have been, and still continue to be, the chief authors of confusion in the world at large? How much of the disorder now prevalent in Europe, the economic and the moral disorder as well as the political, can be traced directly to the action of governments in their relationships with one another, and to their hostile interferences with each other's business! With such a record standing to their account, a wise man will demand the production of better proof than is forthcoming up to now, before accepting the credentials of existing governments as the appointed peacemakers of the world.
It is said that ex-burglars make good policemen, and ex-poachers good preservers of game. We can well believe it. In the same say, one may suppose, ex-brewers would make good prohibitionists, ex-slave-owners good antislavery men, ex-bookmakers good suppressors of gambling, ex-pagans good promoters of Christianity, ex-sinners good champions of the moral law. Reasoning from analogy, the conclusion would be that ex-governments represented by ex-prime ministers make good preservers of the peace. All turns on the 'ex.' The burglars, the poachers, the brewers, the slave-owners, the bookmakers, the pagans, the sinners, the governments, and the prime ministers, must all prove their conversion, before we can safely dispatch them on their respective errands. Short of that, what do you propose? League them, do you say? But to what purpose? Will the poachers preserve your pheasants by poaching in a band? Will the brewers turn their beer into a nonintoxicant by pouring it into a single vat? Will the sinners establish virtue by pooling their sins? Will the pagans promote Christianity by appointing a common dance round the Golden Calf? Will the bitter fountains of nationalism become the sweet waters of humanism by connecting the taps? A league of ex-prime ministers, if you will, but a league of prime ministers -- no!
Were the choice given me, in the present chaos of Europe, between two leagues, or 'conferences;' one composed of ministers in power (prime or otherwise), and the other of ministers who have been dismissed from office during the past seven years, with no prospect of returning to it, my vote would be given, without a moment's hesitation, for the more unconstitutional form of procedure. And this, not because the ministers out of power are better men than those in (though on the whole I am disposed to think they are), but because the former, having no power of their own to be anxious about, would be relieved from one of the gravest disabilities which beset their successors as heralds of peace. If the affairs of the world are to be managed by a league of governments, or of prime ministers, they should be governments which have fallen to rise no more, of prime ministers who have done forever with their prime ministrations. Even the Kaiser, as a fallen Kaiser, might have something to contribute to the cause of European peace. But these things, of course, are idle dreams.
None the less, they serve to show us where the analogy fails which has so often been drawn between the suppression of private violence in a single state and the suppression of national wars between a group of states. The history of law and order in the single state is the history of the struggle between two elements -- one law-abiding, the other lawless -- in which the first has gradually gained control over the second, the good citizens imposing their will on the bad ones, or winning them over to the adoption of their ways. Thus, the suppression of dueling was not achieved by the duelists themselves, but by pacific persons who had never fought a duel and to whom dueling was abhorrent.
But when we turn to the international parallel, we at once observe the significant fact that the counterpart to this law-abiding element, these good citizens, these pacific persons, is not to be found among the states. The states whose joint action is invoked to suppress combative nationalism are themselves the offenders, all tainted with the offense, and some steeped in it -- the great European states, which are to play the part of chief policemen, being also the chief criminals, the most hardened and inveterate in the ways of that combative nationalism they are here called upon to suppress.
In this there is no analogy to the process by which the law-abiding elements of society deal with dueling or with burglary. A truer image would be that of a group of burglars, enriched by the spoils of their former raids, and each still in possession of a formidable equipment for the picking of locks and the blowing-up of safes, forming a compact to retire from the business and prevent newcomers from entering it. Or, more literally, a group of conquerors agreeing among themselves to rest content with their conquests, to leave each other undisturbed in the enjoyment of them, and at the same time to restrain the younger brethren from imitating the bad example of their own record. This is a new thing under the sun, and nothing heretofore accomplished in the way of substituting civil procedure for private feud affords the least ground for anticipating its success.
Combative nationalism, which has filled the world with turmoil for so many ages, will die as the nations outgrow it one by one. To suppress it by a league of combative nationalisms is not possible. What the movement for a league of nations has so far accomplished is, simply, to announce its coming death -- a great achievement, for it brings us appreciably nearer to the moment when the evil thing will most assuredly die. But it will die through the working of other causes, and by other means than those which the Covenant of the League lays down for its suppression.
It is easy to construct imaginary entities bearing the names of the Great Powers -- 'America,' 'England,' 'France,' and the rest; to picture them as cured of their combative nationalism, and then to draw up schemes on paper (or in fancy) in which these powers are represented as acting together in the renunciation of their former practices, and in preventing their imitation by others. But if we turn to the Covenant of the League, and examine the elaborate machinery therein set up for restraining the war-making habits of states, the inference is irresistible that somewhere in the world there is a number of possible but highly dangerous offenders for whom these restraints are needed, quarrelsome elements calling for higher power to hold them in check.
But who are these possible offenders, and who are the most dangerous of them? They are precisely those Great Powers, whose joint action, in their imaginary character of repentant nationalisms, we were invoking a moment ago to stamp out the offense. Can we wonder any longer that, since the creation of the League, the Great Powers, which made themselves its dominating members, have shown not the least disposition to submit disputes among themselves (which have been serious in the meantime) to its jurisdiction? What else could be expected when the chief offenders are themselves judges of the cause? By leaguing the nations in this form, we do not create a higher power, which will hold their combative nationalism in check. We merely produce a mechanical (and perhaps dangerous) mixture of the powers that already exist. The beer is not turned into water by being poured into a common vat.
The League of Nations, in the form given to it by the Treaty of Versailles, may be defined as a scheme for giving the governments greater collective control over the peoples. But the true aim of the League, as we conceive it here, should be the precise opposite of this, namely, to give the peoples greater collective control over their governments. For the development of combative nationalism has brought the world to this strange and unexpected issue -- that the elements or powers in the world at this moment most ungoverned and lawless in their relations with one another, most provocative of disorder in their mutual reactions, and therefore most in need of government, are the governments themselves.
It is true that, if we take the democratic nations, one by one, we find in each of them means through which the government can be kept in order by its own constituents; though it must be confessed that even these are far less effective than the theory of democracy would lead us to suppose. But when these different governments act, or pretend to act, in concert, under the form of a league, there is no collective check to restrain them, the partial check of each nation over its own government being, obviously, ineffective for the purpose.
By some means or other, this order of things must be inverted if a league of nations is to come into being. Enough for the present, if the point has been made clear that no process of leaguing together such governments as now exist will deliver mankind from their propensity to quarrel with one another, or do more than reduce the dimensions of the cockpit in which they quarrel. Even if we suppose them entering into the most solemn compact 'not to do it again,' no power exists on earth that can keep them faithful to their promise one hour longer than the most treacherous among them is disposed to observe it.
One day it will dawn upon minds politically obsessed that a league of governments is by no means the only form in which the idea of a league of nations can express itself. |
