These then are the negative conditions of peace.[69] There are, besides, three positive conditions:

(a) The intercourse of nations is to be confined to a right of hospitality. (Art. 3.)[70] There is nothing new to us in this assertion of a right of way. The right to free means of international communication has in the last hundred years become a commonplace of law. And the change has been brought about, as Kant anticipated, not through an abstract respect for the idea of right, but through the pressure of purely commercial interests. Since Kant’s time the nations of Europe have all been more or less transformed from agricultural to commercial states whose interests run mainly in the same direction, whose existence and development depend necessarily upon “conditions of universal hospitality.” Commerce depends upon this freedom of international intercourse, and on commerce mainly depends our hope of peace.

(b) The first Definitive Article[71] requires that the constitution of every state should be republican. What Kant understands by this term is that, in the state, law should rule above force and that its constitution should be a representative one, guaranteeing public justice and based on the freedom and equality of its members and their mutual dependence on a common legislature. Kant’s demand is independent of the form of the government. A constitutional monarchy like that of Prussia in the time of Frederick the Great, who regarded himself as the first servant of the state and ruled with the wisdom and forethought which the nation would have had the right to demand from such an one—such a monarchy is not in contradiction to the idea of a true republic. That the state should have a constitution in accordance with the principles of right is the essential point.[72] To make this possible, the law-giving power must lie with the representatives of the people: there must be a complete separation, such as Locke and Rousseau demand, between the legislature and executive. Otherwise we have despotism. Hence, while Kant admitted absolutism under certain conditions, he rejected democracy where, in his opinion, the mass of the people was despot.

An internal constitution, firmly established on the principles of right, would not only serve to kill the seeds of national hatred and diminish the likelihood of foreign war. It would do more: it would destroy sources of revolution and discontent within the state. Kant, like many writers on this subject, does not directly allude to civil war[73] and the means by which it may be prevented or abolished. Actually to achieve this would be impossible: it is beyond the power of either arbitration or disarmament. But in a representative government and the liberty of a people lie the greatest safeguards against internal discontent. Civil peace and international peace must to a certain extent go hand in hand.

We come now to the central idea of the treatise: (c) the law of nations must be based upon a federation of free states. (Art. 2.)[74] This must be regarded as the end to which mankind is advancing. The problem here is not out of many nations to make one. This would be perhaps the surest way to attain peace, but it is scarcely practicable, and, in certain forms, it is undesirable. Kant is inclined to approve of the separation of nations by language and religion, by historical and social tradition and physical boundaries: nature seems to condemn the idea of a universal monarchy.[75] The only footing on which a thorough-going, indubitable system of international law is in practice possible is that of the society of nations: not the world-republic[76] the Greeks dreamt of, but a federation of states. Such a union in the interests of perpetual peace between nations would be the “highest political good.” The relation of the federated states to one another and to the whole would be fixed by cosmopolitan law: the link of self-interest which would bind them would again be the spirit of commerce.

This scheme of a perpetual peace had not escaped ridicule in the eighteenth century: the name of Kant protected it henceforth. The facts of history, even more conclusively than the voices of philosophers, soldiers and princes, show how great has been the progress of this idea in recent years. But it has not gained its present hold upon the popular mind without great and lasting opposition. Indeed we have here what must still be regarded as a controversial question. There have been, and are still, men who regard perpetual peace as a state of things as undesirable as it is unattainable. For such persons, war is a necessity of our civilisation: it is impossible that it should ever cease to exist. All that we can do, and there is no harm, nor any contradiction in the attempt, is to make wars shorter, fewer and more humane: the whole question, beyond this, is without practical significance. Others, on the other hand,—and these perhaps more thoughtful—regard war as hostile to culture, an evil of the worst kind, although a necessary evil. In peace, for them, lies the true ideal of humanity, although in any perfect form this cannot be realised in the near future. The extreme forms of these views are to be sought in what has been called in Germany “the philosophy of the barracks” which comes forward with a glorification of war for its own sake, and in the attitude of modern Peace Societies which denounce all war wholesale, without respect of causes or conditions.

Hegel, Schiller and Moltke.

Hegel, the greatest of the champions of war, would have nothing to do with Kant’s federation of nations formed in the interests of peace. The welfare of a state, he held, is its own highest law; and he refused to admit that this welfare was to be sought in an international peace. Hegel lived in an age when all power and order seemed to lie with the sword. Something of the charm of Napoleonism seems to hang over him. He does not go the length of writers like Joseph de Maistre, who see in war the finger of God or an arrangement for the survival of the fittest—a theory, as far as regards individuals, quite in contradiction with the real facts, which show that it is precisely the physically unfit whom war, as a method of extermination, cannot reach. But, like Schiller and Moltke, Hegel sees in war an educative instrument, developing virtues in a nation which could not be fully developed otherwise, (much as pain and suffering bring patience and resignation and other such qualities into play in the individual), and drawing the nation together, making each citizen conscious of his citizenship, as no other influence can. War, he holds, leaves a nation always stronger than it was before; it buries causes of inner dissension, and consolidates the internal power of the state.[77] No other trial can, in the same way, show what is the real strength and weakness of a nation, what it is, not merely materially, but physically, intellectually and morally.

With this last statement most people will be inclined to agree. There is only a part of the truth in Napoleon’s dictum that “God is on the side of the biggest battalions”; or in the old saying that war requires three necessaries—in the first place, money; in the second place, money; and in the third, money. Money is a great deal: it is a necessity; but what we call national back-bone and character is more. So far we are with Hegel. But he goes further. In peace, says he, mankind would grow effeminate and degenerate in luxury. This opinion was expressed in forcible language in his own time by Schiller,[78] and in more recent years by Count Moltke. “Perpetual peace,” says a letter of the great general,[79] “is a dream and not a beautiful dream either: war is part of the divine order of the world. During war are developed the noblest virtues which belong to man—courage and self-denial, fidelity to duty and the spirit of self-sacrifice: the soldier is called upon to risk his life. Without war the world would sink in materialism.”[80] “Want and misery, disease, suffering and war,” he says elsewhere, “are all given elements in the Divine order of the universe.” Moltke’s eulogy of war, however, is somewhat modified by his additional statement that “the greatest kindness in war lies in its being quickly ended.” (Letter to Bluntschli, 11th Dec., 1880.)[81] The great forces which we recognise as factors in the moral regeneration of mankind are always slow of action as they are sure. War, if too quickly over, could not have the great moral influence which has been attributed to it. The explanation may be that it is not all that it naturally appears to a great and successful general. Hegel, Moltke, Trendelenburg, Treitschke[82] and the others—not Schiller[83] who was able to sing the blessings of peace as eloquently as of war—were apt to forget that war is as efficient a school for forming vices as virtues; and that, moreover, those virtues which military life is said to cultivate—courage, self-sacrifice and the rest—can be at least as perfectly developed in other trials. There are in human life dangers every day bravely met and overcome which are not less terrible than those which face the soldier, in whom patriotism may be less a sentiment than a duty, and whose cowardice must be dearly paid.

War under Altered Conditions.

The Peace Societies of our century, untiring supporters of a point of view diametrically opposite to that of Hegel, owe their existence in the first place to new ideas on the subject of the relative advantages and disadvantages of war, which again were partly due to changes in the character of war itself, partly to a new theory that the warfare of the future should be a war of free competition for industrial interests, or, in Herbert Spencer’s language, that the warlike type of mankind should make room for an industrial type. This theory, amounting in the minds of some thinkers to a fervid conviction, and itself, in a sense, the source of what has been contemptuously styled our British “shopkeeper’s policy” in Europe, was based on something more solid than mere enthusiasm. The years of peace which followed the downfall of Napoleon had brought immense increase in material wealth to countries like France and Britain. Something of the glamour had fallen away from the sword of the great Emperor. The illusive excitement of a desire for conquest had died: the glory of war had faded with it, but the burden still remained: its cost was still there, something to be calmly reckoned up and not soon to be forgotten. Europe was seen to be actually moving towards ruin. “We shall have to get rid of war in all civilised countries,” said Louis Philippe in 1843. “Soon no nation will be able to afford it.” War was not only becoming more costly. New conditions had altered it in other directions. With the development of technical science and its application to the perfecting of methods and instruments of destruction every new war was found to be bloodier than the last; and the day seemed to be in sight, when this very development would make war (with instruments of extermination) impossible altogether. The romance and picturesqueness with which it was invested in the days of hand-to-hand combat was gone. But, above all, war was now waged for questions fewer and more important than in the time of Kant. Napoleon’s successful appeal to the masses had suggested to Prussia the idea of consciously nationalising the army. Our modern national wars exact a sacrifice, necessarily much more heavy, much more reluctantly made than those of the past which were fought with mercenary troops. Such wars have not only greater dignity: they are more earnest, and their issue, as in a sense the issue of conflict between higher and lower types of civilisation, is speedier and more decisive.

In the hundred years since Kant’s death, much that he prophesied has come to pass, although sometimes by different paths than he anticipated. The strides made in recent years by commerce and the growing power of the people in every state have had much of the influence which he foretold. There is a greater reluctance to wage war.[84] But, unfortunately, as Professor Paulsen points out, the progress of democracy and the nationalisation of war have not worked merely in the direction of progress towards peace. War has now become popular for the first time. “The progress of democracy in states,” he says, (Kant, p. 364[85]) “has not only not done away with war, but has very greatly changed the feeling of people towards it. With the universal military service, introduced by the Revolution, war has become the people’s affair and popular, as it could not be in the case of dynastic wars carried on with mercenary troops.” In the people the love of peace is strong, but so too is the love of a fight, the love of victory.

It is in the contemplation of facts and conflicting tendencies like these that Peace Societies[86] have been formed. The peace party is, we may say, an eclectic body: it embraces many different sections of political opinion. There are those who hold, for instance, that peace is to be established on a basis of communism of property. There are others who insist on the establishment throughout Europe of a republican form of government, or again, on a redistribution of European territory in which Alsace-Lorraine is restored to France—changes of which at least the last two would be difficult to carry out, unless through international warfare. But these are not the fundamental general principles of peace workers. The members of this party agree in rejecting the principle of intervention, in demanding a complete or partial disarmament of the nations of Europe, and in requiring that all disputes between nations—and they admit the prospects of dispute—should be settled by means of arbitration. In how far are these principles useful or practicable?

The Value of Arbitration.

There is a strong feeling in favour of arbitration on the part of all classes of society. It is cheaper under all circumstances than war. It is a judgment at once more certain and more complete, excluding as far as possible the element of chance, leaving irritation perhaps behind it, but none of the lasting bitterness which is the legacy of every war. Arbitration has an important place in all peace projects except that of Kant, whose federal union would naturally fulfil the function of a tribunal of arbitration. St. Pierre, Jeremy Bentham,[87] Bluntschli[88] the German publicist, Professor Lorimer[89] and others among political writers,[90] and among rulers, Louis Napoleon and the Emperor Alexander I. of Russia, have all made proposals more or less ineffectual for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. A number of cases have already been decided by this means. But let us examine the questions which have been at issue. Of a hundred and thirty matters of dispute settled by arbitration since 1815 (cf. International Tribunals, published by the Peace Society, 1899) it will be seen that all, with the exception of one or two trifling cases of doubt as to the succession to certain titles or principalities, can be classified roughly under two heads—disputes as to the determination of boundaries or the possession of certain territory, and questions of claims for compensation and indemnities due either to individuals or states, arising from the seizure of fleets or merchant vessels, the insult or injury to private persons and so on—briefly, questions of money or of territory. These may fairly be said to be trifling causes, not touching national honour or great political questions. That they should have been settled in this way, however, shows a great advance. Smaller causes than these have made some of the bloodiest wars in history. That arbitration should have been the means of preventing even one war which would otherwise have been waged is a strong reason why we should fully examine its claims. “Quand l’institution d’une haute cour,” writes Laveleye, (Des causes actuelles de guerre en Europe et de l’arbitrage) “n’éviterait qu’une guerre sur vingt, il vaudrait encore la peine de l’établir.” But history shows us that there is no single instance of a supreme conflict having been settled otherwise than by war. Arbitration is a method admirably adapted to certain cases: to those we have named, where it has been successfully applied, to the interpretation of contracts, to offences against the Law of Nations—some writers say to trivial questions of honour—in all cases where the use of armed force would be impossible, as, for instance, in any quarrel in which neutralised countries[91] like Belgium or Luxembourg should take a principal part, or in a difference between two nations, such as (to take an extreme case) the United States and Switzerland, which could not easily engage in actual combat. These cases, which we cannot too carefully examine, show that what is here essential is that it should be possible to formulate a juridical statement of the conflicting claims. In Germany the Bundestag had only power to decide questions of law. Other disputes were left to be fought out. Questions on which the existence and vital honour of a state depend—any question which nearly concerns the disputants—cannot be reduced to any cut and dry legal formula of right and wrong. We may pass over the consideration that in some cases (as in the Franco-Prussian War) the delay caused by seeking mediation of any kind would deprive a nation of the advantage its state of military preparation deserved. And we may neglect the problem of finding an impartial judge on some questions of dispute, although its solution might be a matter of extreme difficulty, so closely are the interests of modern nations bound up in one another. How could the Eastern Question, for example, be settled by arbitration? It is impossible that such a means should be sufficient for every case. Arbitration in other words may prevent war, but can never be a substitute for war. We cannot wonder that this is so. So numerous and conflicting are the interests of states, so various are the grades of civilisation to which they have attained and the directions along which they are developing, that differences of the most vital kind are bound to occur and these can never be settled by any peaceful means at present known to Europe. This is above all true where the self-preservation[92] or independence of a people are concerned. Here the “good-will” of the nations who disagree would necessarily be wanting: there could be no question of the arbitration of an outsider.

But, indeed, looking away from questions so vital and on which there can be little difference of opinion, we are apt to forget, when we allow ourselves to talk extravagantly of the future of arbitration, that every nation thinks, or at least pretends to think, that it is in the right in every dispute in which it appears (cf. Kant: Perpetual Peace, p. 120.): and, as a matter of history, there has never been a conflict between civilised states in which an appeal to this “right” on the part of each has not been made. We talk glibly of the right and wrong of this question or of that, of the justice of this war, the iniquity of that. But what do these terms really mean? Do we know, in spite of the labour which has been spent on this question by the older publicists, which are the causes that justify a war? Is it not true that the same war might be just in one set of circumstances and unjust in another? Practically all writers on this subject, exclusive of those who apply the biblical doctrine of non-resistance, agree in admitting that a nation is justified in defending its own existence or independence, that this is even a moral duty as it is a fundamental right of a state. Many, especially the older writers, make the confident assertion that all wars of defence are just. But will this serve as a standard? Gibbon tells us somewhere, that Livy asserts that the Romans conquered the world in self-defence. The distinction between wars of aggression and defence is one very difficult to draw. The cause of a nation which waits to be actually attacked is often lost: the critical moment in its defence may be past. The essence of a state’s defensive power may lie in a readiness to strike the first blow, or its whole interests may be bound up in the necessity of fighting the matter out in its enemy’s country, rather than at home. It is not in the strictly military interpretation of the term “defensive”, but in its wider ethical and political sense that we can speak of wars of defence as just. But, indeed, we cannot judge these questions abstractly. Where a war is necessary, it matters very little whether it is just or not. Only the judgment of history can finally decide; and generally it seems at the time that both parties have something of right on their side, something perhaps too of wrong.[93]

A consideration of difficulties like these brings us to a realisation of the fact that the chances are small that a nation, in the heat of a dispute, will admit the likelihood of its being in the wrong. To refuse to admit this is generally tantamount to a refusal to submit the difficulty to arbitration. And neither international law, nor the moral force of public opinion can induce a state to act contrary to what it believes to be its own interest. Moreover, as international law now stands, it is not a duty to have recourse to arbitration. This was made quite clear in the proceedings of the Peace Conference at the Hague in 1899.[94] It was strongly recommended that arbitration should be sought wherever it was possible, but, at the same time definitely stated, that this course could in no case be compulsory. In this respect things have not advanced beyond the position of the Paris Congress of 1856.[95] The wars waged in Europe subsequent to that date, have all been begun without previous attempt at mediation.

But the work of the peace party regarding the humaner methods of settlement is not to be neglected. The popular feeling which they have been partly the means of stimulating has no doubt done something to influence the action of statesmen towards extreme caution in the treatment of questions likely to arouse national passions and prejudices. Arbitration has undoubtedly made headway in recent years. Britain and America, the two nations whose names naturally suggest themselves to us as future centres of federative union, both countries whose industrial interests are numerous and complicated, have most readily, as they have most frequently, settled disputes in this practical manner. It has shown itself to be a policy as economical as it is business-like. Its value, in its proper place, cannot be overrated by any Peace Congress or by any peace pamphlet; but we have endeavoured to make it clear that this sphere is but a limited one. The “good-will” may not be there when it ought perhaps to appear: it will certainly not be there when any vital interest is at stake. But, even if this were not so and arbitration were the natural sequence of every dispute, no coercive force exists to enforce the decree of the court. The moral restraint of public opinion is here a poor substitute. Treaties, it is often said, are in the same position; but treaties have been broken, and will no doubt be broken again. We are moved to the conclusion that a thoroughly logical peace programme cannot stop short of the principle of federation. Federal troops are necessary to carry out the decrees of a tribunal of arbitration, if that court is not to run a risk of being held feeble and ineffectual. Except on some such basis, arbitration, as a substitute for war, stands on but a weak footing.

Disarmament.

The efforts of the Peace Society are directed with even less hope of complete success against another evil of our time, the crushing burden of modern armaments. We have peace at this moment, but at a daily increasing cost. The Peace Society is rightly concerned in pressing this point. It is not enough to keep off actual war: there is a limit to the price we can afford to pay even for peace. Probably no principle has cost Europe so much in the last century as that handed down from Rome:—“Si vis pacem, para bellum.” It is now a hundred and fifty years since Montesquieu[96] protested against this “new distemper” which was spreading itself over Europe; but never, in time of peace, has complaint been so loud or so general as now: and this, not only against the universal burden of taxation which weighs upon all nations alike, but, in continental countries, against the waste of productive force due to compulsory military service, a discontent which seems to strike at the very foundations of society. Vattel relates that in early times a treaty of peace generally stipulated that both parties should afterwards disarm. And there is no doubt that Kant was right in regarding standing armies as a danger to peace, not only as openly expressing the rivalry and distrust between nation and nation which Hobbes regards as the basis of international relations, but also as putting a power into the hand of a nation which it may some day have the temptation to abuse. A war-loving, overbearing spirit in a people thrives none the worse for a consciousness that its army or navy can hold its own with any other in Europe. Were it not the case that the essence of armed peace is that a high state of efficiency should be general, the danger to peace would be very great indeed. No doubt it is due to this fact that France has kept quietly to her side of the Rhine during the last thirty years. The annexation of Alsace-Lorraine was an immediate stimulus to the increase of armaments; but otherwise, just because of this greater efficiency and the slightly stronger military position of Germany, it has been an influence on the side of peace.

The Czar’s Rescript of 1898 gave a new stimulus to an interest in this question which the subsequent conference at the Hague was unable fully to satisfy. We are compelled to consider carefully how a process of simultaneous disarmament can actually be carried out, and what results might be anticipated from this step, with a view not only to the present but the future. Can this be done in accordance with the principles of justice? Organisations like a great navy or a highly disciplined army have been built up, in the course of centuries, at great cost and at much sacrifice to the nation. They are the fruit of years of wise government and a high record of national industry. Are such visible tokens of the culture and character and worth of a people to be swept away and Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey to stand on the same level? And, even if no such ethical considerations should arise, on what method are we to proceed? The standard as well as the nature of armament depends in every state on its geographical conditions and its historical position. An ocean-bound empire like Britain is comparatively immune from the danger of invasion: her army can be safely despatched to the colonies, her fleet protects her at home, her position is one of natural defence. But Germany and Austria find themselves in exactly opposite circumstances, with the hard necessity imposed upon them of guarding their frontiers on every side. The safety of a nation like Germany is in the hands of its army: its military strength lies in an almost perfect mastery of the science of attack.

The Peace Society has hitherto made no attempt to face the difficulties inseparable from any attempt to apply a uniform method of treatment to peculiarities and conditions so conflicting and various as these. Those who have been more conscientious have not been very successful in solving them. Indeed, so constantly is military technique changing that it is difficult to prophesy wherein will lie, a few years hence, the essence of a state’s defensive power or what part the modern navy will play in this defence. No careful thinker would suggest, in the face of dangers threatening from the East,[97] a complete disarmament. The simplest of many suggestions made—but this on the basis of universal conscription—seems to be that the number of years or months of compulsory military service should be reduced to some fixed period. But this does not touch the difficulty of colonial empires[98] like Britain which might to a certain extent disarm, like their neighbours, in Europe, but would be compelled to keep an army for the defence of their colonies elsewhere. It is, in the meantime, inevitable that Europe should keep up a high standard of armament—this is, (and even if we had European federation, would remain) an absolute necessity as a protection against the yellow races, and in Europe itself there are at present elements hostile to the cause of peace. Alsace-Lorraine, Polish Prussia, Russian Poland and Finland are still, to a considerable degree, sources of discontent and dissatisfaction. But in Russia itself lies the great obstacle to a future European peace or European federation: we can scarcely picture Russia as a reliable member of such a union. That Russia should disarm is scarcely feasible, in view of its own interest: it has always to face the danger of rebellion in Poland and anarchy at home. But that Europe should disarm, before Russia has attained a higher civilisation, a consciousness of its great future as a north-eastern, inter-oceanic empire, and a government more favourable to the diffusion of liberty, is still less practicable.[99] We have here to fall back upon federation again. It is not impossible that, in the course of time, this problem may be solved and that the contribution to the federal troops of a European union may be regulated upon some equitable basis the form of which we cannot now well prophesy.

European federation would likewise meet all difficulties where a risk might be likely to occur of one nation intervening to protect another. As we have said (above, p. 64, note) nations are now-a-days slow to intervene in the interests of humanity: they are in general constrained to do so only by strong motives of self-interest, and when these are not at hand they are said to refrain from respect for another’s right of independent action. Actually a state which is actuated by less selfish impulses is apt to lose considerably more than it gains, and the feeling of the people expresses itself strongly against any quixotic or sentimental policy. It is not impossible that the Powers may have yet to intervene to protect Turkey against Russia. Such a step might well be dictated purely by a proper care for the security of Europe; but wars of this kind seem not likely to play an important part in the near future.

We have said that the causes of difference which may be expected to disturb the peace of Europe are now fewer. A modern sovereign no longer spends his leisure time in the excitement of slaying or seeing slain. He could not, if he would. His honour and his vanity are protected by other means: they play no longer an important part in the affairs of nations. The causes of war can no more be either trifling or personal. Some crises there are, which are ever likely to be fatal to peace. There present themselves, in the lives of nations, ideal ends for which everything must be sacrificed: there are rights which must at all cost be defended. The question of civil war we may neglect: liberty and wise government are the only medicine for social discontent, and much may be hoped from that in the future. But now, looking beyond the state to the great family of civilised nations, we may say that the one certain cause of war between them or of rebellion within a future federated union will be a menace to the sovereign rights, the independence and existence of any member of that federation. Other causes of quarrel offer a more hopeful prospect. Some questions have been seen to be specially fitted for the legal procedure of a tribunal of arbitration, others to be such as a federal court would quickly settle. The preservation of the balance of power which Frederick the Great regarded as the talisman of peace in Europe—a judgment surely not borne out by experience—is happily one of the causes of war which are of the past. Wars of colonisation, such as would be an attempt on the part of Russia to conquer India, seem scarcely likely to recur except between higher and lower races. The cost is now-a-days too great. Political wars, wars for national union and unity, of which there were so many during the past century, seem at present not to be near at hand; and the integration of European nations—what may be called the great mission of war—is, for the moment, practically complete; for it is highly improbable that either Alsace-Lorraine or Poland—still less Finland—will be the cause of a war of this kind.

Our hope lies in a federated Europe. Its troops would serve to preserve law and order in the country from which they were drawn and to protect its colonies abroad; but their higher function would be to keep peace in Europe, to protect the weaker members of the Federation and to enforce the decision of the majority, either, if necessary, by actual war, or by the mere threatening demonstrations of fleets, such as have before proved effectual.

We have carefully considered what has been attempted by peace workers, and we have now to take note that all the results of the last fifty years are not to be attributed to their conscientious but often ill-directed labour. The diminution of the causes of war is to be traced less to the efforts of the Peace Society, (except indirectly, in so far as they have influenced the minds of the masses) than to the increasing power of the people themselves. The various classes of society are opposed to violent methods of settlement, not in the main from a conviction as to the wrongfulness of war or from any fanatical enthusiasm for a brotherhood of nations, but from self-interest. War is death to the industrial interests of a nation. It is vain to talk, in the language of past centuries, of trade between civilised countries being advanced and markets opened up or enlarged by this means.[100] Kings give up the dream of military glory and accept instead the certainty of peaceful labour and industrial progress, and all this (for we may believe that to some monarchs it is much) from no enthusiastic appreciation of the efforts of Peace Societies, from no careful examination of the New Testament nor inspired interpretation of its teaching. It is self-interest, the prosperity of the country—patriotism, if you will—that seems better than war.

What may be expected from Federation.

Federation and federation alone can help out the programme of the Peace Society. It cannot be pretended that it will do everything. To state the worst at once, it will not prevent war. Even the federations of the states of Germany and America, bound together by ties of blood and language and, in the latter case, of sentiment, were not strong enough within to keep out dissension and disunion.[101] Wars would not cease, but they would become much less frequent. “Why is there no longer war between England and Scotland? Why did Prussian and Hanoverian fight side by side in 1870, though they had fought against each other only four years before?... If we wish to know how war is to cease, we should ask ourselves how it has ceased” (Professor D. G. Ritchie, op. cit., p. 169). Wars between different grades of civilisation are bound to exist as long as civilisation itself exists. The history of culture and of progress has been more or less a history of war. A calm acceptance of this position may mean to certain short-sighted, enthusiastic theorists an impossible sacrifice of the ideal; but, the sacrifice once made, we stand on a better footing with regard to at least one class of arguments against a federation of the world. Such a union will lead, it is said, to an equality in culture, a sameness of interests fatal to progress; all struggle and conflict will be cast out of the state itself; national characteristics and individuality will be obliterated; the lamb and the wolf will lie down together: stagnation will result, intellectual progress will be at an end, politics will be no more, history will stand still. This is a sweeping assertion, an alarming prophecy. But a little thought will assure us that there is small cause for apprehension. There can be no such standstill, no millennium in human affairs. A gradual smoothing down of sharply accentuated national characteristics there might be: this is a result which a freer, more friendly intercourse between nations would be very likely to produce. But conflicting interests, keen rivalry in their pursuit, difference of culture and natural aptitude, and all or much of the individuality which language and literature, historical and religious traditions, even climatic and physical conditions produce are bound to survive until the coming of some more overwhelming and far-spreading revolution than this. It would not be well if it were otherwise, if those “unconscious and invisible peculiarities” in which Fichte sees the hand of God and the guarantee of a nation’s future dignity, virtue and merit should be swept away. (Reden an die deutsche Nation,[102] 1807.) Nor is stagnation to be feared. “Strife,” said the old philosopher, “is the father of all things.” There can be no lasting peace in the processes of nature and existence. It has been in the constant rivalry between classes within themselves, and in the struggle for existence with other races that great nations have reached the highwater mark of their development. A perpetual peace in international relations we may—nay, surely will—one day have, but eternity will not see the end to the feverish unrest within the state and the jealous competition and distrust between individuals, groups and classes of society. Here there must ever be perpetual war.

It was only of this political peace between civilised nations that Kant thought.[103] In this form it is bound to come. The federation of Europe will follow the federation of Germany and of Italy, not only because it offers a solution of many problems which have long taxed Europe, but because great men and careful thinkers believe in it.[104] It may not come quickly, but such men can afford to wait. “If I were legislator,” cried Jean Jacques Rousseau, “I should not say what ought to be done, but I would do it.” This is the attitude of the unthinking, unpractical enthusiast. The wish is not enough: the will is not enough. The mills of God must take their own time: no hope or faith of ours, no struggle or labour even can hurry them.

It is a misfortune that the Peace Society has identified itself with so narrow and uncritical an attitude towards war, and that the copious eloquence of its members is not based upon a consideration of the practical difficulties of the case. This well-meaning, hard working and enthusiastic body would like to do what is impossible by an impossible method. The end which it sets for itself is an unattainable one. But this need not be so. To make unjustifiable aggression difficult, to banish unworthy pretexts for making war might be a high enough ideal for any enthusiasm and offer scope wide enough for the labours of any society. But the Peace Society has not contented itself with this great work. Through its over-estimation of the value of peace,[105] its cause has been injured and much of its influence has been weakened or lost. Our age is one which sets a high value upon human life; and to this change of thinking may be traced our modern reform in the methods of war and all that has been done for the alleviation of suffering by the great Conventions of recent years. For the eyes of most people war is merely a hideous spectacle of bloodshed and deliberate destruction of life: this is its obvious side. But it is possible to exaggerate this confessedly great evil. Peace has its sacrifices as well as war: the progress of humanity requires that the individual should often be put aside for the sake of lasting advantage to the whole. An opposite view can only be reckoned individualistic, perhaps materialistic. “The reverence for human life,” says Martineau, (Studies of Christianity, pp. 352, 354) “is carried to an immoral idolatry, when it is held more sacred than justice and right, and when the spectacle of blood becomes more horrible than the sight of desolating tyrannies and triumphant hypocrisies.... We have, therefore, no more doubt that a war may be right, than that a policeman may be a security for justice, and we object to a fortress as little as to a handcuff.”

The Peace Society are not of this opinion: they greatly doubt that a war may be right, and they rarely fail to take their doubts to the tribunal of Scripture. Their efforts are well meant, this piety may be genuine enough; but a text is rarely a proof of anything, and in any case serves one man in as good stead as another. We remember that “the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” This unscientific method of proof or persuasion has ever been widely popular. It is a serious examination of the question that we want, a more careful study of its actual history and of the possibilities of human nature; less vague, exaggerated language about what ought to be done, and a realisation of what has been actually achieved; above all, a clear perception of what may fairly be asked from the future.

It used to be said—is perhaps asserted still by the war-lovers—that there was no path to civilisation which had not been beaten by the force of arms, no height to which the sword had not led the way. The inspiration of war was upon the great arts of civilisation: its hand was upon the greatest of the sciences. These obligations extended even to commerce. War not only created new branches of industry, it opened new markets and enlarged the old. These are great claims, according to which war might be called the moving principle of history. If we keep our eyes fixed upon the history of the past, they seem not only plausible: they are in a great sense true. Progress did tread at the heels of the great Alexander’s army: the advance of European culture stands in the closest connection with the Crusades. But was this happy compensation for a miserable state of affairs not due to the peculiarly unsocial conditions of early times and the absence of every facility for the interchange of ideas or material advantages? It is inconceivable that now-a-days[106] any aid to the development of thought in Europe should come from war. The old adage, in more than a literal sense, has but too often been proved true:—“Inter arma, Musae silent.” Peace is for us the real promoter of culture.

We have to endeavour to take an intermediate course between uncritical praise and wholesale condemnation, between extravagant expectation and unjustifiable pessimism. War used to be the rule: it is now an overwhelming and terrible exception—an interruption to the peaceful prosperous course of things, inflicting unlimited suffering and temporary or lasting loss. Its evils are on the surface, apparent to the most unthinking observer. The day may yet dawn, when Europeans will have learned to regard the force of arms as an instrument for the civilisation of savage or half-savage races, and war within their continent as civil war, necessary and justifiable sometimes perhaps, but still a blot upon their civilisation and brotherhood as men. Such a suggestion rings strangely. But the great changes, which the roll of centuries has marked, once came upon the world not less unexpectedly. How far off must the idea of a civil peace have seemed to small towns and states of Europe in the fifteenth century! How strange, only a century ago, would the idea of applying steam power or electrical force have seemed to ourselves! Let us not despair. War has played a great part in the history of the world: it has been ever the great architect of nations, the true mother of cities. It has justified itself to-day in the union of kindred peoples, the making of great empires. It may be that one decisive war may yet be required to unite Europe. May Europe survive that struggle and go forward fearlessly to her great future! A peaceful future that may not be. It must never be forgotten that war is sometimes a moral duty, that it is ever the natural sequence of human passion and human prejudice. An unbroken peace we cannot and do not expect; but it is this that we must work for. As Kant says, we must keep it before us as an ideal.