Chapter IX: Part 9

There might, indeed, be--for force is not always brute--some excuse and even admiration for the Terrorist, did the triumph of her cause appear indefinitely remote, were even that triumph to be brought perceptibly nearer by forcibly feeding us with horrors. But the contrary is the case: even the epidemic of crime foreshadowed by Mrs. Pankhurst could not appreciably delay woman suffrage. It is coming as fast as human nature and the nature of the Parliamentary machine will allow. To try to terrorize Mr. Asquith into bringing in a Government measure is to credit him with a wisdom and a nobility almost divine. No man is great enough to put himself in the right by admitting he was wrong. And even if he were great enough to admit it under argument, he would have to be godlike to admit it under menace. Rather than admit it, Mr. Asquith has let himself be driven into a position more ludicrous than perhaps any Prime Minister has occupied. For though he declares woman suffrage to be "a political disaster of the gravest kind," he is ready to push it through if the House of Commons wishes, relying for its rejection upon the House of Lords, which he has denounced and eviscerated. He is even not unwilling it shall pass if only the disaster to the country is maximized by Adult Suffrage. It is not that he loves woman more, but the Tory party less.

All things considered, I am afraid the Suffrage Movement will have to make up its mind to wait for another Parliament. There is more hope for the premature collapse of this Parliament than for its passing of a Suffrage Bill or clause. And at the general election, whenever it comes, Votes for Women will be put on the program of both parties. The Conservatives will offer a mild dose, the Liberals a democratic. Whichever fails at the polls, the principle of woman suffrage will be safe.

This prognostic, it will be seen, involves the removal of the immovable Asquith. But he must either consent to follow a plebiscite of his party or retire, like his doorkeeper, from Downing Street, under the intolerable burden of the suffragette. Much as his party honors and admires him, it can not continue to repudiate the essential principles of Liberalism, nor find refuge in his sophism that Liberalism removes artificial barriers, but can not remove natural barriers. What natural barrier prevents a woman from accepting or rejecting a man who proposes to represent her in Parliament? No; after his historic innings Mr. Asquith will sacrifice himself and retire, covered with laurels and contradictions. Pending which event, the suffragettes, while doing their best to precipitate it through the downfall of the Government, may very reasonably continue their policy of pin-pricks to keep politicians from going to sleep, but serious violence would be worse than a crime; it would be a blunder. No general dares throw away his men when nothing is to be gained, and our analysis shows that the interval between women and the vote can only be shortened by bringing on a general election.

There are, indeed, skeptics who fear that even at the next general election both parties may find a way of circumventing woman suffrage by secretly agreeing to keep it off both programs; but the country itself is too sick of the question to endure this, even if the Women's Liberal Federation and the corresponding Conservative body permitted it. That the parties would go so far as to pair off their women workers against each other is unlikely. At any rate, now, when other forms of agitation are more or less futile, is the moment for these and cognate bodies to take up the running.

But even if these women workers fail in backbone, and allow themselves, as so often before, to be lulled and gulled by their male politicians, there yet remains an ardent body to push forward their cause. Mrs. Humphry Ward and the Anti-Suffragists may be trusted to continue tireless and ever-inventive. Mrs. Ward's League to promote the return of women as town and county councilors is her latest device to prove the unfitness of women for public affairs, and since the Vegetarian League for combating the carnivorous instincts of the tigress by feeding her on blood, there has been no quite so happy adaptation of means to end. If anything could add to the educative efficiency of the new League, it is Mrs. Ward's scrupulousness in limiting it exclusively to Anti-Suffragists.

ELBERT HUBBARD

There was a time in England when all the laws were made and executed by the King.

Later he appointed certain favorites who acted for him, and these were paid honors and emoluments accordingly.

Still later, all soldiers were allowed to express their political preferences. And that is where we got the idea about not allowing folks to vote who could not fight.

It was once the law in England that no Catholic should be allowed to vote.

It was also once the law in England that no Jew could hold real estate, could vote at elections, could hold a public office, or serve on a jury.

Full rights of citizenship were not given to the Jews in Great Britain until the year 1858. Deists, Theists, Quakers, and "Dissenters" were not allowed to testify in courts, and their right to vote was challenged in England up to 1885.

For centuries, Jews occupied the position of minors, mental defectives, or men with criminal records.

Women now in England occupy the same position politically that the Jews did a hundred years ago.

Until very recent times all lawmakers disputed the fact that women have rights. Women have privileges and duties--mostly duties.

All the laws are made by men, and for the most part the rights only of male citizens are considered. If the rights of women or children are taken into consideration, it is only from a secondary point of view, or because the attention of lawmakers is especially called to the natural rights of women, children, and dumb animals.

Provisions, however, have always been made in England as well as all other civilized countries for punishing Catholics, Jews, Quakers, and women.

In old New England there was once a pleasing invention called a "ducking stool," that was for "women only." For the most part, the punishment for these individuals who were not citizens was very much more severe than it was for the people who made and devised the punishment for them.

Women are admitted into the full rights of citizenship in New Zealand and Australia, and in several States in the United States.

There will surely come a time when we will look back and regard the withholding of full political rights from women in the same way that we now look back and regard the disfranchisement of Jews and Catholics.

There is no argument that can possibly be presented against the right of women to express their political preferences which does not in equal degree apply to the right of male citizens to express theirs.

Every possible logical argument has been put forward and answered.

The protest in England by certain women who are working for equal suffrage has taken what is called a militant form.

These women, in many instances, have been guilty of violence.

The particular women who have been foremost in this matter of violence are not criminals in any sense of the word. They are not plotting and planning the overthrow of the government. They are not guilty of treason; and certainly they are not guilty of disorder along any other line than that springing out of their disapproval of the failure of the government to grant the right of political representation to women.

"Taxation without representation" was the shibboleth of the men who founded the government of the United States of America.

This shibboleth, or slogan, came to them from across the sea and was first uttered in England before the days of Magna Charta.

That every adult individual, man or woman, possessed of normal mentality, should be thoroughly interested in the government, and should have the right of expressing his or her political preferences, is beyond dispute, especially under any government that affects to derive its powers from the governed.

The right to govern is conferred by the governed, and this is now admitted even in the so-called monarchies. And the governed are not exclusively males; the governed are men and women, for women are responsible before the law.

So thoroughly are these facts fixed in the minds of a great many men and women everywhere that a few men are possessed by the righteousness of the cause to a degree that they are willing not only to live for it and fight for it, suffer for it, but also to die for it.

Some of these women in London, who have been throwing stones into windows, thus destroying property, have signified as great a willingness to injure themselves as they have to injure the property of their fellow citizens, provided by so doing they can bring to the attention of the men in charge of the government the absolute necessity of recognizing the political rights of women.

If certain people in the past had not been willing to stake their all on individual rights, there would to-day be no liberty for any one.

The saviors of the world are simply those who have been willing to die that humanity might live.

It may be hard for an individual of average purpose to understand or comprehend this mental attitude where the individual is fired with such zeal that he is willing to suffer physical destruction for it.

In England, the test has come to an issue of whether these women, intent on bringing about governmental recognition of the rights of women, should be allowed to die for the cause or not. And from all latest reports, John Bull does seem troubled about it.

MILITARISM

ITS CLIMAX IN THE THREAT OF UNIVERSAL WAR OVER MOROCCO A.D. 1911

NORMAN ANGELL

SIR MAX WAECHTER, D.L.

Ever since Germany by the completeness of her military preparation won so decisive a victory over France in 1870, Europe has plunged deeper and deeper into Militarism. That is to say, each European state that could possibly afford it has increased its army and its navy, until to-day their military force is many times more powerful than it was half a century ago. The theory on which this is done is that you can secure peace only by showing you are ready to fight; that if one nation is sure that it can thrash another, it will probably plan an opportunity to do so. Such is the theory; but what is the tragic result? Military expenditures have increased at a stupendous rate and all Europe groans under a burden of almost unendurable taxation. Moreover, the possession of such splendid machinery of warfare is a constant temptation to employ it and so vindicate its staggering expense. This was startlingly shown in the case of the Morocco imbroglio.

During the early part of 1911 the French government made clear its intent to take complete possession of the semi-independent African state of Morocco. On July 1st, Germany sent a warship to the Moroccan port of Agadir, as a sign that she also had interests in the country, which France must not override. Instantly Europe buzzed like an angry bee-hive. England and France had previously made a secret treaty agreeing that France should be allowed to take Morocco in exchange for keeping hands off Egypt, where England was establishing herself. Hence England now felt compelled to uphold her ally. When Germany seemed inclined to bully the Frenchmen, England insisted that she also must be consulted. Germany growled that this was none of England's business. Everybody began getting out their guns and parading their armies. Germany sought the support of Austria and Italy, her partners in the "Triple Alliance." France and England emphasized the fact that Russia stood with them in an antagonistic "Triple Entente." On November 4th, France and Germany came to a peaceful agreement, France taking Morocco and "compensating" Germany by yielding to her some territory in Eastern Equatorial Africa.

Thus the whole excitement passed off in rumblings; there was no war. But it was revealed a few months later that the nations had really approached to the very brink of a Titanic struggle, which would have desolated the whole of Europe.

And here is the peculiar tragedy of Militarism. The mere threat of that great "Unfought War" cost Europe billions of dollars. Moreover, as a result of Germany's discontent at what she rather regarded as her defeat in this Morocco affair, she in 1913 enormously increased her army and more than doubled her already heavy military tax upon her people. Then France and Russia felt compelled to meet Germany's move by increasing their armies also, extending, as she had done, the time of compulsory military service inflicted upon their poorer classes.

Norman Angell, an English writer, has recently stirred all thinking people by a remarkable book of protest against Militarism. He here discusses the Moroccan imbroglio under the title of "the Mirage of the Map." Sir Max Waechter is an authority of international repute upon the same subject.

NORMAN ANGELL

The Press of Europe and America is very busy discussing the lessons of the diplomatic conflict which has just ended. And the outstanding impression which one gets from most of these essays in high politics--whether French, Italian, or British--is that we have been and are witnessing part of a great world movement, the setting in motion of Titanic forces "deep-set in primordial needs and impulses."

For months those in the secrets of the Chancelleries have spoken with bated breath--as though in the presence of some vision of Armageddon. On the strength of this mere talk of war by the three nations, vast commercial interests have been embarrassed, fortunes have been lost and won on the Bourses, banks have suspended payment, some thousands have been ruined; while the fact that the fourth and fifth nations have actually gone to war has raised all sorts of further possibilities of conflict, not alone in Europe, but in Asia, with remoter danger of religious fanaticism and all its sequelae. International bitterness and suspicion in general have been intensified, and the one certain result of the whole thing is that immense burdens will be added in the shape of further taxation for armaments to the already heavy ones carried by the five or six nations concerned. For two or three hundred millions of people in Europe life, which with all the problems of high prices, labor wars, unsolved social difficulties, is none too easy as it is, will be made harder still.

The needs, therefore, that can have provoked a conflict of these dimensions must be "primordial" indeed. In fact, one authority assures us that what we have seen going on is "the struggle for life among men"--that struggle which has its parallel in the whole of sentient existence.

Well, I put it to you, as a matter worth just a moment or two of consideration, that this conflict is about nothing of the sort; that it is about a perfectly futile matter, one which the immense majority of the German, English, French, Italian, and Turkish people could afford to treat with the completest indifference. For, to the vast majority of these 250,000,000 people, more or less, it does not matter two straws whether Morocco or some vague, African swamp near the Equator is administered by German, French, Italian, or Turkish officials, so long as it is well administered. Or rather one should go further: if French, German, or Italian colonization of the past is any guide, the nation which wins in the conquest for territory of this sort has added a wealth-draining incubus.

This, of course, is preposterous; I am losing sight of the need for making provision for the future expansion of the race, of each party desiring to "find its place in the sun"; and heaven knows what.

Well, let us for a moment get away from phrases and examine a few facts usually ignored because they happen to be beneath our nose.

France has got a new empire, we are told; she has won a great victory; she is growing and expanding and is richer by something which her rivals are the poorer for not having.

Let us assume that she makes the same success of Morocco that she has made of her other possessions, of, say, Tunis, which represents one of the most successful of those operations of colonial expansion which have marked her history during the last forty years. What has been the precise effect on French prosperity?

In thirty years, at a cost of many million sterling (it is part of successful colonial administration in France never to let it be known what the colonies really cost) France has founded in Tunis a colony, in which to-day there are, excluding soldiers and officials, about 25,000 genuine French colonists: just the number by which the French population in France--the real France--is diminishing every six months! And the value of Tunis as a market does not even amount to the sum which France spends directly on its occupation and administration, to say nothing of the indirect extension of military burden which its conquest involves; and, of course, the market which it represents would still exist in some form, though England--or even Germany--administered the country.

In other words, France loses twice every year in her home population two colonies equivalent to Tunis--if we measure colonies in terms of communities made up of the race which has sprung from the mother country. And yet, if once in a generation her rulers and diplomats can point to 25,000 Frenchmen living artificially and exotically under conditions which must in the long run be inimical to their race, it is pointed to as "expansion" and as evidence that France is maintaining her position as a Great Power. A few years, as history goes, unless there is some complete change of tendencies which at present seem as strong as ever, the French race as we now know it will have ceased to exist, swamped without the firing, may be, of a single shot, by the Germans, Belgians, English, Italians, and Jews. There are to-day in France more Germans than there are Frenchmen in all the colonies that France has acquired in the last half-century, and German trade with France outweighs enormously the trade of France with all French colonies. France is to-day a better colony for the Germans than they could make of any exotic colony which France owns.

"They _tell_ me," said a French Deputy recently (in a not quite original _mot_), "that the Germans are at Agadir. I _know_ they are in the Champs-Elysées." Which, of course, is in reality a much more serious matter.

And those Frenchmen who regret this disappearance of their race, and declare that the energy and blood and money which is now poured out so lavishly in Africa and in Asia ought to be diverted to its arrest, to the colonization and development of France by better social, industrial, commercial, and political organization, to the resisting of the exploitation of the mother country by inflowing masses of foreigners, are declared to be bad patriots, dead to the sentiment of the flag, dead to the call of the bugle, are silenced in fact by a fustian as senseless and mischievous as that which in some marvelous way the politician, hypnotized by the old formulae, has managed to make pass as "patriotism" in most countries.

The French, like their neighbors, are not interested in the Germans of the Champs-Elysées, but only in the Germans at Agadir: and it is for these latter that the diplomats fight, and the war budgets swell.

And from that silent and pacific expansion, which means so much both negatively and positively, attention is diverted to the banging of the war drum, and the dancing of the patriotic dervishes.

And on the other side we are to assume that Germany has during the period of France's expansion--since the war--not expanded at all. That she has been throttled and cramped--that she has not had her place in the sun: and that is why she must fight for it and endanger the security of her neighbors.

Well, I put it to you again that all this in reality is false: that Germany has not been cramped or throttled; that, on the contrary, as we recognize when we get away from the mirage of the map, her expansion has been the wonder of the world. She has added 20,000,000 to her population--one-half the present population of France--during a period in which the French population has actually diminished. Of all the nations in Europe, she has cut the biggest swath in the development of world trade, industry, and influence. Despite the fact that she has not "expanded" in the sense of mere political dominion, a proportion of her population, equivalent to the white population of the whole colonial British Empire, make their living, or the best part of it, from the development and exploitation of territory outside her borders. These facts are not new, they have been made the text of thousands of political sermons preached in England itself during the last few years; but one side of their significance seems to have been missed.

We get, then, this: On the one side a nation extending enormously its political dominion and yet diminishing in national force, if by national force we mean the growth of a sturdy, enterprising, vigorous people. (I am not denying that France is both wealthy and comfortable, to a greater degree it may be than her rival; but she has not her colonies to thank for it--quite the contrary.) On the other side, we get immense expansion expressed in terms of those things--a growing and vigorous population and the possibility of feeding them--and yet the political dominion, speaking practically, has hardly been extended at all.

Such a condition of things, if the common jargon of high politics means anything, is preposterous. It takes nearly all meaning out of most that we hear about "primordial needs," and the rest of it.

As a matter of fact, we touch here one of the vital confusions, which is at the bottom of most of the present political trouble between nations, and shows the power of the old ideas, and the old phraseology.

In the days of the sailing ship and the lumbering wagon dragging slowly over all but impassable roads, for one country to derive any considerable profit from another, it had, practically, to administer it politically. But the compound steam engine, the railway, the telegraph, have profoundly modified the elements of the whole problem. In the modern world political dominion is playing a more and more effaced role as a factor in commerce; the non-political factors have in practise made it all but inoperative. It is the case with every modern nation actually that the outside territories which it exploits most successfully are precisely those of which it does not "own" a foot. Even with the most characteristically colonial of all--Great Britain--the greater part of her overseas trade is done with countries which she makes no attempt to "own," control, coerce, or dominate--and incidentally she has ceased to do any of these things with her colonies.

Millions of Germans in Prussia and Westphalia derive profit or make their living out of countries to which their political dominion in no way extends. The modern German exploits South America by remaining at home. Where, forsaking this principle, he attempts to work through political power, he approaches futility. German colonies are colonies "pour rire." The Government has to bribe Germans to go to them; her trade with them is microscopic; and if the twenty millions who have been added to Germany's population since the war had had to depend on their country's political conquest they would have had to starve. What feeds them are countries which Germany has never "owned" and never hopes to "own"; Brazil, Argentina, the United States, India, Australia, Canada, Russia, France, and England. (Germany, which never spent a mark on its political conquest, to-day draws more tribute from South America than does Spain, which has poured out mountains of treasure and oceans of blood in its conquest.) These are Germany's real colonies. Yet the immense interests which they represent, of really primordial concern to Germany, without which so many of her people would be actually without food, are for the diplomats and the soldiers quite secondary ones; the immense trade which they represent owes nothing to the diplomat, to Agadir incidents, to Dreadnoughts; it is the unaided work of the merchant and the manufacturer. All this diplomatic and military conflict and rivalry, this waste of wealth, the unspeakable foulness which Tripoli is revealing, are reserved for things which both sides to the quarrel could sacrifice, not merely without loss, but with profit. And Italy, whose statesmen have been faithful to all the old "axioms" (Heaven save the mark!) will discover it rapidly enough. Even her defenders are ceasing now to urge that she can possibly derive any real benefit from this colossal ineptitude.

Italy struck at Turkey for "honor," for prestige--for the purpose of impressing Europe. And one may hope that Europe (after reading the reports of Reuter, _The Times_, the _Daily Mirror_, and the New York _World_ as to the methods which Italy is using in vindicating her "honor") is duly impressed, and that Italian patriots are satisfied with these new glories added to Italian history. It is all they will get.

Or rather, will they get much more: for Italy, as unhappily for the balance of Europe, the substance will be represented by the increase of very definite every-day difficulties--the high cost of living, the uncertainty of employment, the very deep problems of poverty, education, government, well-being. These remain--worsened. And this--not the spectacular clash of arms, or even the less spectacular killing of unarmed Arab men, women, and children--constitute the real "struggle for life among men." But the dilettanti of "high politics" are not interested. For those who still take their language and habits of thought from the days of the sailing-ship, still talk of "possessing" territory, still assume that tribute in some form is possible, still imply that the limits of commercial and industrial activity are dependent upon the limits of political dominion, the struggle is represented by this futile physical collision of groups, which, however victory may go, leaves the real solution further off than ever.

We know what preceded this war: if Europe had any moral conscience left, it would have been shocked as it was never shocked before. Turkey said: "We will submit Italy's grievance to any tribunal that Europe cares to name, and abide by the result." Italy said: "We don't intend to have the case judged, but to take Tripoli. Hand it over--in twenty-four hours." The Turkish Government said: "At least make it possible for us to face our own people. Call it a Protectorate; give us the shadow of sovereignty. Otherwise it is not robbery--to which we should submit--but gratuitous degradation; we should abdicate before the eyes of our own people. We will do anything you like." "In that case," said Italy, "we will rob; and we will go to war."

It was not merely robbery that the Italian Government intended, but they meant from the first that it should be war--to "dish the Socialists," to play some sordid intrigue of internal politics.

The ultimatum was launched from the center of Christendom--the city which lodges the titular head of the Universal Church--to teach to the Mohammedan world what may be expected from a modern Christian Government with its back to eighteen centuries of Christian teaching.

We, Christendom, spend scores of millions--hundreds of millions, it may be--in the propagation of the Christian faith: numberless men and women gave their lives for it, our fathers spent two centuries in unavailing warfare for the capture of some of its symbols. Presumably, therefore, we attach some value to its principles, deeming them of some worth in the defense of human society.

Or do we believe nothing of the sort? Is our real opinion that these things at bottom don't matter--or matter so little that for the sake of robbing the squalid belongings of a few Arab tribes, or playing some mean game of party politics, they can be set aside in a whoop of "patriotism"?

Our press waxes indignant in this particular case, and that is the end of it. But we do not see that we are to blame, that it is all the outcome of a conception of politics which we are forever ready to do our part to defend, to do daily our part to uphold.

And those of us who try in our feeble way to protest against this conception of politics and patriotism, where everything stands on its head; where the large is made to appear the great, and the great is made to appear the small, are derided as sentimentalists, Utopians. As though anything could be more sentimental, more divorced from the sense of reality, than the principles which lead us to a condition of things like these; as though anything could be more wildly, burlesquely Utopian than the idea that efforts of the kind that the Italian people are now making, the energy they are now spending, could ever achieve anything of worth.

Is it not time that the man in the street, verily, I believe, less deluded by diplomatic jargon than his betters, less the slave of an obsolete phraseology, insisted that the experts in the high places acquired some sense of the reality of things, of proportion, some sense of figures, a little knowledge of industrial history, of the real processes of human cooperation?

At present Europe is quite indifferent to Italy's behavior. The Chancelleries, which will go to enormous trouble and take enormous risks and concoct alliances and counter-alliances when there is territory to be seized, remain cold when crimes of this sort are committed. And they remain cold because they believe that Turkey alone is concerned. They do not see that Italy has attacked not Turkey, but Europe; that we, more than Turkey, will pay the broken pots.

And there is a further reason: We still believe in these piracies; we believe they pay and that we may get our turn at some "swag" to-morrow. France is envied for her possession of Morocco; Germany for her increased authority over some pestilential African swamps. But when we realize that in these international burglaries there is no "swag," that the whole thing is an illusion, that there are huge costs but no reward, we shall be on the road to a better tradition, which, while it may not give us international policing, may do better still--render the policing unnecessary. For when we have realized that the game is not worth the candle, when no one desires to commit aggression, the competition in armaments will have become a bad nightmare of the past.

SIR MAX WAECHTER

It is generally admitted that the present condition of Europe is highly unsatisfactory. To any close observer it must be evident that Europe, as a whole, is gradually losing its position in the world. Other nations which are rapidly coming to the front will, in course of time, displace the European, unless the latter can pull themselves together and abandon the vicious system which now handicaps them In the economic rivalry of nations.

The cause of this comparative decline is, in my opinion, to be found in the fact that all the European countries are arming against one another, either for defense, or for aggression, for the attack is frequently the best form of defense. The motive for these excessive armaments can clearly be found in the jealousy and mistrust existing among the nations of Europe. Europe is spending on armaments something like four hundred million pounds sterling per year, and there is a tendency to increase this tremendous expenditure. In order to bring the magnitude of this sacrifice more vividly before the reader, let us assume that a European war is not likely to occur more frequently than about every thirty years. We then find that the incredible sum of twelve thousand million pounds sterling has been spent in peace in preparation for this war, a sum which greatly exceeds the total of all the European state debts. Such stupendous sums can not be raised without imposing crushing taxation, and without neglecting the other duties of the state, such as education, scientific research, and social reform.

One serious economic result of this heavy taxation is that European industry is placed at a considerable disadvantage in competing with that of other nations, notably the United States of America. The late Mr. Atkinson, an American authority, declared that, compared with the United States, we were handicapped to the extent of five per cent, in our production. Since then the figures have changed considerably in favor of America. I recently had an opportunity of discussing this point with a great German authority on political economy, and he fixed the advantage in favor of the United States at nearly ten per cent, as regards the cost of production.

But this is not all. The European countries withdraw permanently four millions of men, at their best age, from productive work, thus causing a terrible loss and waste. Besides, enterprise in Europe is crippled by fear of war. It may break out at any time, possibly at a few hours' notice. The present system of Europe must inevitably lead, sooner or later, to a European war--a catastrophe which nobody can contemplate without horror, considering the perfected means of destruction. Such a war would leave the vanquished utterly crushed, and the victor in such a state of exhaustion that any foreign Power could easily impose her will upon him.

The situation is certainly most alarming, and ought to receive the fullest attention. What, then, can be done to save Europe from these impending dangers? The large number of "Peace Societies" which have been established in different countries have done excellent spade work. Their main object has been to insure that disputes among nations should be referred to arbitration, with a view to making more difficult their resorting to arms. The great success of these societies demonstrates plainly that there is a strong tendency among the peoples in favor of peace. But no attempt has been made to reorganize the whole of Europe on a sound basis.

The Emperor of Russia has made a most praiseworthy effort to bring about a different state of affairs, by originating and establishing The Hague Conference, with a view to securing by this means the peace of the world. This conference has done excellent service, and is likely to be of increasing usefulness to mankind in the future; but the second meeting of the conference has amply proved that it can not succeed in its main object, which is the peace of the world. If the idea of bringing the whole world into unison can ever be realized, it is only by stages, of which the union of Europe would be the first.

Let us look at the position. Germany has been for centuries the battle-field of other states, and has narrowly escaped national annihilation. She has now at length succeeded in consolidating her strength so far as to be able to withstand attack from any probable combination of two of her powerful neighbors. Can Germany now be approached with a request to reduce her armaments, unless she is given the most solid guaranty against attack? It would be almost an insult to the German intelligence to make such a proposal without an adequate guaranty.

With France the case is similar. The third Republic has been eminently peaceful, and Frenchmen have devoted their energies and brilliant qualities principally to science, the fine arts, and social development. Who would dare to ask them to cut down their armaments in the present state of Europe, which makes it compulsory for every country to arm to the fullest extent? All the other states are in a similar position. They need not be discussed individually.

The only hope to be found is in such a coalition of the Powers as will make these excessive armaments unnecessary. If this can be effected, the reduction of armaments will take place naturally, and without any external pressure. But then the question arises, how can the permanency of such a coalition be guaranteed? The vital requisite to give stability to any international coalition is community of interests. Such a community of interests exists already, in a larger or smaller degree, among many states, though it is unknown to most people. Besides, it is not strong enough to prevent war in times of excitement.

In many countries definite war parties exist, and most extraordinary opinions can be gathered from their representatives. I was assured by some military leaders, and even by a diplomat in a responsible position, that war is a blessing! In disproof of this theory it may be desirable to state some plain facts. Mankind lives and exists on this earth solely and entirely by the exploitation of our planet, and the general average status of the peoples can be improved and raised to a higher level only by a more complete exploitation of the forces of nature. This process requires, in the present state of civilization, capital, intelligence, and manual labor--the handmaid of intelligence. War is bound to destroy an enormous amount of capital, and a great number of the ablest workers. It is evident, therefore, that every war must reduce the general well-being of the peoples who inhabit this planet. Besides, there is the misery inflicted upon millions of people, principally belonging to the poorer classes, who have always to bear the brunt of a war, whether it be started by the personal ambition of one man or by the misguided ambitions of a nation.

Some people argue that, from the days of Alexander the Great to those of Napoleon, combinations of states have always been brought about by armed force, and they believe this to be a natural law. I do not admit that the case of Napoleon is a proper illustration of such a law. On the contrary, his career seems to demonstrate clearly that the world is too far advanced to be driven into combination by force. And as to Alexander the Great, has the world really made no progress since his time? Force or war is a relic of a savage age, and will be relegated to the background with the advance of civilization.

PERSIA'S LOSS OF LIBERTY A.D. 1911

W. MORGAN SHUSTER[1]

[Footnote 1: Reprinted in condensed form from the original narrative in _Hearst's Magazine,_ by permission.]

As told in the preceding volume, Persia in the year 1905 began a struggle for freedom from autocratic rule. This she finally achieved in decisive fashion and set up a parliamentary government. Her career of liberty seemed fairly assured. She had against her, however, an irresistible force. England and Russia had long been encroaching upon Persian territory. Russia, in especial, had snatched away province after province in the north. Of course Persia's revival would mean that these territorial seizures would be stopped. Hence Russia almost openly opposed each step in Persia's progress. In 1907, Russia and England entered into an agreement by which each, without consulting Persia, recognized that the other held some sort of rights over a part of Persian territory: a "sphere of Russian influence" was thus established in the north, and of British in the southeast.

The climax to this antagonism against Persia came in 1911. The desperate Persians appealed to the United States Government to send them an honest administrator to guide them, and President Taft recommended Mr. Shuster for the task. The work of Mr. Shuster soon won him the enthusiastic confidence and devotion of the Persians themselves. But in proportion as his reforms seemed more and more to strengthen the parliamentary government and bring hope to Persia, he found himself more and more opposed by the Russian officials. Finally Russia made his mere presence in the land an excuse for sending her armies to assault the Persians. Seldom has the murderous attack of a strong country upon a weak one been so open, brazen, and void of all moral justification. Thousands of Persians were slain by the Russian troops, and many more have since been executed for "rebellion" against the Russian authorities. The parliamentary government of Persia was completely destroyed; it finally disappeared in tumult and dismay on December 24, 1911.

The country was reduced to helpless submission to the Russian armies. Mr. Shuster's own account of the tragedy follows. He called it "The Strangling of Persia."

Of the many changing scenes during the eight months of my recent experiences in Persia, two pictures stand out in such sharp contrast as to deserve special mention.

The first is a small party of Americans, of which the writer was one, seated with their families in ancient post-chaises rumbling along the tiresome road from Enzeli, the Persian port on the Caspian Sea, toward Teheran. It was in the early days of May, 1911, and from these medieval vehicles, drawn by four ratlike ponies, in heat and dust, we gained our first physical impressions of the land where we had come to live for some years--to mend the broken finances of the descendants of Cyrus and Darius. We were fired with the ambition to succeed in our work, and, viewed through such eyes, the physical discomforts became unimportant. Hope sang loud in our hearts as the carriages crawled on through two hundred and twenty miles of alternate mountain and desert scenery.

The second picture is eight months later, almost to the day. On January 11, 1912, I stood in a circle of gloomy American and Persian friends in front of the Atabak palace where we had been living, about to step into the automobile that was to bear us back over the same road to Enzeli. The mountains behind Teheran were white with snow, the sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky, there was life-tonic in the air, but none in our hearts, for our work in Persia, hardly begun, had come to a sudden end.

Between the two dates some things had happened--things that may be written down, but will probably never be undone--and the hopes of a patient, long-exploited people of reclaiming their position in the world had been stamped out ruthlessly and unjustly by the armies of a so-called Christian and civilized nation.

Prior to 1906, the masses of the Persians had suffered in comparative silence from the ever-growing tyranny and betrayal of successive despots, the last of whom, Muhammad Ali Shah, a vice-sodden monster of the most perverted type, openly avowed himself the tool of Russia. The people, finally stung to a blind desperation and exhorted by their priests, rose in the summer of 1906, and by purely passive measures--such as taking sanctuary, or _bast_, in large numbers in sacred places and in the grounds of the British Legation at Teheran--succeeded in obtaining from Muzaffarn'd Din Shah, the father of Muhammad Ali, a constitution which he granted some six months before his death.

The pledge given in this document his son and successor swore to fulfil and then violated a dozen or more times, until the long-suffering constitutionalists, who called themselves "nationalists," finally compelled him, despite the intrigues and armed resistance of Russian agents and officers, to abdicate in favor of his young son, Sultan Ahmad Shah, the present constitutional monarch. This was in July, 1909.

It was this constitutional government, recognized as sovereign by the Powers, that had determined to set its house in order, and in practise to replace absolute monarchy with something approaching democracy. Whence the Persians, a strictly Oriental people, had derived their strange confidence in the potency of a democratic form of government to mitigate or cure their ills, no one can say. We might ask the Hindus of India, or the "Young Turks," or to-day the "Young Chinese" the same question. The fact is that the past ten years have witnessed a truly marvelous transformation in the ideas of Oriental peoples, and the East, in its capacity to assimilate Western theories of government, and in its willingness to fight for them against everything that tradition makes sacred, has of late years shown a phase heretofore almost unknown.

Persia has given a most perfect example of this struggle toward democracy, and, considering the odds against the nationalist element, the results accomplished have been little short of amazing.

Filled with the desire to perform its task, the Medjlis, or national parliament, had voted in the latter part of 1910 to obtain the services of five American experts to undertake the work of reorganizing Persia's finances. They applied to the American Government, and through the good offices of our State Department, their legation at Washington was placed in communication with men who were considered suitable for the task. The intervention of the State Department went no further than this, and the Persian Government, like the men finally selected, was told that the nomination by the American Government of suitable financial administrators indicated a mere friendly desire to aid and was of no political significance whatsoever.

The Persians had already tried Belgian and French functionaries and had seen them rapidly become mere Russian political agents or, at best, seen them lapse into a state of _dolce far niente_. Poor Persia had been sold out so many times in the framing of tariffs and tax laws, in loan transactions and concessions of various kinds that the nationalist government had grown desperate and certainly most distrustful of all foreigners coming from nations within the sphere of European diplomacy. What they sought was a practical administration of their finances in the interest of the Persian people and nation.

In this way the writer found himself in Teheran on the 12th of May last year, having agreed to serve as Treasurer-General of the Persian Empire, and to reorganize and conduct its finances.

It is difficult to describe the Persian political situation existing at that time without going too deeply into history. It is true that in a moment of temporary weakness after her defeat by Japan, Russia had signed a solemn convention with England whereby she engaged herself, as did England, to respect the independence and integrity of Persia. Later, by the stipulations of 1909, these two Powers solemnly agreed to prevent the ex-Shah, Muhammad Ali, from any political agitation against the constitutional government. But, as the world and Persia have seen, a trifle like a treaty or a convention never balks Russia when she has taken the pulse of her possible adversaries and found it weak. What is more painful to Anglo-Saxons is that the British Government has been no better nor more scrupulous of its pledges.

During the first half of July, we began to learn where some of the money was supposed to come from, and we were just beginning to control the government expenditures after a fashion when, on July 18th, late at night, the telegraph brought the news that Muhammad Ali, the ex-Shah, had landed with a small force at Gumesh-Teppeh, a small port on the Caspian, very near the Russian frontier. It was the proverbial bolt from the blue, for while rumors of such a possibility had been rife, most persons believed that Russia would not dare to violate so openly her solemn stipulation signed less than two years before.

PERSIA IS TAKEN UNAWARES

The Persian cabinet at Teheran was panic-stricken, and for ten days there ensued a period of confusion and terror that beggars description. There was no Persian army except on paper. The gendarmerie and police of the city did not number more than eighteen hundred men inadequately armed. The Russian Turcomans on the northeast frontier were reported to be flocking to the ex-Shah's standard, and it was commonly believed that he would be at the gates of Teheran in a few weeks. This belief was strengthened by the fact that his brother, Prince Salaru'd-Dawla, had entered Persia from the direction of Bagdad and was known to have a large gathering of Kurdish tribesmen ready to march toward Teheran.

After a time, however, reason prevailed and steps were taken to create an army to defend the constitutional government against the invaders. At this time, one of the old chiefs of the Bakhtiyari tribesmen, the Samsamu's-Saltana, was the prime minister holding the portfolio of war, and he called to arms several thousands of his fighting men, who promptly started for the capital. Ephraim Khan, at that time chief of police of Teheran, was another defender of the constitution who raised a volunteer force, and twice, acting with the Bakhtiyari forces, he signally defeated the troops of the ex-Shah. By September 5th, Muhammad Ali himself was in full flight through northeastern Persia toward the friendly Russian frontier. Whatever chances he may have formerly had were admitted to be gone.

The hound that Russia had unleashed, with his hordes of Turcoman brigands, upon the constitutional government of Persia had been whipped back into his kennel. No one was more surprised than Russia, unless indeed it was the Persians themselves. Russian officials everywhere in Persia had openly predicted an easy victory for Muhammad Ali. They had aided him in a hundred different ways, morally, financially, and by actual armed force.

They still hoped, however, that the forces of Prince Salaru'd-Dawla, which were marching from Hamadan toward Teheran, would take the capital. But on September 28th, the news came that Ephraim Khan, and the Bakhtiyaris had routed the Prince and his army, and the last hope from this source was gone.

In the mean time, another encounter with Russia had occurred. There was at Teheran an officer of the British-Indian army, Major Stokes, who for four years had been military attache to the British Legation. He knew Persia well; read, wrote, and spoke fluently the language and thoroughly understood the habits, customs, and viewpoint of the Persian people. He was the ideal man to assist in the formation of a tax-collecting force under the Treasury, without which there was no hope of collecting the internal taxes throughout the empire. Not only was Major Stokes the ideal man for this work, but he was the _only_ man possessing the necessary qualifications.

I accordingly tendered Major Stokes the post of chief of the future Treasury gendarmerie, his services as military attache having come to an end. After some correspondence with the British Legation, I was informed late in July that the British Foreign Office held that he must resign his commission in the British-Indian army before accepting the post. This Major Stokes did, by cable, on July 31st, and the matter was regarded as settled.

What was my surprise, therefore, to learn, on the evening of August 8th, that the British Minister, following instructions from his Government, had that day presented a note to the Persian Foreign Office, warning the Persian Government that any attempt to employ Major Stokes in the "northern sphere" of Persia (which included Teheran, the capital) would probably be followed by _retaliatory action_ (_sic_) by Russia which England would not be in a position to deprecate. Between individuals, such action would clearly be considered bad faith. Sir Edward Grey, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, shortly thereafter explained that the appointment of Major Stokes would be a violation of what he termed the "spirit" of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. Yet just two weeks before, when he consented to Stokes resigning to accept the post, he had never dreamed of such a thing.

The truth is that the semiofficial St. Petersburg press, like the _Novoe Vremya_, had begun to bluster about the affair, egged on by the Russian Foreign Office, and Sir Edward Grey was compelled to _invent some pretext_ for his manifest dread of displeasing Britain's "good friend Russia" about anything. Hence the birth of that wondrous and fearsome child, that rubber child which could be stretched to cover any and all things, the "spirit of the convention." It was a wonderful discovery for the gentlemen of the so-called "forward party" of the Russian Government, since they now beheld not only a new means of evading the plain letter of their agreement, but gleefully found a woful lack of spirit in their partner to the convention, Great Britain.

The British Foreign Office pretended to believe that they had checked Russia's march to the Gulf; they knew better then, and they know still better now. There is but one thing on earth that will check that march, and that thing England is apparently not in a geographical or a policial position to furnish in sufficient numbers. The British public now know this, and unfortunately the "forward party" in Russia knows it, and that is why bearded faces at St. Petersburg crack open and emit rumbles of genuine merriment every time Sir Edward Grey stands up in the House of Commons and explains to his countrymen that he has most ample and categorical assurances from Russia that her sole purpose in sending two or three armies into Persia is to show her displeasure with an American finance official.