Chapter III: Preface

The present volume is the outcome of a large pamphlet published in Europe at the end of last year entitled _Europe's Optical Illusion_. The interest that the pamphlet created and the character of the discussion provoked throughout Europe persuaded me that its subject-matter was worth fuller and more detailed treatment than then given it. Herewith the result of that conviction. The thesis on its economic side is discussed in the terms of the gravest problem which now faces European statesmanship, but these terms are also the living symbols of a principle of universal application, as true with reference to American conditions as to European. If I have not "localized" the discussion by using illustrations drawn from purely American cases, it is because these problems have not at present in the United States reached the acute stage that they have in Europe, and illustrations drawn from the conditions of an actual and pressing problem give to any discussion a reality which to some extent it might lose if discussed on the basis of more suppositious cases.

It so happens, however, that in the more abstract section of the discussion embraced in the second part, which I have termed the "Human Nature of the Case," I have gone mainly to American authors for the statement of cases based on those illusions with which the book deals.

N.A.
PARIS, August, 1910.

SYNOPSIS

What are the fundamental motives that explain the present rivalry of armaments in Europe, notably the Anglo-German? Each nation pleads the need for defence; but this implies that someone is likely to attack, and has therefore a presumed interest in so doing. What are the motives which each State thus fears its neighbors may obey?

They are based on the universal assumption that a nation, in order to find outlets for expanding population and increasing industry, or simply to ensure the best conditions possible for its people, is necessarily pushed to territorial expansion and the exercise of political force against others (German naval competition is assumed to be the expression of the growing need of an expanding population for a larger place in the world, a need which will find a realization in the conquest of English Colonies or trade, unless these are defended); it is assumed, therefore, that a nation's relative prosperity is broadly determined by its political power; that nations being competing units, advantage, in the last resort, goes to the possessor of preponderant military force, the weaker going to the wall, as in the other forms of the struggle for life.

The author challenges this whole doctrine. He attempts to show that it belongs to a stage of development out of which we have passed; that the commerce and industry of a people no longer depend upon the expansion of its political frontiers; that a nation's political and economic frontiers do not now necessarily coincide; that military power is socially and economically futile, and can have no relation to the prosperity of the people exercising it; that it is impossible for one nation to seize by force the wealth or trade of another--to enrich itself by subjugating, or imposing its will by force on another; that, in short, war, even when victorious, can no longer achieve those aims for which peoples strive.

He establishes this apparent paradox, in so far as the economic problem is concerned, by showing that wealth in the economically civilized world is founded upon credit and commercial contract (these being the outgrowth of an economic interdependence due to the increasing division of labor and greatly developed communication). If credit and commercial contract are tampered with in an attempt at confiscation, the credit-dependent wealth is undermined, and its collapse involves that of the conqueror; so that if conquest is not to be self-injurious it must respect the enemy's property, in which case it becomes economically futile. Thus the wealth of conquered territory remains in the hands of the population of such territory. When Germany annexed Alsatia, no individual German secured a single mark's worth of Alsatian property as the spoils of war. Conquest in the modern world is a process of multiplying by _x_, and then obtaining the original figure by dividing by _x_. For a modern nation to add to its territory no more adds to the wealth of the people of such nation than it would add to the wealth of Londoners if the City of London were to annex the county of Hertford.

The author also shows that international finance has become so interdependent and so interwoven with trade and industry that the intangibility of an enemy's property extends to his trade. It results that political and military power can in reality do nothing for trade; the individual merchants and manufacturers of small nations, exercising no such power, compete successfully with those of the great. Swiss and Belgian merchants drive English from the British Colonial market; Norway has, relatively to population, a greater mercantile marine than Great Britain; the public credit (as a rough-and-ready indication, among others, of security and wealth) of small States possessing no political power often stands higher than that of the Great Powers of Europe, Belgian Three per Cents. standing at 96, and German at 82; Norwegian Three and a Half per Cents. at 102, and Russian Three and a Half per Cents. at 81.

The forces which have brought about the economic futility of military power have also rendered it futile as a means of enforcing a nation's moral ideals or imposing social institutions upon a conquered people. Germany could not turn Canada or Australia into German colonies--_i.e._, stamp out their language, law, literature, traditions, etc.--by "capturing" them. The necessary security in their material possessions enjoyed by the inhabitants of such conquered provinces, quick inter-communication by a cheap press, widely-read literature, enable even small communities to become articulate and effectively to defend their special social or moral possessions, even when military conquest has been complete. The fight for ideals can no longer take the form of fight between nations, because the lines of division on moral questions are within the nations themselves and intersect the political frontiers. There is no modern State which is completely Catholic or Protestant, or liberal or autocratic, or aristocratic or democratic, or socialist or individualist; the moral and spiritual struggles of the modern world go on between citizens of the same State in unconscious intellectual co-operation with corresponding groups in other States, not between the public powers of rival States.

This classification by strata involves necessarily a redirection of human pugnacity, based rather on the rivalry of classes and interests than on State divisions. War has no longer the justification that it makes for the survival of the fittest; it involves the survival of the less fit. The idea that the struggle between nations is a part of the evolutionary law of man's advance involves a profound misreading of the biological analogy.

The warlike nations do not inherit the earth; they represent the decaying human element. The diminishing role of physical force in all spheres of human activity carries with it profound psychological modifications.

These tendencies, mainly the outcome of purely modern conditions (_e.g._ rapidity of communication), have rendered the problems of modern international politics profoundly and essentially different from the ancient; yet our ideas are still dominated by the principles and axioms, images and terminology of the bygone days.

The author urges that these little-recognized facts may be utilized for the solution of the armament difficulty on at present untried lines--by such modification of opinion in Europe that much of the present motive to aggression will cease to be operative, and by thus diminishing the risk of attack, diminishing to the same extent the need for defence. He shows how such a political reformation is within the scope of practical politics, and the methods which should be employed to bring it about.

CONTENTS

PART I

THE ECONOMICS OF THE CASE

CHAPTER PAGE
I. STATEMENT OF THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR WAR 3
II. THE AXIOMS OF MODERN STATECRAFT 14
III. THE GREAT ILLUSION 28
IV. THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CONFISCATION 50
V. FOREIGN TRADE AND MILITARY POWER 68
VI. THE INDEMNITY FUTILITY 88
VII. HOW COLONIES ARE OWNED 107
VIII. THE FIGHT FOR "THE PLACE IN THE SUN." 131

PART II

THE HUMAN NATURE AND MORALS OF THE CASE

I. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE FOR WAR 155
II. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE FOR PEACE 168
III. UNCHANGING HUMAN NATURE 198
IV. DO THE WARLIKE NATIONS INHERIT THE EARTH? 222
V. THE DIMINISHING FACTOR OF PHYSICAL FORCE:
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESULTS 261
VI. THE STATE AS A PERSON: A FALSE ANALOGY
AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 296

PART III

THE PRACTICAL OUTCOME

I. THE RELATION OF DEFENCE TO AGGRESSION 329
II. ARMAMENT, BUT NOT ALONE ARMAMENT 341
III. IS THE POLITICAL REFORMATION POSSIBLE? 353
IV. METHODS 368

APPENDIX ON RECENT EVENTS IN EUROPE 383

* * * * *

PART I

_THE ECONOMICS OF THE CASE_

CHAPTER I PAGES
STATEMENT OF THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR WAR

Where can the Anglo-German rivalry of armaments
end?--Why peace advocacy fails--Why it deserves
to fail--The attitude of the peace advocate--The
presumption that the prosperity of nations depends
upon their political power, and consequent
necessity of protection against aggression of
other nations who would diminish our power to
their advantage--These the universal axioms of
international politics 3-13

CHAPTER II
THE AXIOMS OF MODERN STATECRAFT

Are the foregoing axioms unchallengeable?--Some typical
statements of them--German dreams of conquest--Mr.
Frederic Harrison on results of defeat of British arms
and invasion of England--Forty millions starving 14-27

CHAPTER III
THE GREAT ILLUSION

These views founded on a gross and dangerous
misconception--What a German victory could and could not
accomplish--What an English victory could and could not
accomplish--The optical illusion of conquest--There can
be no transfer of wealth--The prosperity of the little
States in Europe--German Three per Cents. at 82 and
Belgian at 96--Russian Three and a Half per Cents. at
81, Norwegian at 102--What this really means--If Germany
annexed Holland, would any German benefit or any
Hollander?--The "cash value" of Alsace-Lorraine 28-49

CHAPTER IV
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CONFISCATION

Our present terminology of international politics an
historical survival--Wherein modern conditions differ
from ancient--The profound change effected by Division
of Labor--The delicate interdependence of international
finance--Attila and the Kaiser--What would happen if a
German invader looted the Bank of England--German trade
dependent upon English credit--Confiscation of an
enemy's property an economic impossibility under modern
conditions--Intangibility of a community's wealth 50-67

CHAPTER V
FOREIGN TRADE AND MILITARY POWER

Why trade cannot be destroyed or captured by a military
Power--What the processes of trade really are, and how a
navy affects them--_Dreadnoughts_ and business--While
_Dreadnoughts_ protect British trade from hypothetical
German warships, the real German merchant is carrying it
off, or the Swiss or the Belgian--The "commercial
aggression" of Switzerland--What lies at the bottom of
the futility of military conquest--Government brigandage
becomes as profitless as private brigandage--The real
basis of commercial honesty on the part of Government 68-87

CHAPTER VI
THE INDEMNITY FUTILITY

The real balance-sheet of the Franco-German War--Disregard
of Sir Robert Giffen's warning in interpreting the
figures--What really happened in France and Germany
during the decade following the war--Bismarck's
disillusionment--The necessary discount to be given an
indemnity--The bearing of the war and its result on
German prosperity and progress 88-106

CHAPTER VII
HOW COLONIES ARE OWNED

Why twentieth-century methods must differ from
eighteenth--The vagueness of our conceptions
of statecraft--How Colonies are "owned"--Some
little-recognized facts--Why foreigners could not
fight England for her self-governing Colonies--She
does not "own" them, since they are masters of their
own destiny--The paradox of conquest: England in a
worse position in regard to her own Colonies than in
regard to foreign nations--Her experience as the oldest
and most practised colonizer in history--Recent French
experience--Could Germany hope to do what England
cannot do 107-130

CHAPTER VIII
THE FIGHT FOR "THE PLACE IN THE SUN"

How Germany really expands--Where her real Colonies
are--How she exploits without conquest--What is the
difference between an army and a police force?--The
policing of the world--Germany's share of it in the
Near East 131-151

PART II

_THE HUMAN NATURE AND MORALS OF THE CASE_

CHAPTER I
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE FOR WAR

The non-economic motives of war--Moral and
psychological--The importance of these pleas--English,
German, and American exponents--The biological plea 155-167

CHAPTER II
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE FOR PEACE

The shifting ground of pro-war arguments--The narrowing
gulf between the material and moral ideals--The non-rational
causes of war--False biological analogies--The real law
of man's struggles: struggle with Nature, not with other
men--Outline sketch of man's advance and main operating
factor therein--The progress towards elimination of
physical force--Co-operation across frontiers and its
psychological result--Impossible to fix limits of
community--Such limits irresistibly expanding--Break-up
of State homogeneity--State limits no longer coinciding
with real conflicts between men 168-197

CHAPTER III
UNCHANGING HUMAN NATURE

The progress from cannibalism to Herbert Spencer--The
disappearance of religious oppression by
Government--Disappearance of the duel--The Crusaders
and the Holy Sepulchre--The wail of militarist writers
at man's drift away from militancy 198-221

CHAPTER IV
DO THE WARLIKE NATIONS INHERIT THE EARTH?

The confident dogmatism of militarist writers on this
subject--The facts--The lessons of Spanish America--How
conquest makes for the survival of the unfit--Spanish
method and English method in the New World--The virtues
of military training--The Dreyfus case--The threatened
Germanization of England--"The war which made Germany
great and Germans small" 222-260

CHAPTER V
THE DIMINISHING FACTOR OF PHYSICAL FORCE: PSYCHOLOGICAL RESULTS

Diminishing factor of physical force--Though diminishing,
physical force has always had an important role in human
affairs--What is underlying principle, determining
advantageous and disadvantageous use of physical
force?--Force that aids co-operation in accord with
law of man's advance: force that is exercised for
parasitism in conflict with such law and disadvantageous
for both parties--Historical process of the abandonment
of physical force--The Khan and the London
tradesman--Ancient Rome and modern Britain--The
sentimental defence of war as the purifier of human
life--The facts--The redirection of human pugnacity 261-295

CHAPTER VI
THE STATE AS A PERSON: A FALSE ANALOGY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

Why aggression upon a State does not correspond to
aggression upon an individual--Our changing conception
of collective responsibility--Psychological progress in
this connection--Recent growth of factors breaking down
the homogeneous personality of States 296-325

PART III

_THE PRACTICAL OUTCOME_

CHAPTER I
THE RELATION OF DEFENCE TO AGGRESSION

Necessity for defence arises from the existence of a motive
for attack--Platitudes that everyone overlooks--To
attenuate the motive for aggression is to undertake a
work of defence 329-340

CHAPTER II
ARMAMENT, BUT NOT ALONE ARMAMENT

Not the facts, but men's belief about facts, shapes their
conduct--Solving a problem of two factors by ignoring
one--The fatal outcome of such a method--The German Navy
as a "luxury"--If both sides concentrate on armament
alone 341-352

CHAPTER III
IS THE POLITICAL REFORMATION POSSIBLE?

Men are little disposed to listen to reason, "therefore
we should not talk reason"--Are men's ideas immutable? 353-367

CHAPTER IV
METHODS

Relative failure of Hague Conferences and the cause--Public
opinion the necessary motive force of national action--That
opinion only stable if informed--"Friendship" between
nations and its limitations--America's role in the coming
"Political Reformation" 368-382

APPENDIX ON RECENT EVENTS IN EUROPE 383-406

INDEX 407-416