Various - Essays in Liberalism
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Various >> Essays in Liberalism
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Was that a baseless slander? Let us test it with a question or two. Did
we ever want a Balance of Power at sea? British supremacy, with a
two-to-one or at least a sixteen-to-ten standard was, I fancy, our
minimum requirement. Is British supremacy what we mean by a Balance of
Power? Again, did we ever desire a Balance of Power in Africa, America,
or Asia? We may have talked of it sometimes, but only when we were the
weaker party and feared that another might claim in those continents the
sort of Balance of Power we claimed on the sea. We never spoke of the
Balance of Power in the interests of any nation except ourselves and an
occasional ally. We cannot speak in those terms to-day. If we demand a
Balance of Power on land, we must expect others to claim it at sea; if
we urge it on Europe as a means of peace, we cannot object if others
turn our own argument against us in other quarters of the globe; and
wherever you have a Balance of Power you will have a race for armaments
and the fear of war.
The Balance of Power is, in fact, becoming as obsolete as the Monopoly
of Power enjoyed by the Roman Empire. It is a bankrupt policy which went
into liquidation in 1914, and the high court of public opinion demands a
reconstruction. The principle of that reconstruction was stated by
President Wilson, a great seer whose ultimate fame will survive the
obloquy in which he has been involved by the exigencies of American
party-politics and the short-sightedness of public opinion in Europe. We
want, he said, a Community of Power, and its organ must be the League of
Nations. Nations must begin to co-operate and cease to counteract.
I am not advocating the League of Nations except in the limited way of
attempting to show that the Balance of Power is impossible as an
alternative unless you can re-create the conditions of a century ago,
restore the individual independence of a number of fairly equal Powers,
and guarantee the commonwealth of nations against privy conspiracy and
sedition in the form of separate groups and alliances. But there is one
supreme advantage in a Community of Power, provided it remains a
reality, and that is that it need never be used. Its mere existence
would be sufficient to ensure the peace; for no rebel State would care
to challenge the inevitable defeat and retribution which a Community of
Power could inflict. It has even been urged, and I believe it myself,
that Germany would never have invaded Belgium had she been sure that
Great Britain, and still less had she thought that America, would
intervene. It was the Balance of Power that provoked the war, and it was
the absence of a Community of Power which made it possible.
BASIS OF SECURITY
But no one who thinks that power--whether a Monopoly, a Balance, or even
a Community of Power is the ultimate guardian angel of our peace, has
the root of the matter in him. Men, said Burke, are not governed
primarily by laws, still less by force; and behind all power stands
opinion. To believe in public opinion rather than in might excludes the
believer from the regular forces of militarism and condemns him as a
visionary and blind. For advocates of the Balance of Power bear a
striking resemblance to the Potsdam school; and even so moderate a
German as the late Dr. Rathenau declared in his unregenerate days before
the war that Germans were not in the habit of reckoning with public
opinion. Nevertheless, there is a frontier in the world which for a
century and more has enjoyed a security which all the armaments of
Prussian militarism could not give the German Fatherland; and the
absolute security of that frontier rests not upon a monopoly nor a
community, still less upon a balance of power, but on the opinion held
on both sides of that frontier that all power is irrational and futile
as a guarantee of peace between civilised or Christian people.
Let us look at that frontier for a moment. It is in its way the most
wonderful thing on earth, and it holds a light to lighten the nations
and to guide our feet into the way of peace. It runs, of course, between
the Dominion of Canada and the United States of America across the great
lakes and three thousand miles of prairie; and from the military and
strategic point of view it is probably the worst frontier in the world.
Why then is it secure? Is it because of any monopoly or community or
balance of power? Is it because the United States and the British
Empire are under a common government, or because there is along that
frontier a nicely-balanced distribution of military strength? No, it is
secure, not in spite of the absence of force, but because of the absence
of force; and if you want to destroy the peace of that frontier from end
to end, all you need to do is to send a regiment to protect it, launch a
_Dreadnought_ on those lakes, and establish a balance of power. For
every regiment or warship on one side will produce a regiment or warship
on the other; and then your race for armaments will begin, and the
poison will spread until the whole of America becomes like Europe, an
armed camp of victims to the theory of strategic frontiers and of the
Balance of Power.
Those theories, their application, and their consequences recently cost
the world thirty million casualties and thousands of millions of pounds
within a brief five years, and yet left the frontiers of Europe less
secure than they were before. Three thousand miles of frontier in North
America have in more than a hundred years cost us hardly a life, or a
limb, or a penny. As we put those details side by side we realise
_quantula regitur mundus sapientia_--with how little wisdom do men rule
the world. Yet the truth was told us long ago that he that ruleth his
spirit is better than he that taketh a city, and we might have learnt by
our experience of the peace that the only conquest that really pays is
the conquest of oneself.
The real peace of that North American frontier is due to no conquest of
Americans by Canadians or of Canadians by Americans, but to their
conquest of themselves and of that foolish pride of "heathen folk who
put their trust in reeking tube and iron shard." Let us face the facts,
whatever the visionaries and the blind may say. So be it. The war is a
fact, and so is the desolation it has wrought. But that Anglo-American
frontier is also a fact, and so is that century of peace which happily
followed upon the resolution to depend for the defence of that frontier
on moral restraint instead of on military force. Verily, peace hath her
victories not less renowned than those of war.
THE ALTERNATIVE
We have, indeed, to face the facts, and the facts about the Balance of
Power must dominate our deliberations and determine the fate of our
programmes. There may be no more war for a generation, but there can be
no peace with a Balance of Power. There can be nothing better than an
armed truce; and an armed truce, with super-dreadnoughts costing from
four to eight times what they did before the war, is fatal to any
programme of retrenchment and reform. We are weighted enough in all
conscience with the debt of that war without the burden of preparation
for another; and a Balance of Power involves a progressive increase in
preparations for war.
Unless we can exorcise fear, we are doomed to repeat the sisyphean
cycles of the past and painfully roll our programmes up the hill, only
to see them dashed to the bottom, before we get to the top, by the
catastrophe of war. Fear is fatal to freedom; it is fear which alone
gives militarism its strength, compels nations to spend on armaments
what they fain would devote to social reform, drives them into secret
diplomacy and unnatural alliances, and leads them to deny their just
liberties to subject populations. Fear is the root of reaction as faith
is the parent of progress; and the incarnation of international fear is
the Balance of Power.
INTERNATIONAL DISARMAMENT
BY MAJOR-GENERAL SIR FREDERICK MAURICE, K.C.M.G., C.B.
Director of Military Operations--Imperial General Staff, 1915-16.
Sir Frederick Maurice said:--This problem of the reduction of armaments
is one of the most urgent of the international and national problems of
the day. It is urgent in its economic aspect, urgent also as regards its
relation to the future peace of the world. The urgency of its economic
aspect was proclaimed two years ago at the Brussels conference of
financiers assembled by the League of Nations. These experts said quite
plainly and definitely that, so far as they could see, the salvation of
Europe from bankruptcy depended upon the immediate diminution of the
crushing burden of expenditure upon arms. That was two years ago. Linked
up with this question is the whole question of the economic
reconstruction of Europe. Linked up with it also is that deep and grave
problem of reparations. It is no longer the case to-day, if it has ever
been the case since the war, which I doubt, that sober opinion in France
considers it necessary for France to have large military forces in order
to protect her from German aggression in the near future. For the past
two years, however, it has been the custom of those who live upon alarms
to produce the German menace. There is a great body of opinion in
France at this moment which feels that unless France is able to put the
pistol to Germany's head, it will never be able to get a penny out of
Germany.
You have the further connection of the attitude of America to the
problem. America said, officially through Mr. Hoover and unofficially
through a number of her leading financiers, that she was not ready to
come forward and take her share in the economic restoration of Europe so
long as Europe is squandering its resources upon arms. The connection is
quite definitely and explicitly recognised in the Covenant of the League
of Nations. Article 8 begins: "The principles of the League recognise
that the maintenance of peace requires reduction of national armaments
to the lowest point consistent with national safety, and the enforcement
by common action of international obligations." These words were
promulgated in 1919. Personally, I find myself in complete agreement
with what Lord Robert Cecil said this morning, and what Lord Grey said a
few days ago at Newcastle, that one of the prime causes of the war was
Prussian militarism. By that I mean the influence of that tremendous
military machine, which had been built up through years of labour in
Germany, in moulding the public opinion of that country.
A GROUP OF NEW ARMIES
Well, how do we stand in regard to that to-day? We stand to-day in the
position that the armaments of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, have
all been compulsorily drastically reduced, but in their place you have a
whole group of new armies. You have armies to-day which did not exist
before the war, in Finland, Esthonia, Poland, Lithuania, and
Czecho-Slovakia, and the sum total is that at this moment there are more
armed men in time of peace in Europe than in 1913. Is there no danger
that this machine will mould the minds of some other peoples, just as
the German machine moulded the minds of the Germans? This is the
position as regards the peace establishments of Europe to-day in their
relation to the future peace of the world. What about the economic
position? I have mentioned that certain Powers have had their forces
drastically reduced, and that has brought with it a drastic reduction of
expenditure, but I have before me the naval, military, and air force
estimates of the eight principal Powers in Europe, leaving out Germany,
Austria, and Bulgaria, whose forces have been compulsorily reduced.
At the economic conference of financiers in Brussels in 1920 it was
mentioned with horror that 20 per cent. of the income of Europe was then
being devoted to arms. I find that to-day 25 per cent. of the total
income of these eight Powers is devoted to arms. I find, further, that
of these eight Powers who have budgeted for a smaller service, only
one--Yugo-Slavia--has managed to balance her budget, and the others have
large deficits which are many times covered by their expenditure on
arms. And this is going on at a time when all these eight nations are
taxed almost up to their limit, when the whole of their industries are
suffering in consequence, and when the danger of bankruptcy, which
horrified the financiers in 1920, is even more imminent.
That being the case, what has been done in the last few years to remedy
this matter, and why is more not being done? As you all know, this
question is in the forefront of the programme of the League of Nations.
And the League began to deal with it at once. Lord Robert Cecil will
agree with me that the framers of the Covenant, of which he is one of
the chief, could not foresee everything, and they did not foresee at the
time the Covenant was framed, that machinery would be required to deal
with this extraordinarily complex question of armaments. They created an
organisation then called a Permanent Military Command, still in
existence, to advise the Council of the League on all military matters.
But when these gentlemen got to work upon such questions as reduction of
armaments, they at once found themselves dealing with matters entirely
beyond their competence, because into this problem enter problems of
high politics and finance, and a thousand other questions of which
soldiers, sailors, and airmen know nothing whatever.
THE LEAGUE'S COMMISSION
The first step was to remedy an oversight in the machinery, and that was
done at the first meeting of the Assembly. The first meeting of the
Assembly created a temporary mixed commission on armaments, which was
composed of persons of recognised competence in political, social, and
economic matters. It consisted of six members of the old Permanent
Commission, and in addition a number of statesmen, employers, and
representatives of labour. This body started to tackle this grave
question. Before it began the first Assembly of the League had suggested
one line of approach--that there should be an agreement to limit
expenditure; that an attempt should be made to limit armaments by
limiting budgets; and nations were asked to agree that they would not
exceed in the two years following the acceptance of the resolution the
budgeted expenditure on armaments of the current year.
That proposal did not meet with great success. It was turned down by
seven Powers, notably by France and Spain. On the whole, I think France
and Spain and the other Powers had some reason on their side, because it
is not possible to approach this problem solely from the financial
standpoint. You cannot get a financial common denominator and apply it
to armaments. The varying costs of a soldier in Europe and in Japan have
no relation to each other. The cost of a voluntary soldier in Great
Britain has no relation to the cost of a conscript on the Continent.
Therefore, that line of approach, when applied too broadly, is not
fruitful. I think myself it is quite possible that you may be able to
apply financial limitations to the question of material, the
construction of guns and other weapons of war, because the cost of these
things in foreign countries tends much more to a common level. I think
this is a possible line of approach, but to try to make a reduction of
armaments by reducing budgets on a wholesale scale I do not think will
lead us anywhere at all. I may safely say that for the present that line
of approach has been abandoned.
The Temporary Mixed Commission got to work, and in its first year,
frankly, I cannot say it did very much. It concerned itself very largely
with the accumulation of information and the collection of statistics,
bearing rather the same relation to world problems as a Royal Commission
does to our domestic problems. By the time the second Assembly met
practically nothing had been done by the Commission. But other people
had been at work, and our own League of Nations Union had put forward a
proposal--a line of approach, rather, I would say, to this
problem--which I for one think is extremely useful. It began by
inquiring as to what armaments were for, which after all is a useful way
of beginning, and the inquiry came to the conclusion that nations
required them for three purposes--to maintain internal order; as a last
resort for the enforcement of law and order; and to protect overseas
possessions. After these purposes were served there was a large residuum
left. That residuum could only be required for one purpose--to protect
the country in question from foreign aggression. When you had gone thus
far in your reasoning, you had obviously got into the zone where
bargaining becomes possible, because it is obvious that by agreement you
can get the force by which a nation is liable to become reduced. That
line of approach received the general blessing at the second Assembly of
the League of Nations. Things began to move, primarily because the
Dominion of South Africa took a keen interest in this problem of the
reduction of armaments, and South Africa appointed Lord Robert Cecil as
its representative, and instructed him to press the matter on, and he
did. The Assembly definitely instructed this temporary mixed Commission
that by the time the third Assembly met plans should be prepared and
concrete proposals put on paper.
WASHINGTON
Soon after that came the Washington Conference--a great landmark in the
history of this problem. For reasons I need not go into in detail, the
naval problem is very much easier than the military or air problem. You
have as the nucleus of naval forces something quite definite and
precise--the battleship--and it also happens that that particular unit
is extremely costly, and takes a long time to build, and no man has yet
ever succeeded in concealing the existence of a battleship. There you
had three important points--a large and important unit in the possession
of everybody concerned, very costly, so that by reducing it you make
great reductions in expenditure. There was no possibility of avoiding an
agreement about the construction of battleships, and it is to these
facts mainly that the happy results of the Washington Conference were
due.
But for the furtherance of the problem the point is this. The Washington
Conference definitely established the principle of reduction of
armaments on a great ratio. The ratio for battleships between Great
Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy, was settled as to
5, 5, 3, and 1.75. They all agreed on a definite ratio. All agreed to
scrap a certain number of ships, to bring their tonnage down to a
certain figure, and by doing that relatively they were left in the same
position as before, with this advantage--that they at once obtained an
enormous reduction in expenditure on armaments.
That opened up a new line of approach for the attack on this problem
from the military and air standpoint. And the next development took
place in February this year at the meeting of the Temporary Mixed
Commission on armaments, when the Esher proposals were presented. There
has been a great deal of talk about the Esher proposals, and I am glad
of it, because the one thing wanted in this question is public interest.
The Esher proposals were an endeavour to apply to land armaments this
principle of reduction on a great ratio. And the line taken was this. It
was necessary to find some unit in land armaments which corresponded
with the battleships, and the unit selected by Lord Esher was the
300,000 regular soldiers of the peace armies in France, England, and
Spain. It was selected because it happened to be the number to which the
Austrian army was reduced by treaty, and with that unit he proposed a
ratio for the armies of Europe, which would leave everybody relatively
in much the same position as before, but would obtain an immediate
reduction in numbers of standing armies and a great reduction of
expenditure.
This proposal was subjected to a great deal of criticism, and I am sorry
to say nine-tenths of the criticism appears to emanate from persons who
have never read the proposal at all. It is a proposal which lends itself
to a great deal of criticism, and the most effective criticism which
could have been applied at the time it was presented was that it put the
cart before the horse, and approached the problem from the wrong
direction, for, as Lord Robert Cecil has said here this morning, what
nations require is security. Some of them have clear ideas as to the way
of obtaining it, but they all want it, and before you can expect people
to reduce their armaments, which are, after all, maintained mainly for
the purpose of providing security, you must give them something that
will take the place of armaments.
A GENERAL DEFENSIVE PACT
In June an important development took place in this Temporary
Commission. It was increased by the addition of a number of statesmen,
and, amongst others, of men who ought to have been on it long ago. Lord
Robert Cecil was added, and he at once proceeded to remedy what was a
real difficulty in Lord Esher's proposals. He put forward a plan for
providing security in the form, as the Assembly of the League had asked,
of a definite written proposal--really a brief treaty. The purport of
that treaty is included in the form of resolutions, which are roughly as
follows:--No scheme for the reduction of armaments can be effective
unless it is general; that in the present state of the world no
Government can accept the responsibility for a serious reduction of
armaments unless it is given some other equally satisfactory guarantee
of the safety of its country; such guarantee can only be found in a
general defensive agreement of all the countries concerned, binding them
all to come to the assistance of any one of them if attacked.
A general defensive pact, with a proviso! It is obviously unreasonable
to expect the States of the American continent to be ready to come over
at any moment to help in Europe. It is obviously unreasonable to expect
the States of Europe to bind themselves to come and fight in Asia.
Therefore, there was this proviso added that an obligation to come to
the assistance of the attacked country should be limited to those
countries which belonged to the same quarter of the globe. Thus, you
see, you are getting the obligation of the League into regional
application. Personally my own conviction is that this is the line upon
which many of the functions of the League will develop.
The main point of the situation as it is to-day is that you have got a
committee working out in detail a general pact, which when it is
formulated will be far more complete and satisfactory than the very
general and vague Clause 10 of the Covenant. We have reached the
position when practical proposals are beginning to emerge. What more is
wanted? How can we help on this work? You will have gathered from what I
said that it is my own conviction that with this problem of reduction of
armaments is so closely linked up the problem of economic reconstruction
and reparations that the whole ought to be taken together. I believe one
of the reasons why so little progress has been made is that the economic
problems have been entrusted, with the blessing of our and other
Governments, to perambulating conferences, while the disarmament problem
has been left solely to the League of Nations. I believe if you could
get the whole of these problems considered by one authority--and there
is one obvious authority--progress would be far more rapid.
There is another matter which concerns us as citizens--the attitude of
our own Government to this question. I was delighted to see recently an
announcement made by a Minister in the House of Commons that the
Government was seriously in favour of a reduction of armaments on a
great ratio. I was delighted to read the other day a speech, to which
reference has already been made, by the Prime Minister. We have had a
great many words on this question. The time has come for action, and
quite frankly the action of our Government in the past two years with
regard to this question has been neutral, and not always one of
benevolent neutrality. Our official representatives at Geneva have been
very careful to stress the difficulties, but up to the present I am
unaware that our Government has ever placed its immense resources as
regards information at the disposal of the one Englishman who has been
striving with all his power and knowledge to get a definite solution. I
believe there is going to be a change; I hope so. In any case, the best
thing we can do is to see that it is changed, and that Lord Robert Cecil
is not left to fight a lone battle.
THE APPEAL TO PUBLIC OPINION
There is something more. There is something wanted from each of us.
Personally, I am convinced myself that this problem is soluble on the
lines by which it is now being approached. I speak to you as a
professional who has given some study to the subject. I am convinced
that on the lines of a general pact as opposed to the particular pact, a
general defensive agreement as opposed to separate alliances, followed
by reduction on a great ratio, the practicability of which has been
proved at Washington, a solution can be reached. Given goodwill--that is
the point. At the last Assembly of the League of Nations a report was
presented by the Commission, of which Lord Robert Cecil was a member,
and it wound up with these words: "Finally, the committee recognises
that a policy of disarmament, to be successful, requires the support of
the population of the world. Limitation of armaments will never be
imposed by Governments on peoples, but it may be imposed by peoples on
Governments." That is absolutely true. How are we going to apply it?
Frankly, myself, I do not see that there is a great deal of value to be
got by demonstrations which demand no more war. I have every sympathy
with their object, but we have got to the stage when we want to get
beyond words to practical resolutions. We want definite concrete
proposals, and you won't get these merely by demonstrations. They are
quite good in their way, but they are not enough. What you want in this
matter is an informed public opinion which sees what is practical and
insists on having it.
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