We have all apparently, Liberals and Conservatives alike, accepted this "axiom" as self-evident.
Well, since it is so obvious as all that we may expect the Germans to adopt it. At present they are guided by a much more modest principle (enunciated in the preamble of the German Navy Law); namely, to be sufficiently strong to make it _dangerous_ for your enemy to attack. They must now, according to our "axiom," be so strong as to make our defeat certain.
I am quite sure that the big armament people in Germany are very grateful for the advice which Mr. Churchill and Lord Roberts thus give to the nations of the world, and we may expect to see German armaments so increased as to accord with the new principle.
And Lord Roberts is courageous enough to abide by the conclusion which flows from the fundamental a.s.sumption of Liberals and Conservatives alike, _i.e._, that trade and the means of livelihood can be transferred by force. We have transferred it in the past.
"It is excellent policy; it is, or should be, the policy of every nation prepared to play a great part in history." Such are Lord Roberts" actual words. At least, they don"t burke the issue.
The Germans will doubtless note the combination: be so strong as to make victory certain, and strike when you have made it certain, and they will then, in the light of this advice, be able to put the right interpretation upon our endeavours to create a great conscript force and our arrangements, which have been going on for some years, to throw an expeditionary force on to the continent.
The outlook is not very pleasant, is it? And yet if you accept the "axiom" that our Empire and our trade is dependent upon force and can be advantageously attacked by a stronger power there is no escape from the inevitable struggle--for the other "axiom" that safety can be secured merely by being enormously stronger than your rival is, as soon as it is tested by applying it to the two parties to the conflict--and, of course, one has as much right to apply it as the other--seen to be simply dangerous and muddle-headed rubbish. Include the two parties in your "axiom" (as you must) and it becomes impossible of application.
Now the whole problem sifts finally down to this one question: Is the a.s.sumption made by Lord Roberts and implied by Mr. Churchill concerning the relation of military force to trade and national life well founded? If it is, conflict is inevitable. It is no good crying "panic." If there is this enormous temptation pushing to our national ruin, we ought to be in a panic. And if it is not true?
Even in that case conflict will equally be inevitable unless we realise its falseness, for a universal false opinion concerning a fact will have the same result in conduct as though the false belief were true.
And my point is that those concerned to prevent this conflict seem but mildly interested in examining the foundations of the false beliefs that make conflict inevitable. Part of the reluctance to study the subject seems to arise from the fear that if we deny the nonsensical idea that the British Empire would instantaneously fall to pieces were the Germans to dominate the North Sea for 24 hours we should weaken the impulse to defence. That is probably an utterly false idea, but suppose it is true, is the risk of less ardour in defence as great as the risk which comes of having a nation of Roberts and Churchills on both sides of the frontier?
If that happens war becomes not a risk but a certainty.
And it is danger of happening. I speak from the standpoint of a somewhat special experience. During the last 18 months I have addressed not scores but many hundreds of meetings on the subject of the very proposition on which Lord Roberts" speech is based and which I have indicated at the beginning of this letter; I have answered not hundreds but thousands of questions arising out of it.
And I think that gives me a somewhat special understanding of the mind of the man in the street. The reason he is subject to panic, and "sees red" and will often accept blindly counsels like those of Lord Roberts, is that he holds as axioms these primary a.s.sumptions to which I have referred, namely, that he carries on his daily life by virtue of military force, and that the means of carrying it on will be taken from him by the first stronger power that rises in the world, and that that power will be pushed to do it by the advantage of such seizure. And these axioms he never finds challenged even by his Liberal guides.
The issue for those who really desire a better condition is clear.
So long as by their silence, or by their indifference to the discussion of the fundamental facts of this problem they create the impression that Mr. Churchill"s axioms are unchallengeable, the panic-mongers will have it all their own way, and our action will be a stimulus to similar action in Germany, and that action will again re-act on ours, and so on _ad infinitum._
Why is not some concerted effort made to create in both countries the necessary public opinion, by encouraging the study and discussion of the elements of the case, in some such way, for instance, as that adopted by Mr. Norman Angell in his book?
One organization due to private munificence has been formed and is doing, within limits, an extraordinarily useful work, but we can only hope to affect policy by a much more general interest--the interest of those of leisure and influence. And that does not seem to be forthcoming.
My own work, which has been based quite frankly on Mr. Angell"s book, has convinced me that it embodies just the formula most readily understanded of the people. It const.i.tutes a constructive doctrine of International Policy--the only statement I know so definitely applicable to modern conditions.
But the old illusions are so entrenched that if any impression is to be made on public opinion generally, effort must be persistent, permanent, and widespread. Mere isolated conferences, disconnected from work of a permanent character, are altogether inadequate for the forces that have to be met.
What is needed is a permanent and widespread organization embracing Trades Unions, Churches and affiliated bodies, Schools and Universities, basing its work on some definite doctrine of International Policy which can supplant the present conceptions of struggle and chaos.
I speak, at least, from the standpoint of experience; in the last resort the hostility, fear and suspicion which from time to time gains currency among the great ma.s.s of the people, is due to those elementary misconceptions as to the relation of prosperity, the opportunities of life, to military power. So long as these misconceptions are dominant, nothing is easier than to precipitate panic and bad feeling, and unless we can modify them, we shall in all human probability drift into conflict; and this incident of Lord Roberts" speech and the comment which it has provoked, show that for some not very well defined reason, Liberals, quite as much as Conservatives, by implication, accept the axioms upon which it is based, and give but little evidence that they are seriously bestirring themselves to improve that political education upon which according to their creed, progress can alone be made.
Yours very faithfully,
A.W. HAYc.o.c.k.