,mr4 ,,wells has also written the following novels3 ,,love ,,and ,,mr4 ,,lewisham ,,kipps ,,mr4 ,,polly ,,the ,,wheels ,,of ,,chance ,,the ,,new ,,machiavelli ,,ann ,,veronica ,,tono ,,bungay ,,marriage ,,bealby ,,the ,,passionate ,,friends ,,the ,,wife ,,of ,,sir ,,isaac ,,harman ,,the ,,research ,,magnificent ,,mr4 ,,britling ,,sees ,,it ,,through ,,the ,,soul ,,of ,a ,,bishop ,the following fantastic and imaginative romances3 ,,the ,,war ,,of ,,the ,,worlds ,,the ,,time ,,machine ,,the ,,wonderful ,,visit ,,the ,,island ,,of ,,dr4 ,,moreau ,,the ,,sea ,,lady ,,the ,,sleeper ,,awakes ,,the ,,food ,,of ,,the ,,gods ,,the ,,war ,,in ,,the ,,air ,,the ,,first ,,men ,,in ,,the ,,moon ,,in ,,the ,,days ,,of ,,the ,,comet ,,the ,,world ,,set ,,free ,and numerous ,short ,stories now collected in ,one ,volume under the title of ,,the ,,country ,,of ,,the ,,blind ,a ,series of books upon ,social1 ,religious and ,political questions3 ,,anticipations 7#aijj7 ,,mankind ,,in ,,the ,,making ,,first ,,and ,,last ,,things ,,new ,,worlds ,,for ,,old ,a ,,modern ,,utopia ,,the ,,future ,,in ,,america ,,an ,,englishman ,,looks ,,at ,,the ,,world ,,what ,,is ,,coming8 ,,war ,,and ,,the ,,future ,,god ,,the ,,invisible ,,king ,and two little books about children's play1 called3 ,,floor ,,games and ,,little ,,wars ,,in ,,the ,,fourth ,,year ,,anticipations ,,of ,a ,,world ,,peace ,,by ,h4 ,g4 ,,wells ,,author ,,of ,,mr4 ,,britling ,,sees ,,it ,,through1 ,,the ,,war ,,and ,,the ,,future1 ,,what ,,is ,,coming8 ,,the ,,war ,,that ,,will ,,end ,,war1 ,,the ,,world ,,set ,,free1 ,,in ,,the ,,days ,,of ,,the ,,comet1 ,,and ,a ,,modern ,,utopia #aiah ,,preface ,in the latter half of #aiad a few of us were writing that this war was a ,war of ,ideas4 ,a phrase1 ,the ,war to end ,war1 got into circulation1 amidst much sceptical comment4 ,it was a phrase powerful enough to sway many men1 essentially pacifists1 towards taking an active part in the war against ,german imperialism1 but it was a phrase whose chief content was its aspiration4 ,people were already writing in those early days of disarmament and of the abolition of the armament industry throughout the world2 they realized fully the element of industrial belligerency behind the shining armour of imperialism1 and they denounced the ,krupp-,kaiser alliance4 ,but against such writing and such thought we had to count1 in those days1 great and powerful realities4 ,even to those who expressed these ideas there lay visibly upon them the shadow of impracticability2 they were very advanced ideas in #aiad1 very ,utopian4 ,against them was an unbroken mass of mental habit and public tradition4 ,while we talked of this war to end war1 the diplomatists of the ,powers allied against ,germany were busily spinning a disastrous web of greedy secret treaties1 were answering aggression by schemes of aggression1 were seeing in the treacherous violence of ,germany only the justification for countervailing evil acts4 ,to them it was only another war for ascendancy4 ,that was three years and a half ago1 and since then this war of ideas has gone on to a phase few of us had dared hope for in those opening days4 ,the ,russian revolution put a match to that pile of secret treaties and indeed to all the imperialist plans of the ,allies2 in the end it will burn them all4 ,the greatest of the ,western ,allies is now the ,united ,states of ,america1 and the ,americans have come into this war simply for an idea4 ,three years and a half ago a few of us were saying this was a war against the idea of imperialism1 not ,german imperialism merely1 but ,british and ,french and ,russian imperialism1 and we were saying this not because it was so1 but because we hoped to see it become so4 ,to-day we can say so1 because now it is so4 ,in those days1 moreover1 we said this is the war to end war1 and we still did not know clearly how4 ,we thought in terms of treaties and alliances4 ,it is largely the detachment and practical genius of the great ,english-speaking nation across the ,atlantic that has carried the world on beyond and replaced that phrase by the phrase1 ,the ,league of ,nations1 a phrase suggesting plainly the organization of a sufficient instrument by which war may be ended for ever4 ,in #aiac talk of a ,world ,league of ,nations would have seemed1 to the extremest pitch1 ,utopian4 ,to-day the project has an air not only of being so practicable1 but of being so urgent and necessary and so manifestly the sane thing before mankind that not to be busied upon it1 not to be making it more widely known and better understood1 not to be working out its problems and bringing it about1 is to be living outside of the contemporary life of the world4 ,for a book upon any other subject at the present time some apology may be necessary1 but a book upon this subject is as natural a thing to produce now as a pair of skates in winter when the ice begins to bear4 ,all we writers find ourselves engaged perforce in some part or other of a world-wide propaganda of this the most creative and hopeful of political ideas that has ever dawned upon the consciousness of mankind4 ,with no concerted plan we feel called upon to serve it4 ,and in no connection would one so like to think oneself un-original as in this connection4 ,it would be a dismaying thing to realize that one were writing anything here which was not the possible thought of great multitudes of other people1 and capable of becoming the common thought of mankind4 ,one writes in such a book as this not to express oneself but to swell a chorus4 ,the idea of the ,league of ,nations is so great a one that it may well override the pretensions and command the allegiance of kings2 much more does it claim the self-subjugation of the journalistic writer4 ,our innumerable books upon this great edifice of a ,world ,peace do not constitute a scramble for attention1 but an attempt to express in every variety of phrase and aspect this one system of ideas which now possesses us all4 ,in the same way the elementary facts and ideas of the science of chemistry might conceivably be put completely and fully into one text-book1 but1 as a matter of fact1 it is far more convenient to tell that same story over in a thousand different forms1 in a text-book for boys here1 for a different sort or class of boy there1 for adult students1 for reference1 for people expert in mathematics1 for people unused to the scientific method1 and so on4 ,for the last year the writer has been doing what he can--and a number of other writers have been doing what they can--to bring about a united declaration of all the ,atlantic ,allies in favour of a ,league of ,nations1 and to define the necessary nature of that ,league4 ,he has1 in the course of this work1 written a series of articles upon the ,league and upon the necessary sacrifices of preconceptions that the idea involves in the ,london press4 ,he has also been trying to clear his own mind upon the real meaning of that ambiguous word democracy1 for which the ,league is to make the world safe4 ,the bulk of this book is made up of these discussions4 ,for a very considerable number of readers1 it may be well to admit here1 it can have no possible interest2 they will have come at these questions themselves from different angles and they will have long since got to their own conclusions4 ,but there may be others whose angle of approach may be similar to the writer's1 who may have asked some or most of the questions he has had to ask1 and who may be actively interested in the answers and the working out of the answers he has made to these questions4 ,for them this book is printed4 ,h4 ,g4 ,,wells4 ,may1 #aiah4 ,it is a dangerous thing to recommend specific books out of so large and various a literature as the ,league of ,nations idea has already produced1 but the reader who wishes to reach beyond the range of this book1 or who does not like its tone and method1 will probably find something to meet his needs and tastes better in ,marburg's ,league of ,nations1 a straightforward account of the ,american side of the movement by the former ,united ,states ,minister in ,belgium1 on the one hand1 or in the concluding parts of ,mr4 ,fayle's ,great ,settlement 7#aiae71 a frankly sceptical treatment from the ,british ,imperialist point of view1 on the other4 ,an illuminating discussion1 advocating peace treaties rather than a league1 is ,sir ,walter ,phillimore's ,three ,centuries of ,treaties4 ,two excellent books from ,america1 that chance to be on my table1 are ,mr4 ,goldsmith's ,league to ,enforce ,peace and ,a ,world in ,ferment by ,president ,nicholas ,murray ,butler4 ,mater's ,socit des ,nations 7,didier7 is an able presentation of a ,french point of view4 ,brailsford's ,a ,league of ,nations is already a classic of the movement in ,england1 and a very full and thorough book2 and ,hobson's ,towards ,international ,government is a very sympathetic contribution from the ,english liberal left2 but the reader must understand that these two writers seem disposed to welcome a peace with an unrevolutionized ,germany1 an idea to which1 in common with most ,british people1 ,i am bitterly opposed4 ,walsh's ,world ,rebuilt is a good exhortation1 and ,mugge's ,parliament of ,man is fresh and sane and able4 ,the omnivorous reader will find good sense and quaint ,english in ,judge ,mejdell's ,jus ,gentium1 published in ,english by ,olsen's of ,christiania4 ,there is an active ,league of ,nations ,society in ,dublin1 as well as the ,london and ,washington ones1 publishing pamphlets and conducting propaganda4 ,all these books and pamphlets ,i have named happen to lie upon my study table as ,i write1 but ,i have made no systematic effort to get together literature upon the subject1 and probably there are just as many books as good of which ,i have never even heard4 ,there must1 ,i am sure1 be statements of the ,league of ,nations idea forthcoming from various religious standpoints1 but ,i do not know any sufficiently well to recommend them4 ,it is incredible that neither the ,roman ,catholic ,church1 the ,english ,episcopal ,church1 nor any ,nonconformist body has made any effort as an organization to forward this essentially religious end of peace on earth4 ,and also there must be ,german writings upon this same topic4 ,i mention these diverse sources not in order to present a bibliography1 but because ,i should be sorry to have the reader think that this little book pretends to state the case rather than a case for the ,league of ,nations4 ,,contents ,i4 ,,the ,,way ,,to ,,concrete ,,realization ,,ii4 ,,the ,,league ,,must ,,be ,,representative ,,iii4 ,,the ,,necessary ,,powers ,,of ,,the ,,league ,,iv4 ,,the ,,labour ,,view ,,of ,,middle ,,africa ,v4 ,,getting ,,the ,,league ,,idea ,,clear ,,in ,,relation ,,to ,,imperialism ,,vi4 ,,the ,,war ,,aims ,,of ,,the ,,western ,,allies ,,compactly ,,stated ,,vii4 ,,the ,,future ,,of ,,monarchy ,,viii4 ,,the ,,plain ,,necessity ,,for ,a ,,league ,,ix4 ,,democracy ,x4 ,,the ,,recent ,,struggle ,,for ,,proportional ,,representation ,,in ,,great ,,britain ,,xi4 ,,the ,,study ,,and ,,propaganda ,,of ,,democracy ,,in ,,the ,,fourth ,,year ,,the ,,league ,,of ,,free ,,nations ,i ,,the ,,way ,,to ,,concrete ,,realization ,more and more frequently does one hear this phrase1 ,the ,league of ,nations1 used to express the outline idea of the new world that will come out of the war4 ,there can be no doubt that the phrase has taken hold of the imaginations of great multitudes of people3 it is one of those creative phrases that may alter the whole destiny of mankind4 ,but as yet it is still a very vague phrase1 a cloudy promise of peace4 ,i make no apology therefore1 for casting my discussion of it in the most general terms4 ,the idea is the idea of united human effort to put an end to wars2 the first practical question1 that must precede all others1 is how far can we hope to get to a concrete realization of that8 ,but first let me note the fourth word in the second title of this book4 ,the common talk is of a ,league of ,nations merely4 ,i follow the man who is1 more than any other man1 the leader of ,english political thought throughout the world to-day1 ,president ,wilson1 in inserting that significant adjective ,free4 ,we western allies know to-day what is involved in making bargains with governments that do not stand for their peoples2 we have had all our ,russian deal1 for example1 repudiated and thrust back upon our hands2 and it is clearly in his mind1 as it must be in the minds of all reasonable men1 that no mere scrap of paper1 with just a monarch's or a chancellor's endorsement1 is a good enough earnest of fellowship in the league4 ,it cannot be a diplomatist's league4 ,the ,league of ,nations1 if it is to have any such effect as people seem to hope from it1 must be1 in the first place1 understanded of the people4 ,it must be supported by sustained1 deliberate explanation1 and by teaching in school and church and press of the whole mass of all the peoples concerned4 ,i underline the adjective ,free here to set aside1 once for all1 any possible misconception that this modern idea of a ,league of ,nations has any affinity to that ,holy ,alliance of the diplomatists1 which set out to keep the peace of ,europe so disastrously a century ago4 ,later ,i will discuss the powers of the ,league4 ,but before ,i come to that ,i would like to say a little about the more general question of its nature and authority4 ,what sort of gathering will embody it8 ,the suggestions made range from a mere advisory body1 rather like the ,hague convention1 which will merely pronounce on the rights and wrongs of any international conflict1 to the idea of a sort of ,super-,state1 a ,parliament of ,mankind1 a ,super ,national ,authority1 practically taking over the sovereignty of the existing states and empires of the world4 ,most people's ideas of the ,league fall between these extremes4 ,they want the ,league to be something more than an ethical court1 they want a ,league that will act1 but on the other hand they shrink from any loss of our independence4 ,there seems to be a conflict here4 ,there is a real need for many people to tidy up their ideas at this point4 ,we cannot have our cake and eat it4 ,if association is worth while1 there must be some sacrifice of freedom to association4 ,as a very distinguished colonial representative said to me the other day3 ,here we are talking of the freedom of small nations and the 'self-determination' of peoples1 and at the same time of the ,council of the ,league of ,nations and all sorts of international controls4 ,which do we want8 ,the answer1 ,i think1 is ,both4 ,it is a matter of more or less1 of getting the best thing at the cost of the second-best4 ,we may want to relax an old association in order to make a newer and wider one4 ,it is quite understandable that peoples aware of a distinctive national character and involved in some big existing political complex1 should wish to disentangle themselves from one group of associations in order to enter more effectively into another1 a greater1 and more satisfactory one4 ,the ,finn or the ,pole1 who has hitherto been a rather reluctant member of the synthesis of the ,russian empire1 may well wish to end that attachment in order to become a free member of a worldwide brotherhood4 ,the desire for free arrangement is not a desire for chaos4 ,there is such a thing as untying your parcels in order to pack them better1 and ,i do not see myself how we can possibly contemplate a great league of freedom and reason in the world without a considerable amount of such preliminary dissolution4 ,it happens1 very fortunately for the world1 that a century and a quarter ago thirteen various and very jealous states worked out the problem of a ,union1 and became--after an enormous1 exhausting wrangle--the ,united ,states of ,america4 ,now the way they solved their riddle was by delegating and giving over jealously specified sovereign powers and doing all that was possible to retain the residuum4 ,they remained essentially sovereign states4 ,new ,york1 ,virginia1 ,massachusetts1 for example1 remained legally independent4 ,the practical fusion of these peoples into one people outran the legal bargain4 ,it was only after long years of discussion that the point was conceded2 it was indeed only after the ,civil ,war that the implications were fully established1 that there resided a sovereignty in the ,american people as a whole1 as distinguished from the peoples of the several states4 ,this is a precedent that every one who talks about the ,league of ,nations should bear in mind4 ,these states set up a congress and president in ,washington with strictly delegated powers4 ,that congress and president they delegated to look after certain common interests1 to deal with interstate trade1 to deal with foreign powers1 to maintain a supreme court of law4 ,everything else--education1 militia1 powers of life and death--the states retained for themselves4 ,to this day1 for instance1 the federal courts and the federal officials have no power to interfere to protect the lives or property of aliens in any part of the union outside the district of ,columbia4 ,the state governments still see to that4 ,the federal government has the legal right perhaps to intervene1 but it is still chary of such intervention4 ,and these states of the ,american ,union were at the outset so independent-spirited that they would not even adopt a common name4 ,to this day they have no common name4 ,we have to call them ,americans1 which is a ridiculous name when we consider that ,canada1 ,mexico1 ,peru1 ,brazil are all of them also in ,america4 ,or else we have to call them ,virginians1 ,californians1 ,new ,englanders1 and so forth4 ,their legal and nominal separateness weighs nothing against the real fusion that their great league has now made possible4 ,now1 that clearly is a precedent of the utmost value in our schemes for this council of the ,league of ,nations4 ,we must begin by delegating1 as the ,states began by delegating4 ,it is a far cry to the time when we shall talk and think of the ,sovereign ,people of the ,earth4 ,that council of the ,league of ,nations will be a tie as strong1 we hope1 but certainly not so close and multiplex as the early tie of the ,states at ,washington4 ,it will begin by having certain delegated powers and no others4 ,it will be an ad hoc body4 ,later its powers may grow as mankind becomes accustomed to it4 ,but at first it will have1 directly or mediately1 all the powers that seem necessary to restrain the world from war--and unless ,i know nothing of patriotic jealousies it will have not a scrap of power more4 ,the danger is much more that its powers will be insufficient than that they will be excessive4 ,of that later4 ,what ,i want to discuss here now is the constitution of this delegated body4 ,i want to discuss that first in order to set aside out of the discussion certain fantastic notions that will otherwise get very seriously in our way4 ,fantastic as they are1 they have played a large part in reducing the ,hague ,tribunal to an ineffective squeak amidst the thunders of this war4 ,a number of gentlemen scheming out world unity in studies have begun their proposals with the simple suggestion that each sovereign power should send one member to the projected parliament of mankind4 ,this has a pleasant democratic air2 one sovereign state1 one vote4 ,now let us run over a list of sovereign states and see to what this leads us4 ,we find our list includes the ,british ,empire1 with a population of four hundred millions1 of which probably half can read and write some language or other2 ,bogota with a population of a million1 mostly poets2 ,hayti with a population of a million and a third1 almost entirely illiterate and liable at any time to further political disruption2 ,andorra with a population of four or five thousand souls4 ,the mere suggestion of equal representation between such powers is enough to make the ,british ,empire burst into a thousand 7voting7 fragments4 ,a certain concession to population1 one must admit1 was made by the theorists2 a state of over three millions got1 if ,i remember rightly1 two delegates1 and if over twenty1 three1 and some of the small states were given a kind of intermittent appearance1 they only came every other time or something of that sort2 but at ,the ,hague things still remained in such a posture that three or four minute and backward states could outvote the ,british ,empire or the ,united ,states4 ,therein lies the clue to the insignificance of ,the ,hague4 ,such projects as these are idle projects and we must put them out of our heads2 they are against nature2 the great nations will not suffer them for a moment4 ,but when we dismiss this idea of representation by states1 we are left with the problem of the proportion of representation and of relative weight in the ,council of the ,league on our hands4 ,it is the sort of problem that appeals terribly to the ingenious4 ,we cannot solve it by making population a basis1 because that will give a monstrous importance to the illiterate millions of ,india and ,china4 ,ingenious statistical schemes have been framed in which the number of university graduates and the steel output come in as multipliers1 but for my own part ,i am not greatly impressed by statistical schemes4 ,at the risk of seeming something of a ,prussian1 ,i would like to insist upon certain brute facts4 ,the business of the ,league of ,nations is to keep the peace of the world and nothing else4 ,no power will ever dare to break the peace of the world if the powers that are capable of making war under modern conditions say ,no4 ,and there are only four powers certainly capable at the present time of producing the men and materials needed for a modern war in sufficient abundance to go on fighting3 ,britain1 ,france1 ,germany1 and the ,united ,states4 ,there are three others which are very doubtfully capable3 ,italy1 ,japan1 and ,austria4 ,russia ,i will mark--it is all that one can do with ,russia just now--with a note of interrogation4 ,some day ,china may be war capable--,i hope never1 but it is a possibility4 ,personally ,i don't think that any other power on earth would have a ghost of a chance to resist the will--if it could be an honestly united will--of the first-named four4 ,all the rest fight by the sanction of and by association with these leaders4 ,they can only fight because of the split will of the war-complete powers4 ,some are forced to fight by that very division4 ,no one can vie with me in my appreciation of the civilization of ,switzerland1 ,sweden1 or ,holland1 but the plain fact of the case is that such powers are absolutely incapable of uttering an effective protest against war4 ,far less so are your ,haytis and ,liberias4 ,the preservation of the world-peace rests with the great powers and with the great powers alone4 ,if they have the will for peace1 it is peace4 ,if they have not1 it is conflict4 ,the four powers ,i have named can now1 if they see fit1 dictate the peace of the world for ever4 ,let us keep our grip on that4 ,peace is the business of the great powers primarily4 ,steel output1 university graduates1 and so forth may be convenient secondary criteria1 may be useful ways of measuring war efficiency1 but the meat and substance of the ,council of the ,league of ,nations must embody the wills of those leading peoples4 ,they can give an enduring peace to the little nations and the whole of mankind4 ,it can arrive in no other way4 ,so ,i take it that the ,council of an ideal ,league of ,nations must consist chiefly of the representatives of the great belligerent powers1 and that the representatives of the minor allies and of the neutrals--essential though their presence will be--must not be allowed to swamp the voices of these larger masses of mankind4 ,and this state of affairs may come about more easily than logical1 statistical-minded people may be disposed to think4 ,our first impulse1 when we discuss the ,league of ,nations idea1 is to think of some very elaborate and definite scheme of members on the model of existing legislative bodies1 called together one hardly knows how1 and sitting in a specially built ,league of ,nations ,congress ,house4 ,all schemes are more methodical than reality4 ,we think of somebody1 learned and expert1 in spectacles1 with a thin clear voice1 reading over the ,projected ,constitution of a ,league of ,nations to an attentive and respectful ,peace ,congress4 ,but there is a more natural way to a league than that4 ,instead of being made like a machine1 the ,league of ,nations may come about like a marriage4 ,the ,peace ,congress that must sooner or later meet may itself become1 after a time1 the ,council of a ,league of ,nations4 ,the ,league of ,nations may come upon us by degrees1 almost imperceptibly4 ,i am strongly obsessed by the idea that that ,peace ,congress will necessarily become--and that it is highly desirable that it should become--a most prolonged and persistent gathering4 ,why should it not become at length a permanent gathering1 inviting representatives to aid its deliberations from the neutral states1 and gradually adjusting itself to conditions of permanency8 ,i can conceive no such ,peace ,congress as those that have settled up after other wars1 settling up after this war4 ,not only has the war been enormously bigger than any other war1 but it has struck deeper at the foundations of social and economic life4 ,i doubt if we begin to realize how much of the old system is dead to-day1 how much has to be remade4 ,since the beginnings of history there has been a credible promise of gold payments underneath our financial arrangements4 ,it is now an incredible promise4 ,the value of a pound note waves about while you look at it4 ,what will happen to it when peace comes no man can tell4 ,nor what will happen to the mark4 ,the rouble has gone into the ,abyss4 ,our giddy money specialists clutch their handfuls of paper and watch it flying down the steep4 ,much as we may hate the ,germans1 some of us will have to sit down with some of the enemy to arrange a common scheme for the preservation of credit in money4 ,and ,i presume that it is not proposed to end this war in a wild scramble of buyers for such food as remains in the world4 ,there is a shortage now1 a greater shortage ahead of the world1 and there will be shortages of supply at the source and transport in food and all raw materials for some years to come4 ,the ,peace ,congress will have to sit and organize a share-out and distribution and reorganization of these shattered supplies4 ,it will have to ,rhondda the nations4 ,probably1 too1 we shall have to deal collectively with a pestilence before we are out of the mess4 ,then there are such little jobs as the reconstruction of ,belgium and ,serbia4 ,there are considerable rectifications of boundaries to be made4 ,there are fresh states to be created1 in ,poland and ,armenia for example4 ,about all these smaller states1 new and old1 that the peace must call into being1 there must be a system of guarantees of the most difficult and complicated sort4 ,i do not see the ,press ,congress getting through such matters as these in a session of weeks or months4 ,the idea the ,germans betrayed at ,brest1 that things were going to be done in the ,versailles fashion by great moustached heroes frowning and drawing lines with a large black soldierly thumbnail across maps1 is--old-fashioned4 ,they have made their eastern treaties1 it is true1 in this mode1 but they are still looking for some really responsible government to keep them now that they are made4 ,from first to last clearly the main peace negotiations are going to follow unprecedented courses4 ,this preliminary discussion of war aims by means of great public speeches1 that has been getting more and more explicit now for many months1 is quite unprecedented4 ,apparently all the broad preliminaries are to be stated and accepted in the sight of all mankind before even an armistice occurs on the main1 the western front4 ,the ,german diplomatists hate this process4 ,so do a lot of ours4 ,so do some of the diplomatic ,frenchmen4 ,the ,german junkers are dodging and lying1 they are fighting desperately to keep back everything they possibly can for the bargaining and bullying and table-banging of the council chamber1 but that way there is no peace4 ,and when at last ,germany says snip sufficiently to the ,allies' snap1 and the ,peace ,congress begins1 it will almost certainly be as unprecedented as its prelude4 ,before it meets1 the broad lines of the settlement will have been drawn plainly with the approval of the mass of mankind4 ,,ii ,,the ,,league ,,must ,,be ,,representative ,a ,peace ,congress1 growing permanent1 then1 may prove to be the most practical and convenient embodiment of this idea of a ,league of ,nations that has taken possession of the imagination of the world4 ,a most necessary preliminary to a ,peace ,congress1 with such possibilities inherent in it1 must obviously be the meeting and organization of a preliminary ,league of the ,allied ,nations4 ,that point ,i would now enlarge4 ,half a world peace is better than none4 ,there seems no reason whatever why the world should wait for the ,central ,powers before it begins this necessary work4 ,mr4 ,mc,curdy has been asking lately1 ,why not the ,league of ,nations now8 ,that is a question a great number of people would like to echo very heartily4 ,the nearer the ,allies can come to a ,league of ,free ,nations before the ,peace ,congress the more prospect there is that that body will approximate in nature to a ,league of ,nations for the whole world4 ,in one most unexpected quarter the same idea has been endorsed4 ,the ,king's ,speech on the prorogation of ,parliament this ,february was one of the most remarkable royal utterances that have ever been made from the ,british throne4 ,there was less of the old-fashioned ,king and more of the modern ,president about it than the most republican-minded of us could have anticipated4 ,for the first time in a ,king's ,speech we heard of the democracies of the world1 and there was a clear claim that the ,allies at present fighting the ,central ,powers did themselves constitute a ,league of ,nations4 ,but we must admit that at present they do so only in a very rhetorical sense4 ,there is no real council of empowered representatives1 and nothing in the nature of a united front has been prepared4 ,unless we provide beforehand for something more effective1 ,italy1 ,france1 the ,united ,states1 ,japan1 and this country will send separate groups of representatives1 with separate instructions1 unequal status1 and very probably conflicting views upon many subjects1 to the ultimate peace discussions4 ,it is quite conceivable--it is a very serious danger--that at this discussion skilful diplomacy on the part of the ,central ,powers may open a cleft among the ,allies that has never appeared during the actual war4 ,have the ,british settled1 for example1 with ,italy and ,france for the supply of metallurgical coal after the war8 ,those countries must have it somehow4 ,across the board ,germany can make some tempting bids in that respect4 ,or take another question3 ,have the ,british arrived at common views with ,france1 ,belgium1 ,portugal1 and ,south ,africa about the administration of ,central ,africa8 ,suppose ,germany makes sudden proposals affecting native labour that win over the ,portuguese and the ,boers8 ,there are a score of such points upon which we shall find the ,allied representatives haggling with each other in the presence of the enemy if they have not been settled beforehand4 ,it is the plainest common sense that we should be fixing up all such matters with our ,allies now1 and knitting together a common front for the final deal with ,german ,imperialism4 ,and these things are not to be done effectively and bindingly nowadays by official gentlemen in discreet undertones4 ,they need to be done with the full knowledge and authority of the participating peoples4 ,the ,russian example has taught the world the instability of diplomatic bargains in a time of such fundamental issues as the present4 ,there is little hope and little strength in hole-and-corner bargainings between the officials or politicians who happen to be at the head of this or that nation for the time being4 ,our ,labour people will not stand this sort of thing and they will not be bound by it4 ,there will be the plain danger of repudiation for all arrangements made in that fashion4 ,a gathering of somebody or other approved by the ,british ,foreign ,office and of somebody or other approved by the ,french ,foreign ,office1 of somebody with vague powers from ,america1 and so on and so on1 will be an entirely ineffective gathering4 ,but that is the sort of gathering of the ,allies we have been having hitherto1 and that is the sort of gathering that is likely to continue unless there is a considerable expression of opinion in favour of something more representative and responsible4 ,even our ,foreign ,office must be aware that in every country in the world there is now bitter suspicion of and keen hostility towards merely diplomatic representatives4 ,one of the most significant features of the time is the evident desire of the ,labour movement in every ,european country to take part in a collateral conference of ,labour that shall meet when and where the ,peace ,congress does and deliberate and comment on its proceedings4 ,for a year now the demand of the masses for such a ,labour conference has been growing4 ,it marks a distrust of officialdom whose intensity officialdom would do well to ponder4 ,but it is the natural consequence of1 it is the popular attempt at a corrective to1 the aloofness and obscurity that have hitherto been so evil a characteristic of international negotiations4 ,i do not think ,labour and intelligent people anywhere are going to be fobbed off with an old-fashioned diplomatic gathering as being that ,league of ,free ,nations they demand4 ,on the other hand1 ,i do not contemplate this bi-cameral conference with the diplomatists trying to best and humbug the ,labour people as well as each other and the ,labour people getting more and more irritated1 suspicious1 and extremist1 with anything but dread4 ,the ,allied countries must go into the conference solid1 and they can only hope to do that by heeding and incorporating ,labour ideas before they come to the conference4 ,the only alternative that ,i can see to this unsatisfactory prospect of a ,peace ,congress sitting side by side with a dissentient and probably revolutionary ,labour and ,socialist convention--both gatherings with unsatisfactory credentials contradicting one another and drifting to opposite extremes--is that the delegates the ,allied ,powers send to the ,peace ,conference 7the same delegates which1 if they are wise1 they will have previously sent to a preliminary ,league of ,allied ,nations to discuss their common action at the ,peace ,congress71 should be elected ad hoc upon democratic lines4 ,i know that this will be a very shocking proposal to all our able specialists in foreign policy4 ,they will talk at once about the ignorance of people like the ,labour leaders and myself about such matters1 and so on4 ,what do we know of the treaty of so-and-so that was signed in the year seventeen something8--and so on4 ,to which the answer is that we ought not to have been kept ignorant of these things4 ,a day will come when the ,foreign ,offices of all countries will have to recognize that what the people do not know of international agreements ain't facts4 ,a secret treaty is only binding upon the persons in the secret4 ,but what ,i1 as a sample common person1 am not ignorant of is this3 that the business that goes on at the ,peace ,congress will either make or mar the lives of everyone ,i care for in the world1 and that somehow1 by representative or what not1 ,i have to be there4 ,the ,peace ,congress deals with the blood and happiness of my children and the future of my world4 ,speaking as one of the hundreds of millions of rank outsiders in public affairs1 ,i do not mean to respect any peace treaty that may end this war unless ,i am honestly represented at its making4 ,i think everywhere there is a tendency in people to follow the ,russian example to this extent and to repudiate bargains in which they have had no voice4 ,i do not see that any genuine realization of the hopes with which all this talk about the ,league of ,nations is charged can be possible1 unless the two bodies which should naturally lead up to the ,league of ,nations--that is to say1 firstly1 the ,conference of the ,allies1 and then the ,peace ,congress--are elected bodies1 speaking confidently for the whole mass of the peoples behind them4 ,it may be a troublesome thing to elect them1 but it will involve much more troublesome consequences if they are not elected4 ,this1 ,i think1 is one of the considerations for which many people's minds are still unprepared4 ,but unless we are to have over again after all this bloodshed and effort some such ,peace with ,honour foolery as we had performed by ,dizzy and ,salisbury at that fatal ,berlin ,conference in which this present war was begotten1 we must sit up to this novel proposal of electoral representation in the peace negotiations4 ,something more than common sense binds our statesmen to this idea4 ,they are morally pledged to it4 ,president ,wilson and our ,british and ,french spokesmen alike have said over and over again that they want to deal not with the ,hohenzollerns but with the ,german people4 ,in other words1 we have demanded elected representatives from the ,german people with whom we may deal1 and how can we make a demand of that sort unless we on our part are already prepared to send our own elected representatives to meet them8 ,it is up to us to indicate by our own practice how we on our side1 professing as we do to act for democracies1 to make democracy safe on the earth1 and so on1 intend to meet this new occasion4 ,yet it has to be remarked that1 so far1 not one of the ,league of ,nations projects ,i have seen have included any practicable proposals for the appointment of delegates either to that ultimate body or to its two necessary predecessors1 the ,council of the ,allies and the ,peace ,congress4 ,it is evident that here1 again1 we are neglecting to get on with something of very urgent importance4 ,i will venture1 therefore1 to say a word or two here about the possible way in which a modern community may appoint its international representatives4 ,and here1 again1 ,i turn from any ,european precedents to that political outcome of the ,british mind1 the ,constitution of the ,united ,states4 7,because we must always remember that while our political institutions in ,britain are a patch-up of feudalism1 ,tudor1 ,stuart1 and ,hanoverian monarchist traditions and urgent merely ,european necessities1 a patch-up that has been made quasi-democratic in a series of after-thoughts1 the ,american ,constitution is a real1 deliberate creation of the ,english-speaking intelligence47 ,the ,president of the ,united ,states1 then1 we have to note1 is elected in a most extraordinary way1 and in a way that has now the justification of very great successes indeed4 ,on several occasions the ,united ,states has achieved indisputable greatness in its ,presidents1 and very rarely has it failed to set up very leaderly and distinguished men4 ,it is worth while1 therefore1 to inquire how this ,president is elected4 ,he is neither elected directly by the people nor appointed by any legislative body4 ,he is chosen by a special college elected by the people4 ,this college exists to elect him2 it meets1 elects him1 and disperses4 7,i will not here go into the preliminary complications that makes the election of a ,president follow upon a preliminary election of two ,presidential ,candidates4 ,the point ,i am making here is that he is a specially selected man chosen ad hoc47 ,is there any reason why we should1 not adopt this method in this new necessity we are under of sending representatives1 first1 to the long overdue and necessary ,allied ,council1 then to the ,peace ,congress1 and then to the hoped-for ,council of the ,league of ,nations8 ,i am anxious here only to start for discussion the idea of an electoral representation of the nations upon these three bodies that must in succession set themselves to define1 organize1 and maintain the peace of the world4 ,i do not wish to complicate the question by any too explicit advocacy of methods of election or the like4 ,in the ,united ,states this college which elects the ,president is elected on the same register of voters as that which elects the ,senate and ,congress1 and at the same time4 ,but ,i suppose if we are to give a popular mandate to the three or five or twelve or twenty 7or whatever number it is7 men to whom we are going to entrust our ,empire's share in this great task of the peace negotiations1 it will be more decisive of the will of the whole nation if the college that had to appoint them is elected at a special election4 ,i suppose that the great ,british common-weals over-seas1 at present not represented in ,parliament1 would also and separately at the same time elect colleges to appoint their representatives4 ,i suppose there would be at least one ,indian representative elected1 perhaps by some special electoral conference of ,indian princes and leading men4 ,the chief defect of the ,american ,presidential election is that as the old single vote method of election is employed it has to be fought on purely party lines4 ,he is the select man of the ,democratic half1 or of the ,republican half of the nation4 ,he is not the select man of the whole nation4 ,it would give a far more representative character to the electoral college if it could be elected by fair modern methods1 if for this particular purpose parliamentary constituencies could be grouped and the clean scientific method of proportional representation could be used4 ,but ,i suppose the party politician in this1 as in most of our affairs1 must still have his pound of our flesh--and we must reckon with him later for the bloodshed4 ,these are all1 however1 secondary considerations4 ,the above paragraph is1 so to speak1 in the nature of a footnote4 ,the fundamental matter1 if we are to get towards any realization of this ideal of a world peace sustained by a ,league of ,nations1 is to get straight away to the conception of direct special electoral mandates in this matter4 ,at present all the political luncheon and dinner parties in ,london are busy with smirking discussions of ,who is to go8 ,the titled ladies are particularly busy4 ,they are talking about it as if we poor1 ignorant1 tax-paying1 blood-paying common people did not exist4 ,l4 ,g41 they say1 will of course insist on going1 but there is much talk of the ,old ,man4 ,people are getting quite nice again about the ,old ,man's feelings4 ,it would be such a pretty thing to send him4 ,but if ,l4 ,g4 goes we want him to go with something more than a backing of intrigues and snatched authority4 ,and ,i do not think the mass of people have any enthusiasm for the ,old ,man4 ,it is difficult again--by the dinner-party standards--to know how ,lord ,curzon can be restrained4 ,but we common people do not care if he is restrained to the point of extinction4 ,probably there will be nobody who talks or understands ,russian among the ,british representatives4 ,but1 of course1 the ,british governing class has washed its hands of the ,russians4 ,they were always very difficult1 and now they are impossible1 my dear1 perfectly impossible4 ,no6 ,that sort of thing will not do now4 ,this ,peace ,congress is too big a job for party politicians and society and county families4 ,the bulk of ,british opinion cannot go on being represented for ever by ,president ,wilson4 ,we cannot always look to the ,americans to express our ideas and do our work for democracy4 ,the foolery of the ,berlin ,treaty must not be repeated4 ,we cannot have another popular ,prime ,minister come triumphing back to ,england with a gross of pink spectacles--through which we may survey the prospect of the next great war4 ,the ,league of ,free ,nations means something very big and solid2 it is not a rhetorical phrase to be used to pacify a restless1 distressed1 and anxious public1 and to be sneered out of existence when that use is past4 ,when the popular mind now demands a ,league of ,free ,nations it demands a reality4 ,the only way to that reality is through the direct participation of the nation as a whole in the settlement1 and that is possible only through the direct election for this particular issue of representative and responsible men4 ,,iii ,,the ,,necessary ,,powers ,,of ,,the ,,league ,if this phrase1 the ,league of ,free ,nations1 is to signify anything more than a rhetorical flourish1 then certain consequences follow that have to be faced now4 ,no man can join a partnership and remain an absolutely free man4 ,you cannot bind yourself to do this and not to do that and to consult and act with your associates in certain eventualities without a loss of your sovereign freedom4 ,people in this country and in ,france do not seem to be sitting up manfully to these necessary propositions4 ,if this ,league of ,free ,nations is really to be an effectual thing for the preservation of the peace of the world it must possess power and exercise power1 powers must be delegated to it4 ,otherwise it will only help1 with all other half-hearted good resolutions1 to pave the road of mankind to hell4 ,nothing in all the world so strengthens evil as the half-hearted attempts of good to make good4 ,it scarcely needs repeating here--it has been so generally said--that no ,league of ,free ,nations can hope to keep the peace unless every member of it is indeed a free member1 represented by duly elected persons4 ,nobody1 of course1 asks to dictate the internal government of any country to that country4 ,if ,germans1 for instance1 like to wallow in absolutism after the war they can do so4 ,but if they or any other peoples wish to take part in a permanent ,league of ,free ,nations it is only reasonable to insist that so far as their representatives on the council go they must be duly elected under conditions that are by the standards of the general league satisfactorily democratic4 ,that seems to be only the common sense of the matter4 ,every court is a potential conspiracy against freedom1 and the ,league cannot tolerate merely court appointments4 ,if courts are to exist anywhere in the new world of the future1 they will be wise to stand aloof from international meddling4 ,of course if a people1 after due provision for electoral representation1 choose to elect dynastic candidates1 that is an altogether different matter4 ,and now let us consider what are the powers that must be delegated to this proposed council of a ,league of ,free ,nations1 if that is really effectually to prevent war and to organize and establish and make peace permanent in the world4 ,firstly1 then1 it must be able to adjudicate upon all international disputes whatever4 ,its first function must clearly be that4 ,before a war can break out there must be the possibility of a world decision upon its rights and wrongs4 ,the ,league1 therefore1 will have as its primary function to maintain a ,supreme ,court1 whose decisions will be final1 before which every sovereign power may appear as plaintiff against any other sovereign power or group of powers4 ,the plea1 ,i take it1 will always be in the form that the defendant power or powers is engaged in proceedings calculated to lead to a breach of the peace1 and calling upon the ,league for an injunction against such proceedings4 ,i suppose the proceedings that can be brought into court in this way fall under such headings as these that follow2 restraint of trade by injurious tariffs or suchlike differentiations or by interference with through traffic1 improper treatment of the subjects or their property 7here ,i put a query7 of the plaintiff nation in the defendant state1 aggressive military or naval preparation1 disorder spreading over the frontier1 trespass 7as1 for instance1 by airships71 propaganda of disorder1 espionage1 permitting the organization of injurious activities1 such as raids or piracy4 ,clearly all such actions must come within the purview of any world-supreme court organized to prevent war4 ,but in addition there is a more doubtful and delicate class of case1 arising out of the discontent of patches of one race or religion in the dominions of another4 ,how far may the supreme court of the world attend to grievances between subject and sovereign8 ,such cases are highly probable1 and no large1 vague propositions about the self-determination of peoples can meet all the cases4 ,in ,macedonia1 for instance1 there is a jumble of ,albanian1 ,serbian1 ,bulgarian1 ,greek and ,rumanian villages always jostling one another and maintaining an intense irritation between the kindred nations close at hand4 ,and quite a large number of areas and cities in the world1 it has to be remembered1 are not homogeneous at all4 ,will the great nations of the world have the self-abnegation to permit a scattered subject population to appeal against the treatment of its ruling power to the ,supreme ,court8 ,this is a much more serious interference with sovereignty than intervention in an external quarrel4 ,could a ,greek village in ,bulgarian ,macedonia plead in the ,supreme ,court8 ,could the ,armenians in ,constantinople1 or the ,jews in ,roumania1 or the ,poles in ,west ,prussia1 or the negroes in ,georgia1 or the ,indians in the ,transvaal make such an appeal8 ,could any ,indian population in ,india appeal8 ,personally ,i should like to see the power of the ,supreme ,court extend as far as this4 ,i do not see how we can possibly prevent a kindred nation pleading for the scattered people of its own race and culture1 or any nation presenting a case on behalf of some otherwise unrepresented people--the ,united ,states1 for example1 presenting a case on behalf of the ,armenians4 ,but ,i doubt if many people have made up their minds yet to see the powers of the ,supreme ,court of the ,league of ,nations go so far as this4 ,i doubt if1 to begin with1 it will be possible to provide for these cases4 ,i would like to see it done1 but ,i doubt if the majority of the sovereign peoples concerned will reconcile their national pride with the idea1 at least so far as their own subject populations go4 ,here1 you see1 ,i do no more than ask a question4 ,it is a difficult one1 and it has to be answered before we can clear the way to the ,league of ,free ,nations4 ,but the ,supreme ,court1 whether it is to have the wider or the narrower scope here suggested1 would be merely the central function of the ,league of ,free ,nations4 ,behind the decisions of the ,supreme ,court must lie power4 ,and here come fresh difficulties for patriotic digestions4 ,the armies and navies of the world must be at the disposal of the ,league of ,free ,nations1 and that opens up a new large area of delegated authority4 ,the first impulse of any power disposed to challenge the decisions of the ,supreme ,court will be1 of course1 to arm2 and it is difficult to imagine how the ,league of ,free ,nations can exercise any practical authority unless it has power to restrain such armament4 ,the ,league of ,free ,nations must1 in fact1 if it is to be a working reality1 have power to define and limit the military and naval and aerial equipment of every country in the world4 ,this means something more than a restriction of state forces4 ,it must have power and freedom to investigate the military and naval and aerial establishments of all its constituent powers4 ,it must also have effective control over every armament industry4 ,and armament industries are not always easy to define4 ,are aeroplanes1 for example1 armament8 ,its powers1 ,i suggest1 must extend even to a restraint upon the belligerent propaganda which is the natural advertisement campaign of every armament industry4 ,it must have the right1 for example1 to raise the question of the proprietorship of newspapers by armament interests4 ,disarmament is1 in fact1 a necessary factor of any ,league of ,free ,nations1 and you cannot have disarmament unless you are prepared to see the powers of the council of the ,league extend thus far4 ,the very existence of the ,league presupposes that it and it alone is to have and to exercise military force4 ,any other belligerency or preparation or incitement to belligerency becomes rebellion1 and any other arming a threat of rebellion1 in a world ,league of ,free ,nations4 ,but here1 again1 has the general mind yet thought out all that is involved in this proposition8 ,in all the great belligerent countries the armament industries are now huge interests with enormous powers4 ,krupp's business alone is as powerful a thing in ,germany as the ,crown4 ,in every country a heavily subsidized patriotic press will fight desperately against giving powers so extensive and thorough as those here suggested to an international body4 ,so long1 of course1 as the ,league of ,free ,nations remains a project in the air1 without body or parts1 such a press will sneer at it gently as ,utopian1 and even patronize it kindly4 ,but so soon as the ,league takes on the shape its general proposition makes logically necessary1 the armament interest will take fright4 ,then it is we shall hear the drum patriotic loud in defence of the human blood trade4 ,are we to hand over these most intimate affairs of ours to a lot of foreigners8 ,among these foreigners who will be appealed to to terrify the patriotic souls of the ,british will be the ,americans4 ,are we men of ,english blood and tradition to see our affairs controlled by such foreigners as ,wilson1 ,lincoln1 ,webster and ,washington8 ,perish the thought6 ,when they might be controlled by ,disraelis1 ,wettins1 ,mount-,battens1 and what not6 ,and so on and so on4 ,krupp's agents and the agents of the kindred firms in ,great ,britain and ,france will also be very busy with the national pride of ,france4 ,in ,germany they have already created a colossal suspicion of ,england4 ,here is a giant in the path4444 ,but let us remember that it is only necessary to defeat the propaganda of this vile and dangerous industry in four great countries4 ,and for the common citizen1 touched on the tenderest part of his patriotic susceptibilities1 there are certain irrefutable arguments4 ,whether the ways of the world in the years to come are to be the paths of peace or the paths of war is not going to alter this essential fact1 that the great educated world communities1 with a social and industrial organization on a war-capable scale1 are going to dominate human affairs4 ,whether they spend their power in killing or in educating and creating1 ,france1 ,germany1 however much we may resent it1 the two great ,english-speaking communities1 ,italy1 ,japan ,china1 and presently perhaps a renascent ,russia1 are jointly going to control the destinies of mankind4 ,whether that joint control comes through arms or through the law is a secondary consideration4 ,to refuse to bring our affairs into a common council does not make us independent of foreigners4 ,it makes us more dependent upon them1 as a very little consideration will show4 ,i am suggesting here that the ,league of ,free ,nations shall practically control the army1 navy1 air forces1 and armament industry of every nation in the world4 ,what is the alternative to that8 ,to do as we please8 ,no1 the alternative is that any malignant country will be free to force upon all the rest just the maximum amount of armament it chooses to adopt4 ,since #ahga ,france1 we say1 has been free in military matters4 ,what has been the value of that freedom8 ,the truth is1 she has been the bond-slave of ,germany1 bound to watch ,germany as a slave watches a master1 bound to launch submarine for submarine and cast gun for gun1 to sweep all her youth into her army1 to subdue her trade1 her literature1 her education1 her whole life to the necessity of preparations imposed upon her by her drill-master over the ,rhine4 ,and ,michael1 too1 has been a slave to his imperial master for the self-same reason1 for the reason that ,germany and ,france were both so proudly sovereign and independent4 ,both countries have been slaves to ,kruppism and ,zabernism--because they were sovereign and free6 ,so it will always be4 ,so long as patriotic cant can keep the common man jealous of international controls over his belligerent possibilities1 so long will he be the helpless slave of the foreign threat1 and ,peace remain a mere name for the resting phase between wars4 ,but power over the military resources of the world is by no means the limit of the necessary powers of an effective ,league of ,free ,nations4 ,there are still more indigestible implications in the idea1 and1 since they have got to be digested sooner or later if civilization is not to collapse1 there is no reason why we should not begin to bite upon them now4 ,i was much interested to read the ,british press upon the alleged proposal of the ,german ,chancellor that we should give up 7presumably to ,germany7 ,gibraltar1 ,malta1 ,egypt1 and suchlike key possessions4 ,it seemed to excite several of our politicians extremely4 ,i read over the ,german ,chancellor's speech very carefully1 so far as it was available1 and it is clear that he did not propose anything of the sort4 ,wilfully or blindly our press and our demagogues screamed over a false issue4 ,the ,chancellor was defending the idea of the ,germans remaining in ,belgium and ,lorraine because of the strategic and economic importance of those regions to ,germany1 and he was arguing that before we ,english got into such a feverish state of indignation about that1 we should first ask ourselves what we were doing in ,gibraltar1 etc41 etc4 ,that is a different thing altogether4 ,and it is an argument that is not to be disposed of by misrepresentation4 ,the ,british have to think hard over this quite legitimate ,german tu quoque4 ,it is no good getting into a patriotic bad temper and refusing to answer that question4 ,we ,british people are so persuaded of the purity and unselfishness with which we discharge our imperial responsibilities1 we have been so trained in imperial self-satisfaction1 we know so certainly that all our subject nations call us blessed1 that it is a little difficult for us to see just how the fact that we are1 for example1 so deeply rooted in ,egypt looks to an outside intelligence4 ,of course the ,german imperialist idea is a wicked and aggressive idea1 as ,lord ,robert ,cecil has explained2 they want to set up all over the earth coaling stations and strategic points1 on the pattern of ours4 ,well1 they argue1 we are only trying to do what you ,british have done4 ,if we are not to do so--because it is aggression and so on and so on--is not the time ripe for you to make some concessions to the public opinion of the world8 ,that is the ,german argument4 ,either1 they say1 tolerate this idea of a ,germany with advantageous posts and possessions round and about the earth1 or reconsider your own position4 ,well1 at the risk of rousing much patriotic wrath1 ,i must admit that ,i think we have to reconsider our position4 ,our argument is that in ,india1 ,egypt1 ,africa and elsewhere1 we stand for order and civilization1 we are the trustees of freedom1 the agents of knowledge and efficiency4 ,on the whole the record of ,british rule is a pretty respectable one2 ,i am not ashamed of our record4 ,nevertheless the case is altering4 ,it is quite justifiable for us ,british1 no doubt1 if we do really play the part of honest trustees1 to remain in ,egypt and in ,india under existing conditions2 it is even possible for us to glance at the helplessness of ,arabia1 ,palestine1 and ,mesopotamia1 as yet incapable of self-government1 helpless as new-born infants4 ,but our case1 our only justifiable case1 is that we are trustees because there is no better trustee possible4 ,and the creation of a council of a ,league of ,free ,nations would be like the creation of a ,public ,trustee for the world4 ,the creation of a ,league of ,free ,nations must necessarily be the creation of an authority that may legitimately call existing empires to give an account of their stewardship4 ,for an unchecked fragmentary control of tropical and chaotic regions1 it substitutes the possibility of a general authority4 ,and this must necessarily alter the problems not only of the politically immature nations and the control of the tropics1 but also of the regulation of the sea ways1 the regulation of the coming air routes1 and the distribution of staple products in the world4 ,i will not go in detail over the items of this list1 because the reader can fill in the essentials of the argument from what has gone before4 ,i want simply to suggest how widely this project of a ,league of ,free ,nations swings when once you have let it swing freely in your mind6 ,and if you do not let it swing freely in your mind1 it remains nothing--a sentimental gesture4 ,the plain truth is that the ,league of ,free ,nations1 if it is to be a reality1 if it is to effect a real pacification of the world1 must do no less than supersede ,empire2 it must end not only this new ,german imperialism1 which is struggling so savagely and powerfully to possess the earth1 but it must also wind up ,british imperialism and ,french imperialism1 which do now so largely and inaggressively possess it4 ,and1 moreover1 this idea queries the adjective of ,belgian1 ,portuguese1 ,french1 and ,british ,central ,africa alike1 just as emphatically as it queries ,german4 ,still more effectually does the ,league forbid those creations of the futurist imagination1 the imperialism of ,italy and ,greece1 which make such threatening gestures at the world of our children4 ,are these incompatibilities understood8 ,until people have faced the clear antagonism that exists between imperialism and internationalism1 they have not begun to suspect the real significance of this project of the ,league of ,free ,nations4 ,they have not begun to realize that peace also has its price4 ,,iv ,,the ,,labour ,,view ,,of ,,middle ,,africa ,i was recently privileged to hear the views of one of those titled and influential ladies--with a general education at about the fifth standard level1 plus a little ,french1 ,german1 ,italian1 and music--who do so much to make our ,england what it is at the present time1 upon the ,labour idea of an international control of tropical ,africa4 ,she was loud and derisive about the ignorance of ,labour4 ,what can they know about foreign politics8 she said1 with gestures to indicate her conception of them4 ,i was moved to ask her what she would do about ,africa4 ,leave it to ,lord ,robert6 she said1 leaning forward impressively4 ,leave it to the people who know4 ,unhappily ,i share the evident opinion of ,labour that we are not blessed with any profoundly wise class of people who have definite knowledge and clear intentions about ,africa1 that these people who know are mostly a pretentious bluff1 and so1 in spite of a very earnest desire to take refuge in my ignorance from the burthen of thinking about ,african problems1 ,i find myself obliged1 like most other people1 to do so4 ,in the interests of our country1 our children1 and the world1 we common persons have to have opinions about these matters4 ,a muddle-up in ,africa this year may kill your son and mine in the course of the next decade4 ,i know this is not a claim to be interested in things ,african1 such as the promoter of a tropical railway or an oil speculator has2 still it is a claim4 ,and for the life of me ,i cannot see what is wrong about the ,labour proposals1 or what alternative exists that can give even a hope of peace in and about ,africa4 ,the gist of the ,labour proposal is an international control of ,africa between the ,zambesi and the ,sahara4 ,this has been received with loud protests by men whose work one is obliged to respect1 by ,sir ,harry1 ,johnston1 for example1 and ,sir ,alfred ,sharpe1 and with something approaching a shriek of hostility by ,mr4 ,cunninghame ,graham4 ,but ,i think these gentlemen have not perhaps given the ,labour proposal quite as much attention as they have spent upon the details of ,african conditions4 ,i think they have jumped to conclusions at the mere sound of the word international4 ,there have been some gross failures in the past to set up international administrations in ,africa and the ,near ,east4 ,and these gentlemen think at once of some new ,congo administration and of nondescript police forces commanded by cosmopolitan adventurers4 7,see ,joseph ,conrad's ,out-post of ,civilization47 ,they think of internationalism with greedy ,great ,powers in the background outside the internationalized area1 intriguing to create disorder and mischief with ideas of an ultimate annexation4 ,but ,i doubt if such nightmares do any sort of justice to the ,labour intention4 ,and the essential thing ,i would like to point out to these authorities upon ,african questions is that not one of them even hints at any other formula which covers the broad essentials of the ,african riddle4 ,what are these broad essentials8 ,what are the ends that must be achieved if ,africa is not to continue a festering sore in the body of mankind8 ,the first most obvious danger of ,africa is the militarization of the black4 ,general ,smuts has pointed this out plainly4 ,the negro makes a good soldier2 he is hardy1 he stands the sea1 and he stands cold4 7,there was a negro in the little party which reached the ,north ,pole47 ,it is absolutely essential to the peace of the world that there should be no arming of the negroes beyond the minimum necessary for the policing of ,africa4 ,but how is this to be watched and prevented if there is no overriding body representing civilization to say ,stop to the beginnings of any such militarization8 ,i do not see how ,sir ,harry ,johnston1 ,sir ,alfred ,sharpe1 and the other authorities can object to at least an international ,african ,disarmament ,commission to watch1 warn1 and protest4 ,at least they must concede that4 ,but in practice this involves something else4 ,a practical consequence of this disarmament idea must be an effective control of the importation of arms into the tutelage areas of ,africa4 ,that rat at the dykes of civilization1 that ultimate expression of political scoundrelism1 the ,gun-,runner1 has to be kept under and stamped out in ,africa as everywhere4 ,a ,disarmament ,commission that has no forces available to prevent the arms trade will be just another ,hague ,convention1 just another vague1 well-intentioned1 futile gesture4 ,and closely connected with this function of controlling the arms trade is another great necessity of ,africa under tutelage1 and that is the necessity of a common collective agreement not to demoralize the native population4 ,that demoralization1 physical and moral1 has already gone far4 ,the whole negro population of ,africa is now rotten with diseases introduced by ,arabs and ,europeans during the last century1 and such ,african statesmen as ,sir ,harry ,johnston are eloquent upon the necessity of saving the blacks--and the baser whites--from the effects of trade gin and similar alluring articles of commerce4 ,moreover1 from ,africa there is always something new in the way of tropical diseases1 and presently ,africa1 if we let it continue to fester as it festers now1 may produce an epidemic that will stand exportation to a temperate climate4 ,a bacterium that may kill you or me in some novel and disgusting way may even now be developing in some ,congo muck-heap4 ,so here is the need for another ,commission to look after the ,health of ,africa4 ,that1 too1 should be of authority over all the area of tutelage ,africa4 ,it is no good stamping out infectious disease in ,nyasaland while it is being bred in ,portuguese ,east ,africa4 ,and if there is a ,disarmament ,commission already controlling the importation of arms1 why should not that body also control at the same time the importation of trade gin and similar delicacies1 and direct quarantine and such-like health regulations8 ,but there is another question in ,africa upon which our ignorant ,labour class is far better informed than our dear old eighteenth-century upper class which still squats so firmly in our ,foreign and ,colonial ,offices1 and that is the question of forced labour4 ,we cannot tolerate any possibilities of the enslavement of black ,africa4 ,long ago the ,united ,states found out the impossibility of having slave labour working in the same system with white4 ,to cure that anomaly cost the ,united ,states a long and bloody war4 ,the slave-owner1 the exploiter of the black1 becomes a threat and a nuisance to any white democracy4 ,he brings back his loot to corrupt ,press and life at home4 ,what happened in ,america in the midst of the last century between ,federals and ,confederates must not happen again on a larger scale between white ,europe and middle ,africa4 ,slavery in ,africa1 open or disguised1 whether enforced by the lash or brought about by iniquitous land-stealing1 strikes at the home and freedom of every ,european worker--and ,labour knows this4 ,but how are we to prevent the enslavement and economic exploitation of the blacks if we have no general watcher of ,african conditions8 ,we want a common law for ,africa1 a general ,declaration of ,rights1 of certain elementary rights1 and we want a common authority to which the black man and the native tribe may appeal for justice4 ,what is the good of trying to elevate the population of ,uganda and to give it a free and hopeful life if some other population close at hand is competing against the ,baganda worker under lash and tax8 ,so here is a third aspect of our international ,commission1 as a native protectorate and court of appeal6 ,there is still a fourth aspect of the ,african question in which every mother's son in ,europe is closely interested1 and that is the trade question4 ,africa is the great source of many of the most necessary raw materials upon which our modern comforts and conveniences depend2 more particularly is it the source of cheap fat in the form of palm oil4 ,one of the most powerful levers in the hands of the ,allied democracies at the present time in their struggle against the imperial brigands of ,potsdam is the complete control we have now obtained over these essential supplies4 ,we can1 if we choose1 cut off ,germany altogether from these vital economic necessities1 if she does not consent to abandon militant imperialism for some more civilized form of government4 ,we hope that this war will end in that renunciation1 and that ,germany will re-enter the community of nations4 ,but whether that is so or not1 whether ,germany is or is not to be one of the interested parties in the ,african solution1 the fact remains that it is impossible to contemplate a continuing struggle for the ,african raw material supply between the interested ,powers4 ,sooner or later that means a renewal of war4 ,international trade rivalry is1 indeed1 only war--smouldering4 ,we need1 and ,labour demands1 a fair1 frank treatment of ,african trade1 and that can only be done by some overriding regulative power1 a ,commission which1 so far as ,i can see1 might also be the same ,commission as that we have already hypothesized as being necessary to control the ,customs in order to prevent gun-running and the gin trade4 ,that ,commission might very conveniently have a voice in the administration of the great waterways of ,africa 7which often run through the possessions of several ,powers7 and in the regulation of the big railway lines and air routes that will speedily follow the conclusion of peace4 ,now this ,i take it is the gist of the ,labour proposal4 ,this--and no more than this--is what is intended by the international control of tropical ,africa4 ,i do not read that phrase as abrogating existing sovereignties in ,africa4 ,what is contemplated is a delegation of authority4 ,every one should know1 though unhappily the badness of our history teaching makes it doubtful if every one does know1 that the ,federal ,government of the ,united ,states of ,america did not begin as a sovereign ,government1 and has now only a very questionable sovereignty4 ,each ,state was sovereign1 and each ,state delegated certain powers to ,washington4 ,that was the initial idea of the union4 ,only later did the idea of a people of the ,states as a whole emerge4 ,in the same way ,i understand the ,labour proposal as meaning that we should delegate to an ,african ,commission the middle ,african ,customs1 the regulation of inter-,state trade1 inter-,state railways and waterways1 quarantine and health generally1 and the establishment of a ,supreme ,court for middle ,african affairs4 ,one or two minor matters1 such as the preservation of rare animals1 might very well fall under the same authority4 ,upon that ,commission the interested nations1 that is to say--putting them in alphabetical order--the ,africander1 the ,briton1 the ,belgian1 the ,egyptian1 the ,frenchman1 the ,italian1 the ,indian the ,portuguese--might all be represented in proportion to their interest4 ,whether the ,german would come in is really a question for the ,german to consider2 he can come in as a good ,european1 he cannot come in as an imperialist brigand4 ,whether1 too1 any other nations can claim to have an interest in ,african affairs1 whether the ,commission would not be better appointed by a ,league of ,free ,nations than directly by the interested ,governments1 and a number of other such questions1 need not be considered here4 ,here we are discussing only the main idea of the ,labour proposal4 ,now beneath the supervision and restraint of such a delegated ,commission ,i do not see why the existing administrations of tutelage ,africa should not continue4 ,i do not believe that the ,labour proposal contemplates any humiliating cession of ,european sovereignty4 ,under that international ,commission the ,french flag may still wave in ,senegal and the ,british over the protected ,state of ,uganda4 ,given a new spirit in ,germany ,i do not see why the ,german flag should not presently be restored in ,german ,east ,africa4 ,but over all1 standing for righteousness1 patience1 fair play for the black1 and the common welfare of mankind would wave a new flag1 the ,sun of ,africa representing the ,central ,african ,commission of the ,league of ,free ,nations4 ,that is my vision of the ,labour project4 ,it is something very different1 ,i know1 from the nightmare of an international police of cosmopolitan scoundrels in nondescript uniforms1 hastening to loot and ravish his dear ,uganda and his beloved ,nigeria1 which distresses the crumpled pillow of ,sir ,harry ,johnston4 ,but if it is not the solution1 then it is up to him and his fellow authorities to tell us what is the solution of the ,african riddle4 ,v ,,getting ,,the ,,league ,,idea ,,clear ,,in ,,relation ,,to ,,imperialism #a ,it is idle to pretend that even at the present time the idea of the ,league of ,free ,nations has secure possession of the ,british mind4 ,there is quite naturally a sustained opposition to it in all the fastnesses of aggressive imperialism4 ,such papers as the ,times and the ,morning ,post remain hostile and obstructive to the expression of international ideas4 ,most of our elder statesmen seem to have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing during the years of wildest change the world has ever known4 ,but in the general mind of the ,british peoples the movement of opinion from a narrow imperialism towards internationalism has been wide and swift4 ,and it continues steadily4 ,one can trace week by week and almost day by day the ,americanization of the ,british conception of the ,allied ,war ,aims4 ,it may be interesting to reproduce here three communications upon this question made at different times by the present writer to the press4 ,the circumstances of their publication are significant4 ,the first is in substance identical with a letter which was sent to the ,times late in ,may1 #aiag1 and rejected as being altogether too revolutionary4 ,for nowadays the correspondence in the ,times has ceased to be an impartial expression of public opinion4 ,the correspondence of the ,times is now apparently selected and edited in accordance with the views upon public policy held by the acting editor for the day4 ,more and more has that paper become the organ of a sort of ,oxford ,imperialism1 three or four years behind the times and very ripe and expert4 ,the letter is here given as it was finally printed in the issue of the ,daily ,chronicle for ,june #dth1 #aiag1 under the heading1 ,wanted a ,statement of ,imperial ,policy4 ,sir1--,the time seems to have come for much clearer statements of outlook and intention from this country than it has hitherto been possible to make4 ,the entry of ,america into the war and the banishment of autocracy and aggressive diplomacy from ,russia have enormously cleared the air1 and the recent great speech of ,general ,smuts at the ,savoy ,hotel is probably only the first of a series of experiments in statement4 ,it is desirable alike to clear our own heads1 to unify our efforts1 and to give the nations of the world some assurance and standard for our national conduct in the future1 that we should now define the ,idea of our ,empire and its relation to the world outlook much more clearly than has ever hitherto been done4 ,never before in the history of mankind has opinion counted for so much and persons and organizations for so little as in this war4 ,never before has the need for clear ideas1 widely understood and consistently sustained1 been so commandingly vital4 ,what do we mean by our ,empire1 and what is its relation to that universal desire of mankind1 the permanent rule of peace and justice in the world8 ,the whole world will be the better for a very plain answer to that question4 ,is it not time for us ,british not merely to admit to ourselves1 but to assure the world that our ,empire as it exists to-day is a provisional thing1 that in scarcely any part of the world do we regard it as more than an emergency arrangement1 as a necessary association that must give place ultimately to the higher synthesis of a world league1 that here we hold as trustees and there on account of strategic considerations that may presently disappear1 and that though we will not contemplate the replacement of our flag anywhere by the flag of any other competing nation1 though we do hope to hold together with our kin and with those who increasingly share our tradition and our language1 nevertheless we are prepared to welcome great renunciations of our present ascendency and privileges in the interests of mankind as a whole4 ,we need to make the world understand that we do not put our nation nor our ,empire before the commonwealth of man4 ,unless presently we are to follow ,germany along the tragic path her national vanity and her world ambitions have made for her1 that is what we have to make clear now4 ,it is not only our duty to mankind1 it is also the sane course for our own preservation4 ,is it not the plain lesson of this stupendous and disastrous war that there is no way to secure civilization from destruction except by an impartial control and protection in the interests of the whole human race1 a control representing the best intelligence of mankind1 of these main causes of war4 7#a7 ,the politically undeveloped tropics2 7#b7 ,shipping and international trade2 and 7#c7 ,small nationalities and all regions in a state of political impotence or confusion8 ,it is our case against the ,germans that in all these three cases they have subordinated every consideration of justice and the general human welfare to a monstrous national egotism4 ,that argument has a double edge4 ,at present there is a vigorous campaign in ,america1 ,russia1 the neutral countries generally1 to represent ,british patriotism as equally egotistic1 and our purpose in this war as a mere parallel to the ,german purpose4 ,in the same manner1 though perhaps with less persistency1 ,france and ,italy are also caricatured4 ,we are supposed to be grabbing at ,mesopotamia and ,palestine1 ,france at ,syria2 ,italy is represented as pursuing a ,machiavellian policy towards the unfortunate ,greek republicans1 with her eyes on the ,greek islands and ,greece in ,asia4 ,is it not time that these base imputations were repudiated clearly and conclusively by our ,alliance8 ,and is it not time that we began to discuss in much more frank and definite terms than has hitherto been done1 the nature of the international arrangement that will be needed to secure the safety of such liberated populations as those of ,palestine1 of the ,arab regions of the old ,turkish empire1 of ,armenia1 of reunited ,poland1 and the like8 ,i do not mean here mere diplomatic discussions and understandings1 ,i mean such full and plain statements as will be spread through the whole world and grasped and assimilated by ordinary people everywhere1 statements by which we1 as a people1 will be prepared to stand or fall4 ,almost as urgent is the need for some definite statement about ,africa4 ,general ,smuts has warned not only the ,empire1 but the whole world of the gigantic threat to civilization that lies in the present division of ,africa between various keenly competitive ,european ,powers1 any one of which will be free to misuse the great natural resources at its disposal and to arm millions of black soldiers for aggression4 ,a mere elimination of ,germany from ,africa will not solve that difficulty4 ,what we have to eliminate is not this nation or that1 but the system of national shoving and elbowing1 the treatment of ,africa as the board for a game of beggar-my-neighbour-and-damn-the-niggers 1 in which a few syndicates1 masquerading as national interests1 snatch a profit to the infinite loss of all mankind4 ,we want a lowering of barriers and a unification of interests1 we want an international control of these disputed regions1 to override nationalist exploitation4 ,the whole world wants it4 ,it is a chastened and reasonable world we live in to-day1 and the time for white reason and the wide treatment of these problems is now4 ,finally1 the time is drawing near when the ,egyptian and the nations of ,india will ask us1 ,are things going on for ever here as they go on now1 or are we to look for the time when we1 too1 like the ,africander1 the ,canadian and the ,australian1 will be your confessed and equal partners8 ,would it not be wise to answer that question in the affirmative before the voice in which it is asked grows thick with anger8 ,in ,egypt1 for example1 we are either robbers very like--except for a certain difference in touch--the ,germans in ,belgium1 or we are honourable trustees4 ,it is our claim and pride to be honourable trustees4 ,nothing so becomes a trustee as a cheerful openness of disposition4 ,great ,britain has to table her world policy4 ,it is a thing overdue4 ,no doubt we have already a literature of liberal imperialism and a considerable accumulation of declarations by this statesman or that4 ,but what is needed is a formulation much more representative1 official and permanent than that1 something that can be put beside ,president ,wilson's clear rendering of the ,american idea4 ,we want all our peoples to understand1 and we want all mankind to understand that our ,empire is not a net about the world in which the progress of mankind is entangled1 but a self-conscious political system working side by side with the other democracies of the earth1 preparing the way for1 and prepared at last to sacrifice and merge itself in1 the world confederation of free and equal peoples4 #b ,this letter was presently followed up by an article in the ,daily ,news1 entitled ,a ,reasonable ,man's ,peace4 ,this article provoked a considerable controversy in the imperialist press1 and it was reprinted as a pamphlet by a ,free ,trade organization1 which distributed over #bjj1jjj copies4 ,it is particularly interesting to note1 in view of what follows it1 that it was attacked with great virulence in the ,evening ,news1 the little fierce mud-throwing brother of the ,daily ,mail4 ,the international situation at the present time is beyond question the most wonderful that the world has ever seen4 ,there is not a country in the world in which the great majority of sensible people are not passionately desirous of peace1 of an enduring peace1 and--the war goes on4 ,the conditions of peace can now be stated1 in general terms that are as acceptable to a reasonable man in ,berlin as they are to a reasonable man in ,paris or ,london or ,petrograd or ,constantinople4 ,there are to be no conquests1 no domination of recalcitrant populations1 no bitter insistence upon vindictive penalties1 and there must be something in the nature of a world-wide ,league of ,nations to keep the peace securely in future1 to make the world safe for democracy1 and maintain international justice4 ,to that the general mind of the world has come to-day4 ,why1 then1 does the waste and killing go on8 ,why is not the ,peace ,conference sitting now8 ,manifestly because a small minority of people in positions of peculiar advantage1 in positions of trust and authority1 and particularly the ,german reactionaries1 prevent or delay its assembling4 ,the answer which seems to suffice in all the ,allied countries is that the ,german ,imperial ,government--that the ,german ,imperial ,government alone--stands in the way1 that its tradition is incurably a tradition of conquest and aggression1 that until ,german militarism is overthrown1 etc4 ,few people in the ,allied countries will dispute that that is broadly true4 ,but is it the whole and complete truth8 ,is there nothing more to be done on our side8 ,let us put a question that goes to the very heart of the problem4 ,why does the great mass of the ,german people still cling to its incurably belligerent ,government8 ,the answer to that question is not overwhelmingly difficult4 ,the ,german people sticks to its militarist imperialism as ,mazeppa stuck to his horse2 because it is bound to it1 and the wolves pursue4 ,the attentive student of the home and foreign propaganda literature of the ,german ,government will realize that the case made by ,german imperialism1 the main argument by which it sticks to power1 is this1 that the ,allied ,governments are also imperialist1 that they also aim at conquest and aggression1 that for ,germany the choice is world empire or downfall and utter ruin4 ,this is the argument that holds the ,german people stiffly united4 ,for most men in most countries it would be a convincing argument1 strong enough to override considerations of right and wrong4 ,i find that ,i myself am of this way of thinking1 that whether ,england has done right or wrong in the past--and ,i have sometimes criticized my country very bitterly--,i will not endure the prospect of seeing her at the foot of some victorious foreign nation4 ,neither will any ,german who matters4 ,very few people would respect a ,german who did4 ,but the case for the ,allies is that this great argument by which1 and by which alone1 the ,german ,imperial ,government keeps its grip upon the ,german people at the present time1 and keeps them facing their enemies1 is untrue4 ,the ,allies declare that they do not want to destroy the ,german people1 they do not want to cripple the ,german people2 they want merely to see certain gaping wounds inflicted by ,germany repaired1 and beyond that reasonable requirement they want nothing but to be assured1 completely assured1 absolutely assured1 against any further aggressions on the part of ,germany4 ,is that true8 ,our leaders say so1 and we believe them4 ,we would not support them if we did not4 ,and if it is true1 have the statesmen of the ,allies made it as transparently and convincingly clear to the ,german people as possible8 ,that is one of the supreme questions of the present time4 ,we cannot too earnestly examine it4 ,because in the answer to it lies the reason why so many men were killed yesterday on the eastern and western front1 so many ships sunk1 so much property destroyed1 so much human energy wasted for ever upon mere destruction1 and why to-morrow and the next day and the day after--through many months yet1 perhaps--the same killing and destroying must still go on4 ,in many respects this war has been an amazing display of human inadaptability4 ,the military history of the war has still to be written1 the grim story of machinery misunderstood1 improvements resisted1 antiquated methods persisted in2 but the broad facts are already before the public mind4 ,after three years of war the air offensive1 the only possible decisive blow1 is still merely talked of4 ,not once nor twice only have the ,western ,allies had victory within their grasp--and failed to grip it4 ,the ,british cavalry generals wasted the great invention of the tanks as a careless child breaks a toy4 ,at least equally remarkable is the dragging inadaptability of ,european statecraft4 ,everywhere the failure of ministers and statesmen to rise to the urgent definite necessities of the present time is glaringly conspicuous4 ,they seem to be incapable even of thinking how the war may be brought to an end4 ,they seem incapable of that plain speaking to the world audience which alone can bring about a peace4 ,they keep on with the tricks and feints of a departed age4 ,both on the side of the ,allies and on the side of the ,germans the declarations of public policy remain childishly vague and disingenuous1 childishly diplomatic4 ,they chaffer like happy imbeciles while civilization bleeds to death4 ,it was perhaps to be expected4 ,few1 if any1 men of over five-and-forty completely readjust themselves to changed conditions1 however novel and challenging the changes may be1 and nearly all the leading figures in these affairs are elderly men trained in a tradition of diplomatic ineffectiveness1 and now overworked and overstrained to a pitch of complete inelasticity4 ,they go on as if it were still #aiac4 ,could anything be more palpably shifty and unsatisfactory1 more senile1 more feebly artful1 than the recent utterances of the ,german ,chancellor8 ,and1 on our own side-- ,let us examine the three leading points about this peace business in which this jaded statecraft is most apparent4 ,let the reader ask himself the following questions3-- ,does he know what the ,allies mean to do with the problem of ,central ,africa8 ,it is the clear common sense of the ,african situation that while these precious regions of raw material remain divided up between a number of competitive ,european imperialisms1 each resolutely set upon the exploitation of its possessions to its own advantage and the disadvantage of the others1 there can be no permanent peace in the world4 ,there can be permanent peace in the world only when tropical and sub-tropical ,africa constitute a field free to the commercial enterprise of every one irrespective of nationality1 when this is no longer an area of competition between nations4 ,this is possible only under some supreme international control4 ,it requires no special knowledge nor wisdom to see that4 ,a schoolboy can see it4 ,any one but a statesman absolutely flaccid with overstrain can see that4 ,however difficult it may prove to work out in detail1 such an international control must therefore be worked out4 ,the manifest solution of the problem of the ,german colonies in ,africa is neither to return them to her nor deprive her of them1 but to give her a share in the pooled general control of mid-,africa4 ,in that way she can be deprived of all power for political mischief in ,africa without humiliation or economic injury4 ,in that way1 too1 we can head off--and in no other way can we head off--the power for evil1 the power of developing quarrels inherent in imperialisms other than ,german4 ,but has the reader any assurance that this sane solution of the ,african problem has the support of the ,allied ,governments8 ,at best he has only a vague persuasion4 ,and consider how the matter looks over there4 ,the ,german ,government assures the ,german people that the ,allies intend to cut off ,germany from the ,african supply of raw material4 ,that would mean the practical destruction of ,german economic life4 ,it is something far more vital to the mass of ,germans than any question of ,belgium or ,alsace-,lorraine4 ,it is1 therefore1 one of the ideas most potent in nerving the overstrained ,german people to continue their fight4 ,why are we1 and why are the ,german people1 not given some definite assurance in this matter8 ,given reparation in ,europe1 is ,germany to be allowed a fair share in the control and trade of a pooled and neutralized ,central ,africa8 ,sooner or later we must come to some such arrangement4 ,why not state it plainly now8 ,a second question is equally essential to any really permanent settlement1 and it is one upon which these eloquent but unsatisfactory mouthpieces of ours turn their backs with an equal resolution1 and that is the fate of the ,ottoman ,empire4 ,what in plain ,english are we up to there8 ,whatever happens1 that ,humpty ,dumpty cannot be put back as it was before the war4 ,the idea of the ,german imperialist1 the idea of our own little band of noisy but influential imperialist vulgarians1 is evidently a game of grab1 a perilous cutting up of these areas into jostling protectorates and spheres of influence1 from which either the ,germans or the ,allies 7according to the side you are on7 are to be viciously shut out4 ,on such a basis this war is a war to the death4 ,neither ,germany1 ,france1 ,britain1 ,italy1 nor ,russia can live prosperously if its trade and enterprise is shut out from this cardinally important area4 ,there is1 therefore1 no alternative1 if we are to have a satisfactory permanent pacification of the world1 but local self-development in these regions under honestly conceived international control of police and transit and trade4 ,let it be granted that that will be a difficult control to organize4 ,none the less it has to be attempted4 ,it has to be attempted because there is no other way of peace4 ,but once that conception has been clearly formulated1 a second great motive why ,germany should continue fighting will have gone4 ,the third great issue about which there is nothing but fog and uncertainty is the so-called ,war ,after the ,war1 the idea of a permanent economic alliance to prevent the economic recuperation of ,germany4 ,upon that idea ,german imperialism1 in its frantic effort to keep its tormented people fighting1 naturally puts the utmost stress4 ,the threat of ,war after the ,war robs the reasonable ,german of his last inducement to turn on his ,government and insist upon peace4 ,shut out from all trade1 unable to buy food1 deprived of raw material1 peace would be as bad for ,germany as war4 ,he will argue naturally enough and reasonably enough that he may as well die fighting as starve4 ,this is a far more vital issue to him than the ,belgian issue or ,poland or ,alsace-,lorraine4 ,our statesmen waste their breath and slight our intelligence when these foreground questions are thrust in front of the really fundamental matters4 ,but as the mass of sensible people in every country concerned1 in ,germany just as much as in ,france or ,great ,britain1 know perfectly well1 unimpeded trade is good for every one except a few rich adventurers1 and restricted trade destroys limitless wealth and welfare for mankind to make a few private fortunes or secure an advantage for some imperialist clique4 ,we want an end to this economic strategy1 we want an end to this plotting of ,governmental cliques against the general welfare4 ,in such offences ,germany has been the chief of sinners1 but which among the belligerent nations can throw the first stone8 ,here again the way to the world's peace1 the only way to enduring peace1 lies through internationalism1 through an international survey of commercial treaties1 through an international control of inter-,state shipping and transport rates4 ,unless the ,allied statesmen fail to understand the implications of their own general professions they mean that4 ,but why do they not say it plainly8 ,why do they not shout it so compactly and loudly that all ,germany will hear and understand8 ,why do they justify imperialism to ,germany8 ,why do they maintain a threatening ambiguity towards ,germany on all these matters8 ,by doing so they leave ,germany no choice but a war of desperation4 ,they underline and endorse the claim of ,german imperialism that this is a war for bare existence4 ,they unify the ,german people4 ,they prolong the war4 #c ,some weeks later ,i was able1 at the invitation of the editor1 to carry the controversy against imperialism into the ,daily ,mail1 which has hitherto counted as a strictly imperialist paper4 ,the article that follows was published in the ,daily ,mail under the heading1 ,are we ,sticking to the ,point8 ,a ,discussion of ,war ,aims4 ,has this ,war-,aims controversy really got down to essentials8 ,is the purpose of this world conflict from first to last too complicated for brevity1 or can we boil it down into a statement compact enough for a newspaper article8 ,and if we can1 why is there all this voluminous1 uneasy1 unquenchable disputation about ,war ,aims8 ,as to the first question1 ,i would say that the gist of the dispute between the ,central ,powers and the world can be written easily without undue cramping in an ordinary handwriting upon a postcard4 ,it is the second question that needs answering4 ,and the reason why the second question has to be asked and answered is this1 that several of the ,allies1 and particularly we ,british1 are not being perfectly plain and simple-minded in our answer to the first1 that there is a division among us and in our minds1 and that our division is making us ambiguous in our behaviour1 that it is weakening and dividing our action and strengthening and consolidating the enemy1 and that unless we can drag this slurred-over division of aim and spirit into the light of day and settle it now1 we are likely to remain double-minded to the end of the war1 to split our strength while the war continues and to come out of the settlement at the end with nothing nearly worth the strain and sacrifice it has cost us4 ,and first1 let us deal with that postcard and say what is the essential aim of the war1 the aim to which all other aims are subsidiary4 ,it is1 we have heard repeated again and again by every statesman of importance in every ,allied country1 to defeat and destroy military imperialism1 to make the world safe for ever against any such deliberate aggression as ,germany prepared for forty years and brought to a climax when she crossed the ,belgian frontier in #aiad4 ,we want to make anything of that kind on the part of ,germany or of any other ,power henceforth impossible in this world4 ,that is our great aim4 ,whatever other objects may be sought in this war no responsible statesman dare claim them as anything but subsidiary to that2 one can say1 in fact1 this is our sole aim1 our other aims being but parts of it4 ,better that millions should die now1 we declare1 than that hundreds of millions still unborn should go on living1 generation after generation1 under the black tyranny of this imperialist threat4 ,there is our common agreement4 ,so far1 at any rate1 we are united4 ,the question ,i would put to the reader is this3 ,are we all logically1 sincerely1 and fully carrying out the plain implications of this ,war ,aim8 ,or are we to any extent muddling about with it in such a way as to confuse and disorganize our ,allies1 weaken our internal will1 and strengthen the enemy8 ,now the plain meaning of this supreme declared ,war ,aim is that we are asking ,germany to alter her ways4 ,we are asking ,germany to become a different ,germany4 ,either ,germany has to be utterly smashed up and destroyed or else ,germany has to cease to be an aggressive military imperialism4 ,the former alternative is dismissed by most responsible statesmen4 ,they declare that they do not wish to destroy the ,german people or the ,german nationality or the civilized life of ,germany4 ,i will not enlarge here upon the tedium and difficulties such an undertaking would present4 ,i will dismiss it as being not only impossible1 but also as an insanely wicked project4 ,the second alternative1 therefore1 remains as our ,war ,aim4 ,i do not see how the sloppiest reasoner can evade that4 ,as we do not want to kill ,germany we must want to change ,germany4 ,if we do not want to wipe ,germany off the face of the earth1 then we want ,germany to become the prospective and trust-worthy friend of her fellow nations4 ,and if words have any meaning at all1 that is saying that we are fighting to bring about a ,revolution in ,germany4 ,we want ,germany to become a democratically controlled ,state1 such as is the ,united ,states to-day1 with open methods and pacific intentions1 instead of remaining a clenched fist4 ,if we can bring that about we have achieved our ,war ,aim2 if we cannot1 then this struggle has been for us only such loss and failure as humanity has never known before4 ,but do we1 as a nation1 stick closely to this clear and necessary1 this only possible1 meaning of our declared ,war ,aim8 ,that great1 clear-minded leader among the ,allies1 that ,englishman who more than any other single man speaks for the whole ,english-speaking and ,western-thinking community1 ,president ,wilson1 has said definitely that this is his meaning4 ,america1 with him as her spokesman1 is under no delusion2 she is fighting consciously for a ,german ,revolution as the essential ,war ,aim4 ,we in ,europe do not seem to be so lucid4 ,i think myself we have been1 and are still1 fatally and disastrously not lucid4 ,it is high time1 and over1 that we cleared our minds and got down to the essentials of the war4 ,we have muddled about in blood and dirt and secondary issues long enough4 ,we in ,britain are not clear-minded1 ,i would point out1 because we are double-minded4 ,no good end is served by trying to ignore in the fancied interests of unity a division of spirit and intention that trips us up at every step4 ,we are1 we declare1 fighting for a complete change in international methods1 and we are bound to stick to the logical consequences of that4 ,we have placed ourselves on the side of democratic revolution against autocratic monarchy1 and we cannot afford to go on shilly-shallying with that choice4 ,we cannot in these days of black or white play the part of lukewarm friends to freedom4 ,i will not remind the reader here of the horrible vacillations and inconsistencies of policy in ,greece that have prolonged the war and cost us wealth and lives beyond measure1 but ,president ,wilson himself has reminded us pungently enough and sufficiently enough of the follies and disingenuousness of our early treatment of the ,russian ,revolution4 ,what ,i want to point out here is the supreme importance of a clear lead in this matter now in order that we should state our ,war ,aims effectively4 ,in every war there must be two sets of ,war ,aims kept in mind2 we ought to know what we mean to do in the event of victory so complete that we can dictate what terms we choose1 and we ought to know what1 in the event of a not altogether conclusive tussle1 are the minimum terms that we should consider justified us in a discontinuance of the tussle4 ,now1 unless our leading statesmen are humbugs and unless we are prepared to quarrel with ,america in the interests of the monarchist institutions of ,europe1 we should1 in the event of an overwhelming victory1 destroy both the ,hohenzollern and ,hapsburg ,imperialisms1 and that means1 if it means anything at all and is not mere lying rhetoric1 that we should insist upon ,germany becoming free and democratic1 that is to say1 in effect if not in form republican1 and upon a series of national republics1 ,polish1 ,hungarian1 ,serbo-,croatian1 ,bulgarian1 and the like1 in ,eastern ,europe1 grouped together if possible into congenial groups--crowned republics it might be in some cases1 in the case of the ,serb for example1 but in no case too much crowned--that we should join with this renascent ,germany and with these thus liberalized ,powers and with our ,allies and with the neutrals in one great ,league of ,free ,nations1 trading freely with one another1 guaranteeing each other freedom1 and maintaining a world-wide peace and disarmament and a new reign of law for mankind4 ,if that is not what we are out for1 then ,i do not understand what we are out for2 there is dishonesty and trickery and diplomacy and foolery in the struggle1 and ,i am no longer whole-hearted for such a half-hearted war4 ,if after a complete victory we are to bolster up the ,hohenzollerns1 ,hapsburgs1 and their relations1 set up a constellation of more cheating little subordinate kings1 and reinstate that system of diplomacies and secret treaties and secret understandings1 that endless drama of international threatening and plotting1 that never-ending arming1 that has led us after a hundred years of waste and muddle to the supreme tragedy of this war1 then the world is not good enough for me and ,i shall be glad to close my eyes upon it4 ,i am not alone in these sentiments4 ,i believe that in writing thus ,i am writing the opinion of the great mass of reasonable ,british1 ,french1 ,italian1 ,russian1 and ,american men4 ,i believe1 too1 that this is the desire also of great numbers of ,germans1 and that they would1 if they could believe us1 gladly set aside their present rulers to achieve this plain common good for mankind4 ,but1 the reader will say1 what evidence is there of any republican feeling in ,germany8 ,that is always the objection made to any reasonable discussion of the war--and as most of us are denied access to ,german papers1 it is difficult to produce quotations2 and even when one does1 there are plenty of fools to suggest and believe that the entire ,german ,press is an elaborate camouflage4 ,yet in the ,german ,press there is far more criticism of militant imperialism than those who have no access to it can imagine4 ,there is far franker criticism of militarism in ,germany than there is of reactionary ,toryism in this country1 and it is more free to speak its mind4 ,that1 however1 is a question by the way4 ,it is not the main thing that ,i have to say here4 ,what ,i have to say here is that in ,great ,britain--,i will not discuss the affairs of any of our ,allies--there are groups and classes of people1 not numerous1 not representative1 but placed in high and influential positions and capable of free and public utterance1 who are secretly and bitterly hostile to this great ,war ,aim1 which inspires all the ,allied peoples4 ,these people are permitted to deny--our peculiar censorship does not hamper them--loudly and publicly that we are fighting for democracy and world freedom2 ,tosh1 they say to our dead in the trenches1 you died for a mistake2 they jeer at this idea of a ,league of ,nations making an end to war1 an idea that has inspired countless brave lads to face death and such pains and hardships as outdo even death itself2 they perplex and irritate our ,allies by propounding schemes for some precious economic league of the ,british ,empire--that is to treat all foreigners with a common base selfishness and stupid hatred--and they intrigue with the most reactionary forces in ,russia4 ,these ,british reactionaries openly1 and with perfect impunity1 represent our war as a thing as mean and shameful as ,germany's attack on ,belgium1 and they do it because generosity and justice in the world is as terrible to them as dawn is to the creatures of the night4 ,our ,tories blundered into this great war1 not seeing whither it would take them4 ,in particular it is manifest now by a hundred signs that they dread the fall of monarchy in ,germany and ,austria4 ,far rather would they make the most abject surrenders to the ,kaiser than deal with a renascent ,republican ,germany4 ,the recent letter of ,lord ,lansdowne1 urging a peace with ,german imperialism1 was but a feeler from the pacifist side of this most un-,english1 and unhappily most influential1 section of our public life4 ,lord ,lansdowne's letter was the letter of a ,peer who fears revolution more than national dishonour4 ,but it is the truculent wing of this same anti-democratic movement that is far more active4 ,while our sons suffer and die for their comforts and conceit1 these people scheme to prevent any communication between the ,republican and ,socialist classes in ,germany and the ,allied population4 ,at any cost this class of pampered and privileged traitors intend to have peace while the ,kaiser is still on his throne4 ,if not they face a new world--in which their part will be small indeed4 ,and with the utmost ingenuity they maintain a dangerous vagueness about the ,allied peace terms1 with the sole object of preventing a revolutionary movement in ,germany4 ,let me put it to the reader exactly why our failure to say plainly and exactly and conclusively what we mean to do about a score of points1 and particularly about ,german economic life after the war1 paralyses the penitents and friends and helpers that we could now find in ,germany4 ,let me ask the reader to suppose himself a ,german in ,germany at the present time4 ,of course if he was1 he is sure that he would hate the ,kaiser as the source of this atrocious war1 he would be bitterly ashamed of the ,belgian iniquity1 of the submarine murders1 and a score of such stains upon his national honour2 and he would want to alter his national system and make peace4 ,hundreds of thousands of ,germans are in that mood now4 ,but as most of us have had to learn1 a man may be bitterly ashamed of this or that incident in his country's history--what ,englishman1 for instance1 can be proud of ,glencoe8--he may disbelieve in half its institutions and still love his country far too much to suffer the thought of its destruction4 ,i prefer to see my country right1 but if it comes to the pinch and my country sins ,i will fight to save her from the destruction her sins may have brought upon her4 ,that is the natural way of a man4 ,but suppose a ,german wished to try to start a revolutionary movement in ,germany at the present time1 have we given him any reason at all for supposing that a ,germany liberated and democratized1 but1 of course1 divided and weakened as she would be bound to be in the process1 would get better terms from the ,allies than a ,germany still facing them1 militant1 imperialist1 and wicked8 ,he would have no reason for believing anything of the sort4 ,if we ,allies are honest1 then if a revolution started in ,germany to-day we should if anything lower the price of peace to ,germany4 ,but these people who pretend to lead us will state nothing of the sort4 ,for them a revolution in ,germany would be the signal for putting up the price of peace4 ,at any risk they are resolved that that ,german revolution shall not happen4 ,your sane1 good ,german1 let me assert1 is up against that as hard as if he was a wicked one4 ,and so1 poor devil1 he has to put his revolutionary ideas away1 they are hopeless ideas for him because of the power of the ,british reactionary1 they are hopeless because of the line we as a nation take in this matter1 and he has to go on fighting for his masters4 ,a plain statement of our war aims that did no more than set out honestly and convincingly the terms the ,allies would make with a democratic republican ,germany--republican ,i say1 because where a scrap of ,hohenzollern is left to-day there will be a fresh militarism to-morrow--would absolutely revolutionize the internal psychology of ,germany4 ,we should no longer face a solid people4 ,we should have replaced the false issue of ,germany and ,britain fighting for the hegemony of ,europe1 the lie upon which the ,german ,government has always traded1 and in which our extreme ,tory ,press has always supported the ,german ,government1 by the true issue1 which is freedom versus imperialism1 the ,league of ,nations versus that net of diplomatic roguery and of aristocratic1 plutocratic1 and autocratic greed and conceit which dragged us all into this vast welter of bloodshed and loss4 ,,vi ,,the ,,war ,,aims ,,of ,,the ,,western ,,allies ,here1 quite compactly1 is the plain statement of the essential cause and process of the war to which ,i would like to see the ,allied ,foreign ,offices subscribe1 and which ,i would like to have placed plainly before the ,german mind4 ,it embodies much that has been learnt and thought out since this war began1 and ,i think it is much truer and more fundamental than that mere raging against ,german militarism1 upon which our politicians and press still so largely subsist4 ,the enormous development of war methods and war material within the last fifty years has made war so horrible and destructive that it is impossible to contemplate a future for mankind from which it has not been eliminated2 the increased facilities of railway1 steamship1 automobile travel and air navigation have brought mankind so close together that ordinary human life is no longer safe anywhere in the boundaries of the little states in which it was once secure4 ,in some fashion it is now necessary to achieve sufficient human unity to establish a world peace and save the future of mankind4 ,in one or other of two ways only is that unification possible4 ,either men may set up a common league to keep the peace of the earth1 or one state must ultimately become so great and powerful as to repeat for all the world what ,rome did for ,europe two thousand years ago4 ,either we must have human unity by a league of existing states or by an ,imperial ,conquest4 ,the former is now the declared ,aim of our country and its ,allies2 the latter is manifestly the ambition of the present rulers of ,germany4 ,whatever the complications may have been in the earlier stages of the war1 due to treaties that are now dead letters and agreements that are extinct1 the essential issue now before every man in the world is this3 ,is the unity of mankind to be the unity of a common freedom1 in which every race and nationality may participate with complete self-respect1 playing its part1 according to its character1 in one great world community1 or is it to be reached--and it can only be so reached through many generations of bloodshed and struggle still1 even if it can be ever reached in this way at all--through conquest and a ,german hegemony8 ,while the rulers of ,germany to-day are more openly aggressive and imperialist than they were in ,august1 #aiad1 the ,allies arrayed against them have made great progress in clearing up and realizing the instincts and ideals which brought them originally into the struggle4 ,the ,german government offers the world to-day a warring future in which ,germany alone is to be secure and powerful and proud4 ,mankind will not endure that4 ,the ,allies offer the world more and more definitely the scheme of an organized ,league of ,free ,nations1 a rule of law and justice about the earth4 ,to fight for that and for no other conceivable end1 the ,united ,states of ,america1 with the full sympathy and co-operation of every state in the western hemisphere1 has entered the war4 ,the ,british ,empire1 in the midst of the stress of the great war1 has set up in ,dublin a ,convention of ,irishmen of all opinions with the fullest powers of deciding upon the future of their country4 ,if ,ireland were not divided against herself she could be free and equal with ,england to-morrow4 ,it is the open intention of ,great ,britain to develop representative government1 where it has not hitherto existed1 in ,india and ,egypt1 to go on steadfastly increasing the share of the natives of these countries in the government of their own lands1 until they too become free and equal members of the world league4 ,neither ,france nor ,italy nor ,britain nor ,america has ever tampered with the shipping of other countries except in time of war1 and the trade of the ,british ,empire has been impartially open to all the world4 ,the extra-national possessions1 the so-called subject nations in the ,empires of ,britain1 ,france1 ,italy1 and ,japan1 are1 in fact1 possessions held in trust against the day when the ,league of ,free ,nations will inherit for mankind4 ,is it to be union by conquest or is it to be union by league8 ,for any sort of man except the ,german the question is1 ,will you be a free citizen or will you be an underling to the ,german imperialism8 ,for the ,german now the question is a far graver and more tragic one4 ,for him it is this3 ,you belong to a people not now increasing very rapidly1 a numerous people1 but not so numerous as some of the great peoples of the world1 a people very highly trained1 very well drilled and well armed1 perhaps as well trained and drilled and equipped as ever it will be4 ,the collapse of ,russian imperialism has made you safe if now you can get peace1 and you can get a peace now that will neither destroy you nor humiliate you nor open up the prospect of fresh wars4 ,the ,allies offer you such a peace4 ,to accept it1 we must warn you plainly1 means refusing to go on with the manifest intentions of your present rulers1 which are to launch you and your children and your children's children upon a career of struggle for war predominance1 which may no doubt inflict untold deprivations and miseries upon the rest of mankind1 but whose end in the long run1 for ,germany and things ,german1 can be only ,judgment and ,death4 ,in such terms as these the ,oceanic ,allies could now state their war-will and carry the world straightway into a new phase of human history4 ,they could but they do not4 ,for alas6 not one of them is free from the entanglements of past things2 when we look for the wisdom of statesmen we find the cunning of politicians2 when open speech and plain reason might save the world1 courts1 bureaucrats1 financiers and profiteers conspire4 ,,vii ,,the ,,future ,,of ,,monarchy ,from the very outset of this war it was manifest to the clear-headed observer that only the complete victory of ,german imperialism could save the dynastic system in ,europe from the fate that it had challenged4 ,that curious system had been the natural and unplanned development of the political complications of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries4 ,two systems of monarchies1 the ,bourbon system and the ,german1 then ruled ,europe between them4 ,with the latter was associated the tradition of the ,european unity under the ,roman empire2 all the ,germanic monarchs had an itch to be called ,caesar4 ,the ,kaiser of the ,austro-,hungarian empire and the ,czar had1 so to speak1 the prior claim to the title4 ,the ,prussian king set up as a ,caesar in #ahga2 ,queen ,victoria became the ,caesar of ,india 7,kaisir-i-,hind7 under the auspices of ,lord ,beaconsfield1 and last and least1 that most detestable of all ,coburgers1 ,ferdinand of ,bulgaria1 gave ,kaiserism a touch of quaint absurdity by setting up as ,czar of ,bulgaria4 ,the weakening of the ,bourbon system by the ,french revolution and the ,napoleonic adventure cleared the way for the complete ascendancy of the ,germanic monarchies in spite of the breaking away of the ,united ,states from that system4 ,after #ahga1 a constellation of quasi-divine ,teutonic monarchs1 of which the ,german ,emperor1 the ,german ,queen ,victoria1 the ,german ,czar1 were the greatest stars1 formed a caste apart1 intermarried only among themselves1 dominated the world and was regarded with a mystical awe by the ignorant and foolish in most ,european countries4 ,the marriages1 the funerals1 the coronations1 the obstetrics of this amazing breed of idols were matters of almost universal worship4 ,the ,czar and ,queen ,victoria professed also to be the heads of religion upon earth4 ,the court-centered diplomacies of the more firmly rooted monarchies steered all the great liberating movements of the nineteenth century into monarchical channels4 ,italy was made a monarchy2 ,greece1 the motherland of republics1 was handed over to a needy scion of the ,danish royal family2 the sturdy peasants of ,bulgaria suffered from a kindred imposition4 ,even ,norway was saddled with as much of a king as it would stand1 as a condition of its independence4 ,at the dawn of the twentieth century republican freedom seemed a remote dream beyond the confines of ,switzerland and ,france--and it had no very secure air in ,france4 ,reactionary scheming has been an intermittent fever in the ,french republic for six and forty years4 ,the ,french foreign office is still undemocratic in tradition and temper4 ,but for the restless disloyalty of the ,hohenzollerns this ,german kingly caste might be dominating the world to this day4 ,of course the stability of this ,teutonic dynastic system in ,europe--which will presently seem to the student of history so curious a halting-place upon the way to human unity--rested very largely upon the maintenance of peace4 ,it was the failure to understand this on the part of the ,german and ,bulgarian rulers in particular that has now brought all monarchy to the question4 ,the implicit theory that supported the intermarrying ,german royal families in ,europe was that their inter-relationship and their aloofness from their subjects was a mitigation of national and racial animosities4 ,in the days when ,queen ,victoria was the grandmother of ,europe this was a plausible argument4 ,king1 ,czar and ,emperor1 or ,emperor and ,emperor would meet1 and it was understood that these meetings were the lubrication of ,european affairs4 ,the monarchs married largely1 conspicuously1 and very expensively for our good4 ,royal funerals1 marriages1 christenings1 coronations1 and jubilees interrupted traffic and stimulated trade everywhere4 ,they seemed to give a raison d'tre for mankind4 ,it is the ,emperor ,william and the ,czar ,ferdinand who have betrayed not only humanity but their own strange caste by shattering all these pleasant illusions4 ,the wisdom of ,kant is justified1 and we know now that kings cause wars4 ,it needed the shock of the great war to bring home the wisdom of that old ,scotchman of ,knigsberg to the mind of the ordinary man4 ,moreover in support of the dynastic system was the fact that it did exist as the system in possession1 and all prosperous and intelligent people are chary of disturbing existing things4 ,life is full of vestigial structures1 and it is a long way to logical perfection4 ,let us keep on1 they would argue1 with what we have4 ,and another idea which1 rightly or wrongly1 made men patient with the emperors and kings was an exaggerated idea of the insecurity of republican institutions4 ,you can still hear very old dull men say gravely that kings are better than pronunciamentos2 there was an article upon ,greece to this effect quite recently in that uncertain paper ,the ,new ,statesman4 ,then a kind of illustrative gesture would be made to the ,south ,american republics1 although the internal disturbances of the ,south ,american republics have diminished to very small dimensions in the last three decades and although pronunciamentos rarely disturb the traffic in ,switzerland1 the ,united ,states1 or ,france4 ,but there can be no doubt that the influence of the ,germanic monarchy up to the death of ,queen ,victoria upon ,british thought was in the direction of estrangement from the two great modern republics and in the direction of assistance and propitiation to ,germany4 ,we surrendered ,heligoland1 we made great concessions to ,german colonial ambitions1 we allowed ourselves to be jockeyed into a phase of dangerous hostility to ,france4 ,a practice of sneering at things ,american has died only very recently out of ,english journalism and literature1 as any one who cares to consult the bound magazines of the 'seventies and 'eighties may soon see for himself4 ,it is well too in these days not to forget ,colonel ,marchand1 if only to remember that such a clash must never recur4 ,but in justice to our monarchy we must remember that after the death of ,queen ,victoria1 the spirit1 if not the forms1 of ,british kingship was greatly modified by the exceptional character and ability of ,king ,edward ,,vii4 ,he was curiously anti-,german in spirit2 he had essentially democratic instincts2 in a few precious years he restored good will between ,france and ,great ,britain4 ,it is no slight upon his successor to doubt whether any one could have handled the present opportunities and risks of monarchy in ,great ,britain as ,edward could have handled them4 ,because no doubt if monarchy is to survive in the ,british ,empire it must speedily undergo the profoundest modification4 ,the old state of affairs cannot continue4 ,the ,european dynastic system1 based upon the intermarriage of a group of mainly ,german royal families1 is dead to-day2 it is freshly dead1 but it is as dead as the rule of the ,incas4 ,it is idle to close our eyes to this fact4 ,the revolution in ,russia1 the setting up of a republic in ,china1 demonstrating the ripeness of the ,east for free institutions1 the entry of the ,american republics into world politics--these things slam the door on any idea of working back to the old nineteenth-century system4 ,people calls to people4 ,no peace with the ,hohenzollerns is a cry that carries with it the final repudiation of emperors and kings4 ,the man in the street will assure you he wants no diplomatic peace4 ,beyond the unstable shapes of the present the political forms of the future rise now so clearly that they are the common talk of men4 ,kant's lucid thought told us long ago that the peace of the world demanded a world union of republics4 ,that is a commonplace remark now in every civilized community4 ,the stars in their courses1 the logic of circumstances1 the everyday needs and everyday intelligence of men1 all these things march irresistibly towards a permanent world peace based on democratic republicanism4 ,the question of the future of monarchy is not whether it will be able to resist and overcome that trend2 it has as little chance of doing that as the ,lama of ,thibet has of becoming ,emperor of the ,earth4 ,it is whether it will resist openly1 become the centre and symbol of a reactionary resistance1 and have to be abolished and swept away altogether everywhere1 as the ,romanoffs have already been swept away in ,russia1 or whether it will be able in this country and that to adapt itself to the necessities of the great age that dawns upon mankind1 to take a generous and helpful attitude towards its own modification1 and so survive1 for a time at any rate1 in that larger air4 ,it is the fashion for the apologists of monarchy in the ,british ,empire to speak of the ,british system as a crowned republic4 ,that is an attractive phrase to people of republican sentiments4 ,it is quite conceivable that the ,british ,empire may be able to make that phrase a reality and that the royal line may continue1 a line of hereditary presidents1 with some of the ancient trappings and something of the picturesque prestige that1 as the oldest monarchy in ,europe1 it has to-day4 ,two kings in ,europe have already gone far towards realizing this conception of a life president2 both the ,king of ,italy and the ,king of ,norway live as simply as if they were in the ,white ,house and are far more accessible4 ,along that line the ,british monarchy must go if it is not to go altogether4 ,will it go along those lines8 ,there are many reasons for hoping that it will do so4 ,the ,times has styled the crown the golden link of the empire4 ,australians and ,canadians1 it was argued1 had little love for the motherland but the greatest devotion to the sovereign1 and still truer was this of ,indians1 ,egyptians1 and the like4 ,it might be easy to press this theory of devotion too far1 but there can be little doubt that the ,british ,crown does at present stand as a symbol of unity over diversity such as no other crown1 unless it be that of ,austria-,hungary1 can be said to do4 ,the ,british crown is not like other crowns2 it may conceivably take a line of its own and emerge--possibly a little more like a hat and a little less like a crown--from trials that may destroy every other monarchial system in the world4 ,now many things are going on behind the scenes1 many little indications peep out upon the speculative watcher and vanish again2 but there is very little that is definite to go upon at the present time to determine how far the monarchy will rise to the needs of this great occasion4 ,certain acts and changes1 the initiative to which would come most gracefully from royalty itself1 could be done at this present time4 ,they may be done quite soon4 ,upon the doing of them wait great masses of public opinion4 ,the first of these things is for the ,british monarchy to sever itself definitely from the ,german dynastic system1 with which it is so fatally entangled by marriage and descent1 and to make its intention of becoming henceforth more and more ,british in blood as well as spirit1 unmistakably plain4 ,this idea has been put forth quite prominently in the ,times4 ,the king has been asked to give his countenance to the sweeping away of all those restrictions first set up by ,george the ,third1 upon the marriage of the ,royal ,princes with ,british1 ,french and ,american subjects4 ,the ,british ,empire is very near the limit of its endurance of a kingly caste of ,germans4 ,the choice of ,british royalty between its peoples and its cousins cannot be indefinitely delayed4 ,were it made now publicly and boldly1 there can be no doubt that the decision would mean a renascence of monarchy1 a considerable outbreak of royalist enthusiasm in the ,empire4 ,there are times when a king or queen must need be dramatic and must a little anticipate occasions4 ,it is not seemly to make concessions perforce2 kings may not make obviously unwilling surrenders2 it is the indecisive kings who lose their crowns4 ,no doubt the ,anglicization of the royal family by national marriages would gradually merge that family into the general body of the ,british peerage4 ,its consequent loss of distinction might be accompanied by an associated fading out of function1 until the ,king became at last hardly more functional than was the late ,duke of ,norfolk as premier peer4 ,possibly that is the most desirable course from many points of view4 ,it must be admitted that the abandonment of marriages within the royal caste and a bold attempt to introduce a strain of ,british blood in the royal family does not in itself fulfil all that is needed if the ,british king is indeed to become the crowned president of his people and the nominal and accepted leader of the movement towards republican institutions4 ,a thing that is productive of an enormous amount of republican talk in ,great ,britain is the suspicion--,i believe an ill-founded suspicion--that there are influences at work at court antagonistic to republican institutions in friendly states and that there is a disposition even to sacrifice the interests of the liberal allies to dynastic sympathies4 ,these things are not to be believed1 but it would be a feat of vast impressiveness if there were something like a royal and public repudiation of the weaknesses of cousinship4 ,the behaviour of the ,allies towards that great ,balkan statesman ,venizelos1 the sacrificing of the friendly ,greek republicans in favour of the manifestly treacherous ,king of ,greece1 has produced the deepest shame and disgust in many quarters that are altogether friendly1 that are even warmly loyal to the ,british monarchy4 ,and in a phase of tottering thrones it is very undesirable that the ,british habit of asylum should be abused4 ,we have already in ,england the dethroned monarch of a friendly republic2 he is no doubt duly looked after4 ,in the future there may be a shaking of the autumnal boughs and a shower of emperors and kings4 ,we do not want ,great ,britain to become a hotbed of reactionary plotting and the starting-point of restoration raids into the territories of emancipated peoples4 ,this is particularly desirable if presently1 after the ,kaiser's death--which by all the statistics of ,hohenzollern mortality cannot be delayed now for many years--the present ,crown ,prince goes a-wandering4 ,we do not want any ,german ex-monarchs2 ,sweden is always open to them and friendly1 and to ,sweden they ought to go2 and particularly do ,british people dread an irruption of ,hohenzollerns or ,coburgers4 ,almost as undesirable would be the arrival of the ,czar and ,czarina4 ,it is supremely important that no wind of suspicion should blow between us and the freedom of ,russia4 ,after the war even more than during the war will the enemy be anxious to sow discord between the great ,russian-speaking and ,english-speaking democracies4 ,quite apart from the scandal of their inelegant domesticities1 the establishment of the ,czar and ,czarina in ,england with frequent and easy access to our royal family may be extraordinarily unfortunate for the ,british monarchy4 ,i will confess a certain sympathy for the ,czar myself4 ,he is not an evil figure1 he is not a strong figure1 but he has that sort of weakness1 that failure in decision1 which trails revolution in its wake4 ,he has ended one dynasty already4 ,the ,british royal family owes it to itself1 that he bring not the infection of his misfortunes to ,windsor4 ,the security of the ,british monarchy lies in such a courageous severance of its destinies from the ,teutonic dynastic system4 ,will it make that severance8 ,there ,i share an almost universal ignorance4 ,the loyalty of the ,british is not to what kings are too prone to call my person1 not to a chosen and admired family1 but to a renascent mankind4 ,we have fought in this war for ,belgium1 for ,france1 for general freedom1 for civilization and the whole future of mankind1 far more than for ourselves4 ,we have not fought for a king4 ,we are discovering in that spirit of human unity that lies below the idea of a ,league of ,free ,nations the real invisible king of our heart and race4 ,but we will very gladly go on with our task under a nominal king unless he hampers us in the task that grows ever more plainly before us4 444 ,that1 ,i think1 is a fair statement of ,british public opinion on this question4 ,but every day when ,i am in ,london ,i walk past ,buckingham ,palace to lunch at my club1 and ,i look at that not very expressive faade and wonder--and we all wonder--what thoughts are going on behind it and what acts are being conceived there4 ,out of it there might yet come some gesture of acceptance magnificent enough to set beside ,president ,wilson's magnificent declaration of war4 444 ,these are things in the scales of fate4 ,i will not pretend to be able to guess even which way the scales will swing4 ,,viii ,,the ,,plain ,,necessity ,,for ,a ,,league ,great as the sacrifices of prejudice and preconception which any effective realization of this idea of a ,league of ,free ,nations will demand1 difficult as the necessary delegations of sovereignty must be1 none the less are such sacrifices and difficulties unavoidable4 ,people in ,france and ,italy and ,great ,britain and ,germany alike have to subdue their minds to the realization that some such ,league is now a necessity for them if their peace and national life are to continue4 ,there is no prospect before them but either some such ,league or else great humiliation and disastrous warfare driving them down towards social dissolution2 and for the ,united ,states it is only a question of a little longer time before the same alternatives have to be faced4 ,whether this war ends in the complete defeat of ,germany and ,german imperialism1 or in a revolutionary modernization of ,germany1 or in a practical triumph for the ,hohenzollerns1 are considerations that affect the nature and scope of the ,league1 but do not affect its essential necessity4 ,in the first two cases the ,league of ,free ,nations will be a world league including ,germany as a principal partner1 in the latter case the ,league of ,free ,nations will be a defensive league standing steadfast against the threat of a world imperialism1 and watching and restraining with one common will the homicidal maniac in its midst4 ,but in all these cases there can be no great alleviation of the evils that now blacken and threaten to ruin human life altogether1 unless all the civilized and peace-seeking peoples of the world are pledged and locked together under a common law and a common world policy4 ,there must rather be an intensification of these evils4 ,there must be wars more evil than this war continuing this war1 and more destructive of civilized life4 ,there can be no peace and hope for our race but an organized peace and hope1 armed against disturbance as a state is armed against mad1 ferocious1 and criminal men4 ,now1 there are two chief arguments1 running one into the other1 for the necessity of merging our existing sovereignties into a greater and1 if possible1 a world-wide league4 ,the first is the present geographical impossibility of nearly all the existing ,european states and empires2 and the second is the steadily increasing disproportion between the tortures and destructions inflicted by modern warfare and any possible advantages that may arise from it4 ,underlying both arguments is the fact that modern developments of mechanical science have brought the nations of ,europe together into too close a proximity4 ,this present war1 more than anything else1 is a violent struggle between old political ideas and new antagonistic conditions4 ,it is the unhappy usage of our schools and universities to study the history of mankind only during periods of mechanical unprogressiveness4 ,the historical ideas of ,europe range between the time when the ,greeks were going about the world on foot or horseback or in galleys or sailing ships to the days when ,napoleon1 ,wellington1 and ,nelson were going about at very much the same pace in much the same vehicles and vessels4 ,at the advent of steam and electricity the muse of history holds her nose and shuts her eyes4 ,science will study and get the better of a modern disease1 as1 for example1 sleeping sickness1 in spite of the fact that it has no classical standing2 but our history schools would be shocked at the bare idea of studying the effect of modern means of communication upon administrative areas1 large or small4 ,this defect in our historical training has made our minds politically sluggish4 ,we fail to adapt readily enough4 ,in small things and great alike we are trying to run the world in areas marked out in or before the eighteenth century1 regardless of the fact that a man or an army or an aeroplane can get in a few minutes or a few hours to points that it would have taken days or weeks to reach under the old foot-and-horse conditions4 ,that matters nothing to the learned men who instruct our statesmen and politicians4 ,it matters everything from the point of view of social and economic and political life4 ,and the grave fact to consider is that all the great states of ,europe1 except for the unification of ,italy and ,germany1 are still much of the size and in much the same boundaries that made them strong and safe in the eighteenth century1 that is to say1 in the closing years of the foot-horse period4 ,the ,british empire grew and was organized under those conditions1 and had to modify itself only a little to meet the needs of steam shipping4 ,all over the world are its linked possessions and its ports and coaling stations and fastnesses on the trade routes4 ,and ,british people still look at the red-splashed map of the world with the profoundest self-satisfaction1 blind to the swift changes that are making that scattered empire--if it is to remain an isolated system--almost the most dangerous conceivable4 ,let me ask the ,british reader who is disposed to sneer at the ,league of ,nations and say he is very well content with the empire1 thank you1 to get his atlas and consider one or two propositions4 ,and1 first1 let him think of aviation4 ,i can assure him1 because upon this matter ,i have some special knowledge1 that long-distance air travel for men1 for letters and light goods and for bombs1 is continually becoming more practicable4 ,but the air routes that air transport will follow must go over a certain amount of land1 for this reason that every few hundred miles at the longest the machine must come down for petrol4 ,a flying machine with a safe non-stop range of #aejj miles is still a long way off4 ,it may indeed be permanently impracticable because there seems to be an upward limit to the size of an aeroplane engine4 ,and now will the reader take the map of the world and study the air routes from ,london to the rest of the empire8 ,he will find them perplexing--if he wants them to be ,all-,red4 ,happily this is not a ,british difficulty only4 ,will he next study the air routes from ,paris to the rest of the ,french possessions8 ,and1 finally1 will he study the air routes out of ,germany to anywhere8 ,the ,germans are as badly off as any people4 ,but we are all badly off4 ,so far as world air transit goes any country can1 if it chooses1 choke any adjacent country4 ,directly any trade difficulty breaks out1 any country can begin a vexatious campaign against its neighbour's air traffic4 ,it can oblige it to alight at the frontier1 to follow prescribed routes1 to land at specified places on those routes and undergo examinations that will waste precious hours4 ,but so far as ,i can see1 no ,european statesman1 ,german or ,allied1 have begun to give their attention to this amazing difficulty4 ,without a great pooling of air control1 either a world-wide pooling or a pooling at least of the ,atlantic-,mediterranean ,allies in one ,air ,league1 the splendid peace possibilities of air transport--and they are indeed splendid--must remain very largely a forbidden possibility to mankind4 ,and as a second illustration of the way in which changing conditions are altering political questions1 let the reader take his atlas and consider the case of that impregnable fastness1 that great naval station1 that ,key to the ,mediterranean1 ,gibraltar4 ,british boys are brought up on ,gibraltar and the ,gibraltar idea4 ,to the ,british imagination ,gibraltar is almost as sacred a national symbol as the lions in ,trafalgar ,square4 ,now1 in his atlas the reader will almost certainly find an inset map of this valuable possession1 coloured bright red4 ,the inset map will have attached to it a small scale of miles4 ,from that he will be able to satisfy himself that there is not an inch of the rock anywhere that is not within five miles or less of ,spanish land1 and that there is rather more than a semicircle of hills round the rock within a range of seven or eight miles4 ,that is much less than the range of a sixteen-inch gun4 ,in other words1 the ,spaniards are in a position to knock ,gibraltar to bits whenever they want to do so1 or to smash and sink any ships in its harbour4 ,they can hit it on every side4 ,consider1 moreover1 that there are long sweeps of coast north1 south1 and west of the ,rock1 from which torpedoes could be discharged at any ship that approached4 ,inquire further where on the ,rock an aeroplane can land4 ,and having ascertained these things1 ask yourself what is the present value of ,gibraltar8 ,i will not multiply disagreeable instances of this sort1 though it would be easy enough to do so in the case both of ,france and ,italy as well as of ,great ,britain4 ,i give them as illustrations of the way in which everywhere old securities and old arrangements must be upset by the greater range of modern things4 ,let us get on to more general conditions4 ,there is not a capital city in ,europe that twenty years from now will not be liable to a bombing raid done by hundreds or even thousands of big aeroplanes1 upon or even before a declaration of war1 and there is not a line of sea communication that will not be as promptly interrupted by the hostile submarine4 ,i point these things out here only to carry home the fact that the ideas of sovereign isolation and detachment that were perfectly valid in #aijj1 the self-sufficient empire1 ,imperial ,zollverein and all that stuff1 and damn the foreigner6 are now1 because of the enormous changes in range of action and facility of locomotion that have been going on1 almost as wild--or would be if we were not so fatally accustomed to them--and quite as dangerous1 as the idea of setting up a free and sovereign state in the ,isle of ,dogs4 ,all the ,european empires are becoming vulnerable at every point4 ,surely the moral is obvious4 ,the only wise course before the allied ,european powers now is to put their national conceit in their pockets and to combine to lock up their foreign policy1 their trade interests1 and all their imperial and international interests into a ,league so big as to be able to withstand the most sudden and treacherous of blows4 ,and surely the only completely safe course for them and mankind--hard and nearly impossible though it may seem at the present juncture--is for them to lock up into one unity with a democratized ,germany and with all the other states of the earth into one peace-maintaining ,league4 ,if the reader will revert again to his atlas he will see very clearly that a strongly consolidated ,league of ,free ,nations1 even if it consisted only of our present allies1 would in itself form a combination with so close a system of communication about the world1 and so great an economic advantage1 that in the long run it could oblige ,germany and the rest of the world to come in to its council4 ,divided the ,oceanic ,allies are1 to speak plainly1 geographical rags and nakedness2 united they are a world4 ,to set about organizing that ,league now1 with its necessary repudiation on the part of ,britain1 ,france1 and ,italy1 of a selfish and1 it must be remembered in the light of these things ,i have but hinted at here1 a now hopelessly unpracticable imperialism1 would1 ,i am convinced1 lead quite rapidly to a great change of heart in ,germany and to a satisfactory peace4 ,but even if ,i am wrong in that1 then all the stronger is the reason for binding1 locking and uniting the allied powers together4 ,it is the most dangerous of delusions for each and all of them to suppose that either ,britain1 ,france or ,italy can ever stand alone again and be secure4 ,and turning now to the other aspect of these consequences of the development of material science1 it is too often assumed that this war is being as horrible and destructive as war can be4 ,there never was so great a delusion4 ,this war has only begun to be horrible4 ,no doubt it is much more horrible and destructive than any former war1 but even in comparison with the full possibilities of known and existing means of destruction it is still a mild war4 ,perhaps it will never rise to its full possibilities4 ,at the present stage there is not a combatant1 except perhaps ,america1 which is not now practising a pinching economy of steel and other mechanical material4 ,the ,germans are running short of first-class flying men1 and if we and our allies continue to press the air attack1 and seek out and train our own vastly greater resources of first quality young airmen1 the ,germans may come as near to being driven out of the air as is possible4 ,i am a firmer believer than ever ,i was in the possibility of a complete victory over ,germany--through and by the air4 ,but the occasional dropping of a big bomb or so in ,london is not to be taken as anything but a minimum display of what air war can do4 ,in a little while now our alliance should be in a position to commence day and night continuous attacks upon the ,rhine towns4 ,not hour-long raids such as ,london knows1 but week-long raids4 ,then and then only shall we be able to gauge the really horrible possibilities of the air war4 ,they are in our hands and not in the hands of the ,germans4 ,in addition the ,germans are at a huge disadvantage in their submarine campaign4 ,their submarine campaign is only the feeble shadow of what a submarine campaign might be4 ,turning again to the atlas the reader can see for himself that the ,german and ,austrian submarines are obliged to come out across very narrow fronts4 ,a fence of mines less than three hundred miles long and two hundred feet deep would1 for example1 completely bar their exit through the ,north ,sea4 ,the ,u-boats run the gauntlet of that long narrow sea and pay a heavy toll to it4 ,if only our ,admiralty would tell the ,german public what that toll is now1 there would come a time when ,german seamen would no longer consent to go down in them4 ,consider1 however1 what a submarine campaign would be for ,great ,britain if instead of struggling through this bottle-neck it were conducted from the coast of ,norway1 where these pests might harbour in a hundred fiords4 ,consider too what this weapon may be in twenty years' time in the hands of a country in the position of the ,united ,states4 ,great ,britain1 if she is not altogether mad1 will cease to be an island as soon as possible after the war1 by piercing the ,channel ,tunnel--how different our transport problem would be if we had that now6--but such countries as ,australia1 ,new ,zealand1 and ,japan1 directly they are involved in the future in a war against any efficient naval power with an unimpeded sea access1 will be isolated forthwith4 ,i cannot conceive that any of the great ocean powers will rest content until such a tremendous possibility of blockade as the submarine has created is securely vested in the hands of a common league beyond any power of sudden abuse4 ,it must always be remembered that this war is a mechanical war conducted by men whose discipline renders them uninventive1 who know little or nothing of mechanism1 who are for the most part struggling blindly to get things back to the conditions for which they were trained1 to ,napoleonic conditions1 with infantry and cavalry and comparatively light guns1 the so-called war of manoeuvres4 ,it is like a man engaged in a desperate duel who keeps on trying to make it a game of cricket4 ,most of these soldiers detest every sort of mechanical device2 the tanks1 for example1 which1 used with imagination1 might have given the ,british and ,french overwhelming victory on the western front1 were subordinated to the usual cavalry break through idea4 ,i am not making any particular complaint against the ,british and ,french generals in saying this4 ,it is what must happen to any country which entrusts its welfare to soldiers4 ,a soldier has to be a severely disciplined man1 and a severely disciplined man cannot be a versatile man1 and on the whole the ,british army has been as receptive to novelties as any4 ,the ,german generals have done no better2 indeed1 they have not done so well as the generals of the ,allies in this respect4 ,but after the war1 if the world does not organize rapidly for peace1 then as resources accumulate a little1 the mechanical genius will get to work on the possibilities of these ideas that have merely been sketched out in this war4 ,we shall get big land ironclads which will smash towns4 ,we shall get air offensives--let the experienced ,london reader think of an air raid going on hour after hour1 day after day--that will really burn out and wreck towns1 that will drive people mad by the thousand4 ,we shall get a very complete cessation of sea transit4 ,even land transit may be enormously hampered by aerial attack4 ,i doubt if any sort of social order will really be able to stand the strain of a fully worked out modern war4 ,we have still1 of course1 to feel the full shock effects even of this war4 ,most of the combatants are going on1 as sometimes men who have incurred grave wounds will still go on for a time--without feeling them4 ,the educational1 biological1 social1 economic punishment that has already been taken by each of the ,european countries is1 ,i feel1 very much greater than we yet realize4 ,russia1 the heaviest and worst-trained combatant1 has indeed shown the effects and is down and sick1 but in three years' time all ,europe will know far better than it does now the full price of this war4 ,and the shock effects of the next war will have much the same relation to the shock effects of this1 as the shock of breaking a finger-nail has to the shock of crushing in a body4 ,in ,russia to-day we have seen1 not indeed social revolution1 not the replacement of one social order by another1 but disintegration4 ,let not national conceit blind us4 ,germany1 ,france1 ,italy1 ,britain are all slipping about on that same slope down which ,russia has slid4 ,which goes first1 it is hard to guess1 or whether we shall all hold out to some kind of ,peace4 ,at present the social discipline of ,france and ,britain seems to be at least as good as that of ,germany1 and the morale of the ,rhineland and ,bavaria has probably to undergo very severe testing by systematized and steadily increasing air punishment as this year goes on4 ,the next war--if a next war comes--will see all ,germany1 from end to end1 vulnerable to aircraft4444 ,such are the two sets of considerations that will1 ,i think1 ultimately prevail over every prejudice and every difficulty in the way of the ,league of ,free ,nations4 ,existing states have become impossible as absolutely independent sovereignties4 ,the new conditions bring them so close together and give them such extravagant powers of mutual injury that they must either sink national pride and dynastic ambitions in subordination to the common welfare of mankind or else utterly shatter one another4 ,it becomes more and more plainly a choice between the ,league of ,free ,nations and a famished race of men looting in search of non-existent food amidst the smouldering ruins of civilization4 ,in the end ,i believe that the common sense of mankind will prefer a revision of its ideas of nationality and imperialism1 to the latter alternative4 ,it may take obstinate men a few more years yet of blood and horror to learn this lesson1 but for my own part ,i cherish an obstinate belief in the potential reasonableness of mankind4 ,,ix ,,democracy ,all the talk1 all the aspiration and work that is making now towards this conception of a world securely at peace1 under the direction of a ,league of ,free ,nations1 has interwoven with it an idea that is often rather felt than understood1 the idea of ,democracy4 ,not only is justice to prevail between race and race and nation and nation1 but also between man and man2 there is to be a universal respect for human life throughout the earth2 the world1 in the words of ,president ,wilson1 is to be made safe for democracy4 ,i would like to subject that word to a certain scrutiny to see whether the things we are apt to think and assume about it correspond exactly with the feeling of the word4 ,i would like to ask what1 under modern conditions1 does democracy mean1 and whether we have got it now anywhere in the world in its fulness and completion4 ,and to begin with ,i must have a quarrel with the word itself4 ,the eccentricities of modern education make us dependent for a number of our primary political terms upon those used by the thinkers of the small ,greek republics of ancient times before those petty states collapsed1 through sheer political ineptitude1 before the ,macedonians4 ,they thought in terms of states so small that it was possible to gather all the citizens together for the purposes of legislation4 ,these states were scarcely more than what we ,english might call sovereign urban districts4 ,fast communications were made by runners2 even the policeman with a bicycle of the modern urban district was beyond the scope of the ,greek imagination4 ,there were no railways1 telegraphs1 telephones1 books or newspapers1 there was no need for the state to maintain a system of education1 and the affairs of the state were so simple that they could be discussed and decided by the human voice and open voting in an assembly of all the citizens4 ,that is what democracy1 meant4 ,in ,andorra1 or perhaps in ,canton ,uri1 such democracy may still be possible2 in any other modern state it cannot exist4 ,the opposite term to it was oligarchy1 in which a small council of men controlled the affairs of the state4 ,oligarchy1 narrowed down to one man1 became monarchy4 ,if you wished to be polite to an oligarchy you called it an aristocracy2 if you wished to point out that a monarch was rather by way of being self-appointed1 you called him a ,tyrant4 ,an oligarchy with a property qualification was a plutocracy4 ,now the modern intelligence1 being under a sort of magic slavery to the ancient ,greeks1 has to adapt all these terms to the problems of states so vast and complex that they have the same relation to the ,greek states that the anatomy of a man has to the anatomy of a jellyfish4 ,they are not only greater in extent and denser in population1 but they are increasingly innervated by more and more rapid means of communication and excitement4 ,in the classical past--except for such special cases as the feeding of ,rome with ,egyptian corn--trade was a traffic in luxuries or slaves1 war a small specialized affair of infantry and horsemen in search of slaves and loot1 and empire the exaction of tribute4 ,the modern state must conduct its enormous businesses through a system of ministries2 its vital interests go all round the earth2 nothing that any ancient ,greek would have recognized as democracy is conceivable in a great modern state4 ,it is absolutely necessary1 if we are to get things clear in our minds about what democracy really means in relation to modern politics1 first to make a quite fresh classification in order to find what items there really are to consider1 and then to inquire which seem to correspond more or less closely in spirit with our ideas about ancient democracy4 ,now there are two primary classes of idea about government in the modern world depending upon our conception of the political capacity of the common man4 ,we may suppose he is a microcosm1 with complete ideas and wishes about the state and the world1 or we may suppose that he isn't4 ,we may believe that the common man can govern1 or we may believe that he can't4 ,we may think further along the first line that he is so wise and good and right that we only have to get out of his way for him to act rightly and for the good of all mankind1 or we may doubt it4 ,and if we doubt that we may still believe that1 though perhaps you can fool all the people some of the time1 and some of the people all the time1 the common man1 expressing himself by a majority vote1 still remains the secure source of human wisdom4 ,but next1 while we may deny this universal distribution of political wisdom1 we may1 if we are sufficiently under the sway of modern ideas about collective psychology1 believe that it is necessary to poke up the political indifference and inability of the common man as much as possible1 to thrust political ideas and facts upon him1 to incite him to a watchful and critical attitude towards them1 and above all to secure his assent to the proceedings of the able people who are managing public affairs4 ,or finally1 we may treat him as a thing to be ruled and not consulted4 ,let me at this stage make out a classificatory diagram of these elementary ideas of government in a modern country4 ,,class ,i4 ,it is supposed that the common man can govern3 7#a7 without further organization 7,anarchy72 7#b7 through a majority vote by delegates4 ,,class ,,ii4 ,it is supposed that the common man cannot govern1 and that government therefore must be through the agency of ,able ,persons who may be classified under one of the following sub-heads1 either as 7#a7 persons elected by the common man because he believes them to be persons able to govern--just as he chooses his doctors as persons able to secure health1 and his electrical engineers as persons able to attend to his tramways1 lighting1 etc41 etc42 7#b7 persons of a special class1 as1 for example1 persons born and educated to rule 7e4g4 ,aristocracy71 or rich business adventurers 7,plutocracy7 who rule without consulting the common man at all4 ,to which two sub-classes we may perhaps add a sort of intermediate stage between them1 namely3 7#c7 persons elected by a special class of voter4 ,monarchy may be either a special case of ,class ,,ii47#a71 7#b7 or 7#c71 in which the persons who rule have narrowed down in number to one person1 and the duration of monarchy may be either for life or a term of years4 ,these two classes and the five sub-classes cover1 ,i believe1 all the elementary political types in our world4 ,now in the constitution of a modern state1 because of the conflict and confusion of ideas1 all or most of these five sub-classes may usually be found intertwined4 ,the ,british constitution1 for instance1 is a complicated tangle of arrangements1 due to a struggle between the ideas of ,class ,i47#b71 ,class ,,ii47#c71 tending to become ,class ,,ii47#a7 and ,class ,,ii47#b7 in both its aristocratic and monarchist forms4 ,the ,american constitution is largely dominated by ,class ,i47#b71 from which it breaks away in the case of the ,president to a short-term monarchist aspect of ,class ,,ii47#a74 ,i will not elaborate this classification further4 ,i have made it here in order to render clear first1 that what we moderns mean by democracy is not what the ,greeks meant at all1 that is to say1 direct government by the assembly of all the citizens1 and secondly and more important1 that the word democracy is being used very largely in current discussion1 so that it is impossible to say in any particular case whether the intention is ,class ,i47#b7 or ,class ,,ii47#a71 and that we have to make up our minds whether we mean1 if ,i may coin two phrases1 delegate democracy or selective democracy1 or some definite combination of these two1 when we talk about democracy1 before we can get on much beyond a generous gesture of equality and enfranchisement towards our brother man4 ,the word is being used1 in fact1 confusingly for these two quite widely different things4 ,now1 it seems to me that though there has been no very clear discussion of the issue between those two very opposite conceptions of democracy1 largely because of the want of proper distinctive terms1 there has nevertheless been a wide movement of public opinion away from delegate democracy and towards selective democracy4 ,people have gone on saying democracy1 while gradually changing its meaning from the former to the latter4 ,it is notable in ,great ,britain1 for example1 that while there has been no perceptible diminution in our faith in democracy1 there has been a growing criticism of party and politicians1 and a great weakening in the power and influence of representatives and representative institutions4 ,there has been a growing demand for personality and initiative in elected persons4 ,the press1 which was once entirely subordinate politically to parliamentary politics1 adopts an attitude towards parliament and party leaders nowadays which would have seemed inconceivable insolence in the days of ,lord ,palmerston4 ,and there has been a vigorous agitation in support of electoral methods which are manifestly calculated to subordinate delegated to selected men4 ,the movement for electoral reform in ,great ,britain at the present time is one of quite fundamental importance in the development of modern democracy4 ,the case of the reformers is that heretofore modern democracy has not had a fair opportunity of showing its best possibilities to the world1 because the methods of election have persistently set aside the better types of public men1 or rather of would-be public men1 in favour of mere party hacks4 ,that is a story common to ,britain and the ,american democracies1 but in ,america it was expressed in rather different terms and dealt with in a less analytical fashion than it has been in ,great ,britain4 ,it was not at first clearly understood that the failure of democracy to produce good government came through the preference of delegated over selected men1 the idea of delegation did in fact dominate the minds of both electoral reformers and electoral conservatives alike1 and the earlier stages of the reform movement in ,great ,britain were inspired not so much by the idea of getting a better type of representative as by the idea of getting a fairer representation of minorities4 ,it was only slowly that the idea that sensible men do not usually belong to any political party took hold4 ,it is only now being realized that what sensible men desire in a member of parliament is honour and capacity rather than a mechanical loyalty to a platform4 ,they do not want to dictate to their representative2 they want a man they can trust as their representative4 ,in the fifties and sixties of the last century1 in which this electoral reform movement began and the method of ,proportional ,representation was thought out1 it was possible for the reformers to work untroubled upon the assumption that if a man was not necessarily born a 444 little ,liber-al1 or else a little ,conservative1 he must at least be a ,liberal-,unionist or a ,conservative ,free-,trader4 ,but seeking a fair representation for party minorities1 these reformers produced a system of voting at once simple and incapable of manipulation1 that leads straight1 not to the representation of small parties1 but to a type of democratic government by selected best men4 ,before giving the essential features of that system1 it may be well to state in its simplest form the evils at which the reform aims4 ,an election1 the reformers point out1 is not the simple matter it appears to be at the first blush4 ,methods of voting can be manipulated in various ways1 and nearly every method has its own liability to falsification4 ,we may take for illustration the commonest1 simplest case--the case that is the perplexity of every clear-thinking voter under ,british or ,american conditions--the case of a constituency in which every elector has one vote1 and which returns one representative to ,parliament4 ,the naive theory on which people go is that all the possible candidates are put up1 that each voter votes for the one he likes best1 and that the best man wins4 ,the bitter experience is that hardly ever are there more than two candidates1 and still more rarely is either of these the best man possible4 ,suppose1 for example1 the constituency is mainly ,conservative4 ,a little group of pothouse politicians1 wire-pullers1 busybodies1 local journalists1 and small lawyers1 working for various monetary interests1 have captured the local ,conservative organization4 ,they have time and energy to capture it1 because they have no other interest in life except that4 ,it is their business1 and honest men are busy with other duties4 ,for reasons that do not appear these local workers put up an unknown ,mr4 ,goldbug as the official ,conservative candidate4 ,he professes a generally ,conservative view of things1 but few people are sure of him and few people trust him4 ,against him the weaker 7and therefore still more venal7 ,liberal organization now puts up a ,mr4 ,kentshire 7formerly ,wurstberg7 to represent the broader thought and finer generosities of the ,english mind4 ,a number of ,conservative gentlemen1 generally too busy about their honest businesses to attend the party smokers and the party cave1 realize suddenly that they want ,goldbug hardly more than they want ,wurstberg4 ,they put up their long-admired1 trusted1 and able friend ,mr4 ,sanity as an ,independent ,conservative4 ,every one knows the trouble that follows4 ,mr4 ,sanity is going to split the party vote4 ,the hesitating voter is told1 with considerable truth1 that a vote given for ,mr4 ,sanity is a vote given for ,wurstberg4 ,at any price the constituency does not want ,wurstberg4 ,so at the eleventh hour ,mr4 ,sanity is induced to withdraw1 and ,mr4 ,goldbug goes into ,parliament to misrepresent this constituency4 ,and so with most constituencies1 and the result is a legislative body consisting largely of men of unknown character and obscure aims1 whose only credential is the wearing of a party label4 ,they come into parliament not to forward the great interests they ostensibly support1 but with an eye to the railway jobbery1 corporation business1 concessions and financial operations that necessarily go on in and about the national legislature4 ,that in its simplest form is the dilemma of democracy4 ,the problem that has confronted modern democracy since its beginning has not really been the representation of organized minorities--they are very well able to look after themselves--but the protection of the unorganized mass of busily occupied1 fairly intelligent men from the tricks of the specialists who work the party machines4 ,we know ,mr4 ,sanity1 we want ,mr4 ,sanity1 but we are too busy to watch the incessant intrigues to oust him in favour of the obscurely influential people1 politically docile1 who are favoured by the organization4 ,we want an organizer-proof method of voting4 ,it is in answer to this demand1 as the outcome of a most careful examination of the ways in which voting may be protected from the exploitation of those who work elections1 that the method of ,proportional ,representation with a single transferable vote has been evolved4 ,it is organizer-proof4 ,it defies the caucus4 ,if you do not like ,mr4 ,goldbug you can put up and vote for ,mr4 ,sanity1 giving ,mr4 ,goldbug your second choice1 in the most perfect confidence that in any case your vote cannot help to return ,mr4 ,wurstberg4 ,with ,proportional ,representation with a single transferable vote 7this specification is necessary1 because there are also the inferior imitations of various election-riggers figuring as proportional representation71 it is impossible to prevent the effective candidature of independent men of repute beside the official candidates4 ,the method of voting under the ,proportional ,representation system has been ignorantly represented as complex4 ,it is really almost ideally simple4 ,you mark the list of candidates with numbers in the order of your preference4 ,for example1 you believe ,a to be absolutely the best man for parliament2 you mark him #a4 ,but ,b you think is the next best man2 you mark him #b4 ,that means that if ,a gets an enormous amount of support1 ever so many more votes than he requires for his return1 your vote will not be wasted4 ,only so much of your vote as is needed will go to ,a2 the rest will go to ,b4 ,or1 on the other hand1 if ,a has so little support that his chances are hopeless1 you will not have thrown your vote away upon him2 it will go to ,b4 ,similarly you may indicate a third1 a fourth1 and a fifth choice2 if you like you may mark every name on your paper with a number to indicate the order of your preferences4 ,and that is all the voter has to do4 ,the reckoning and counting of the votes presents not the slightest difficulty to any one used to the business of computation4 ,silly and dishonest men1 appealing to still sillier audiences1 have got themselves and their audiences into humorous muddles over this business1 but the principles are perfectly plain and simple4 ,let me state them here2 they can be fully and exactly stated1 with various ornaments1 comments1 arguments1 sarcastic remarks1 and digressions1 in seventy lines of this type4 ,it will be evident that1 in any election under this system1 any one who has got a certain proportion of ,no4 #a votes will be elected4 ,if1 for instance1 five people have to be elected and #bj1jjj voters vote1 then any one who has got #djja first votes or more must be elected4 #djja votes is in that case enough to elect a candidate4 ,this sufficient number of votes is called the quota1 and any one who has more than that number of votes has obviously got more votes than is needful for election4 ,so1 to begin with1 the voting papers are classified according to their first votes1 and any candidates who have got more than a quota of first votes are forthwith declared elected4 ,but most of these elected men would under the old system waste votes because they would have too many2 for manifestly a candidate who gets more than the quota of votes needs only a fraction of each of these votes to return him4 ,if1 for instance1 he gets double the quota he needs only half each vote4 ,he takes that fraction1 therefore1 under this new and better system1 and the rest of each vote is entered on to ,no4 #b upon that voting paper4 ,and so on4 ,now this is an extremely easy job for an accountant or skilled computer1 and it is quite easily checked by any other accountant and skilled computer4 ,a reader with a bad arithmetical education1 ignorant of the very existence of such a thing as a slide rule1 knowing nothing of account keeping1 who thinks of himself working out the resultant fractions with a stumpy pencil on a bit of greasy paper in a bad light1 may easily think of this transfer of fractions as a dangerous and terrifying process4 ,it is1 for a properly trained man1 the easiest1 exactest job conceivable4 ,the ,cash ,register people will invent machines to do it for you while you wait4 ,what happens1 then1 is that every candidate with more than a quota1 beginning with the top candidate1 sheds a traction of each vote he has received1 down the list1 and the next one sheds his surplus fraction in the same way1 and so on until candidates lower in the list1 who are at first below the quota1 fill up to it4 ,when all the surplus votes of the candidates at the head of the list have been disposed of1 then the hopeless candidates at the bottom of the list are dealt with4 ,the second votes on their voting papers are treated as whole votes and distributed up the list1 and so on4 ,it will be plain to the quick-minded that1 towards the end1 there will be a certain chasing about of little fractions of votes1 and a slight modification of the quota due to voting papers having no second or third preferences marked upon them1 a chasing about that it will be difficult for an untrained intelligence to follow4 ,but untrained intelligences are not required to follow it4 ,for the skilled computer these things offer no difficulty at all4 ,and they are not difficulties of principle but of manipulation4 ,one might as well refuse to travel in a taxicab until the driver had explained the magneto as refuse to accept the principle of ,proportional ,representation by the single transferable vote until one had remedied all the deficiencies of one's arithmetical education4 ,the fundamental principle of the thing1 that a candidate who gets more votes than he wants is made to hand on a fraction of each vote to the voter's second choice1 and that a candidate whose chances are hopeless is made to hand on the whole vote to the voter's second choice1 so that practically only a small number of votes are ineffective1 is within the compass of the mind of a boy of ten4 ,but simple as this method is1 it completely kills the organization and manipulation of voting4 ,it completely solves the ,goldbug-,wurstberg- ,sanity problem4 ,it is knave-proof--short of forging1 stealing1 or destroying voting papers4 ,a man of repute1 a leaderly man1 may defy all the party organizations in existence and stand beside and be returned over the head of a worthless man1 though the latter be smothered with party labels4 ,that is the gist of this business4 ,the difference in effect between ,proportional ,representation and the old method of voting must ultimately be to change the moral and intellectual quality of elected persons profoundly4 ,people are only beginning to realize the huge possibilities of advance inherent in this change of political method4 ,it means no less than a revolution from delegate democracy to selective democracy4 ,now1 ,i will not pretend to be anything but a strong partizan in this matter4 ,when ,i speak of democracy ,i mean selective democracy4 ,i believe that delegate democracy is already provably a failure in the world1 and that the reason why to-day1 after three and a half years of struggle1 we are still fighting ,german autocracy and fighting with no certainty of absolute victory1 is because the affairs of the three great ,atlantic democracies have been largely in the hands not of selected men but of delegated men1 men of intrigue and the party machine1 of dodges rather than initiatives1 second-rate men4 ,when ,lord ,haldane1 defending his party for certain insufficiencies in their preparation for the eventuality of the great war1 pleaded that they had no mandate from the country to do anything of the sort1 he did more than commit political suicide1 he bore conclusive witness against the whole system which had made him what he was4 ,neither ,britain nor ,france in this struggle has produced better statesmen nor better generals than the ,german autocracy4 ,the ,british and ,french ,foreign ,offices are old monarchist organizations still4 ,to this day the ,british and ,french politicians haggle and argue with the ,german ministers upon petty points and debating society advantages1 smart and cunning1 while the peoples perish4 ,the one man who has risen to the greatness of this great occasion1 the man who is1 in default of any rival1 rapidly becoming the leader of the world towards peace1 is neither a delegate politician nor the choice of a monarch and his councillors4 ,he is the one authoritative figure in these transactions whose mind has not been subdued either by long discipline in the party machine or by court intrigue1 who has continued his education beyond those early twenties when the mind of the budding politician ceases to expand1 who has thought1 and thought things out1 who is an educated man among dexterous under-educated specialists4 ,by something very like a belated accident in the framing of the ,american constitution1 the ,president of the ,united ,states is more in the nature of a selected man than any other conspicuous figure at the present time4 ,he is specially elected by a special electoral college after an elaborate preliminary selection of candidates by the two great party machines4 ,and be it remembered that ,mr4 ,wilson is not the first great ,president the ,united ,states have had1 he is one of a series of figures who tower over their ,european contemporaries4 ,the ,united ,states have had many advantageous circumstances to thank for their present ascendancy in the world's affairs3 isolation from militarist pressure for a century and a quarter1 a vast virgin continent1 plenty of land1 freedom from centralization1 freedom from titles and social vulgarities1 common schools1 a real democratic spirit in its people1 and a great enthusiasm for universities2 but no single advantage has been so great as this happy accident which has given it a specially selected man as its voice and figurehead in the world's affairs4 ,in the average congressman1 in the average senator1 as ,ostrogorski's great book so industriously demonstrated1 the ,united ,states have no great occasion for pride4 ,neither the ,senate nor the ,house of ,representatives seem to rise above the level of the ,british ,houses of ,parliament1 with a ,government unable to control the rebel forces of ,ulster1 unable to promote or dismiss generals without an outcry1 weakly amenable to the press1 and terrifyingly incapable of great designs4 ,it is to the ,united ,states of ,america we must look now if the world is to be made safe for democracy4 ,it is to the method of selection1 as distinguished from delegation1 that we must look if democracy is to be saved from itself4 ,x ,,the ,,recent ,,struggle ,,for ,,proportional ,,representation ,,in ,,great ,,britain ,british political life resists cleansing with all the vigour of a dirty little boy4 ,it is nothing to your politician that the economic and social organization of all the world1 is strained almost to the pitch of collapse1 and that it is vitally important to mankind that everywhere the whole will and intelligence of the race should be enlisted in the great tasks of making a permanent peace and reconstructing the shattered framework of society4 ,these are remote1 unreal considerations to the politician4 ,what is the world to him8 ,he has scarcely heard of it4 ,he has been far too busy as a politician4 ,he has been thinking of smart little tricks in the lobby and brilliant exploits at question time4 ,he has been thinking of jobs and appointments1 of whether ,mr4 ,asquith is likely to come back and how far it is safe to bank upon ,l4 ,g4 ,his one supreme purpose is to keep affairs in the hands of his own specialized set1 to keep the old obscure party game going1 to rig his little tricks behind a vast1 silly camouflage of sham issues1 to keep out able men and disinterested men1 the public mind1 and the general intelligence1 from any effective interference with his disastrous manipulations of the common weal4 ,i do not see how any intelligent and informed man can have followed the recent debates in the ,house of ,commons upon ,proportional ,representation without some gusts of angry contempt4 ,they were the most pitiful and alarming demonstration of the intellectual and moral quality of ,british public life at the present time4 ,from the wire-pullers of the ,fabian ,society and from the party organizers of both ,liberal and ,tory party alike1 and from the knowing cards1 the pothouse shepherds1 and jobbing lawyers who work the constituencies1 comes the chief opposition to this straightening out of our electoral system so urgently necessary and so long overdue4 ,they have fought it with a zeal and efficiency that is rarely displayed in the nation's interest4 ,from nearly every outstanding man outside that little inner world of political shams and dodges1 who has given any attention to the question1 comes1 on the other hand1 support for this reform4 ,even the great party leaders1 ,mr4 ,balfour and ,mr4 ,asquith1 were in its favour4 ,one might safely judge this question by considering who are the advocates on either side4 ,but the best arguments for ,proportional ,representation arise out of its opponents' speeches1 and to these ,i will confine my attention now4 ,consider ,lord ,harcourt--heir to the most sacred traditions of the party game--hurling scorn at a project that would introduce faddists1 mugwumps1 and so on and so on--in fact independent thinking men--into the legislature4 ,consider the value of ,lord ,curzon's statement that ,london rose in revolt against the project4 ,do you remember that day1 dear reader1 when the streets of ,london boiled with passionate men shouting1 ,no ,proportional ,representation6 ,down with ,proportional ,representation8 ,you don't4 ,nor do ,i4 ,but what happened was that the guinea-pigs and solicitors and nobodies1 the party hacks who form the bulk of ,london's misrepresentation in the ,house of ,commons1 stampeded in terror against a proposal that threatened to wipe them out and replace them by known and responsible men4 ,london1 alas6 does not seem to care how its members are elected4 ,what ,londoner knows anything about his member8 ,hundreds of thousands of ,londoners do not even know which of the ridiculous constituencies into which the politicians have dismembered our ,london they are in4 ,only as ,i was writing this in my flat in ,st4 ,james's ,court1 ,westminster1 did it occur to me to inquire who was representing me in the councils of the nation while ,i write4444 ,after some slight difficulty ,i ascertained that my representative is a ,mr4 ,burdett ,coutts1 who was1 in the romantic eighties1 ,mr4 ,ashmead-,bartlett4 ,and by a convenient accident ,i find that the other day he moved to reject the ,proportional ,representation ,amendment made by the ,house of ,lords to the ,representation of the ,people ,bill1 so that ,i am able to look up the debate in ,hansard and study my opinions as he represented them and this question at one and the same time4 ,and1 taking little things first1 ,i am proud and happy to discover that the member for me was the only participator in the debate who1 in the vulgar and reprehensible phrase1 threw a dead cat1 or1 in polite terms1 displayed classical learning4 ,my member said1 ,timeo ,danaos et dona ferentes1 with a rather graceful compliment to the ,labour ,conference at ,nottingham4 ,i could not help thinking to myself1 said my member1 that at that conference there must have been many men of sufficient classical reading to say to themselves1 ',timeo ,danaos et dona ferentes4' ,in which surmise he was quite right4 ,except perhaps for ,tempus fugit1 verbum sap41 ,arma virumque1 and ,quis custodiet1 there is no better known relic of antiquity4 ,but my member went a little beyond my ideas when he said3 ,we are asked to enter upon a method of legislation which can bear no other description than that of law-making in the dark1 because ,i think it can bear quite a lot of other descriptions4 ,this was1 however1 the artistic prelude to a large1 vague1 gloomy dissertation about nothing very definite1 a muddling up of the main question with the minor issue of a schedule of constituencies involved in the proposal4 ,the other parts of my member's speech do not1 ,i confess1 fill me with the easy confidence ,i would like to feel in my proxy4 ,let me extract a few gems of eloquence from the speech of this voice which speaks for me1 and give also the only argument he advanced that needs consideration4 ,history repeats itself1 he said1 very often in curious ways as to facts1 but generally with very different results4 ,that1 honestly1 ,i like4 ,it is a sentence one can read over several times4 ,but he went on to talk of the entirely different scheme for minority representation1 which was introduced into the ,reform ,bill of #ahfg1 and there ,i am obliged to part company with him4 ,that was a silly scheme for giving two votes to each voter in a three-member constituency4 ,it has about as much resemblance to the method of scientific voting under discussion as a bath-chair has to an aeroplane4 ,but that measure of minority representation led to a baneful invention1 my representative went on to say1 and left behind it a hateful memory in the ,birmingham caucus4 ,i well remember that when ,i stood for ,parliament thirty-two years ago we had no better platform weapon than repeating over and over again in a sentence the name of ,mr4 ,schnadhorst1 and ,i am not sure that it would not serve the same purpose now4 ,under that system the work of the caucus was1 of course1 far simpler than it will be if this system ever comes into operation4 ,all the caucus had to do under that measure was to divide the electors into three groups and with three candidates1 ,a41 ,b41 and ,c41 to order one group to vote for ,a4 and ,b41 another for ,b4 and ,c41 and the third for ,a4 and ,c41 and they carried the whole of their candidates and kept them for many years4 ,but the multiplicity of ordinal preferences1 second1 third1 fourth1 fifth1 up to tenth1 which the single transferable vote system would involve1 will require a more scientific handling in party interests1 and neither party will be able to face an election with any hope of success without the assistance of the most drastic form of caucus and without its orders being carried out by the electors4 ,now1 ,i swear by ,heaven that1 lowly creature as ,i am1 a lost vote1 a nothing1 voiceless and helpless in public affairs1 ,i am not going to stand the imputation that that sort of reasoning represents the average mental quality of ,westminster--outside ,parliament1 that is4 ,most of my neighbours in ,st4 ,james's ,court1 for example1 have quite large pieces of head above their eyebrows4 ,read these above sentences over and ponder their significance--so far as they have any significance4 ,never mind my keen personal humiliation at this display of the mental calibre of my representative1 but consider what the mental calibre of a ,house must be that did not break out into loud guffaws at such a passage4 ,the line of argument is about as lucid as if one reasoned that because one can break a window with a stone it is no use buying a telescope4 ,and it remains entirely a matter for speculation whether my member is arguing that a caucus can rig an election carried on under the ,proportional ,representation system or that it cannot4 ,at the first blush it seems to read as if he intended the former4 ,but be careful6 ,did he8 ,let me suggest that in that last sentence he really expresses the opinion that it cannot4 ,it can be read either way4 ,electors under modern conditions are not going to obey the orders of even the most drastic caucus--whatever a drastic caucus may be4 ,why should they8 ,in the ,birmingham instance it was only a section of the majority1 voting by wards1 in an election on purely party lines1 which obeyed in order to keep out the minority party candidate4 ,i think myself that my member's mind waggled4 ,perhaps his real thoughts shone out through an argument not intended to betray them4 ,what he did say as much as he said anything was that under ,proportional ,representation1 elections are going to be very troublesome and difficult for party candidates4 ,if that was his intention1 then1 after all1 ,i forgive him much4 ,i think that and more than that4 ,i think that they are going to make party candidates who are merely party candidates impossible4 ,that is exactly what we reformers are after4 ,then ,i shall get a representative more to my taste than ,mr4 ,burdett ,coutts4 ,but let me turn now to the views of other people's representatives4 ,perhaps the most damning thing ever said against the present system1 damning because of its empty absurdity1 was uttered by ,sir ,thomas ,whittaker4 ,he was making the usual exaggerations of the supposed difficulties of the method4 ,he said ,english people didn't like such complications4 ,they like a straight fight between two men4 ,think of it6 ,a straight fight6 ,for more than a quarter-century ,i have been a voter1 usually with votes in two or three constituencies1 and never in all that long political life have ,i seen a single straight fight in an election1 but only the dismallest sham fights it is possible to conceive4 ,thrice only in all that time have ,i cast a vote for a man whom ,i respected4 ,on all other occasions the election that mocked my citizenship was either an arranged walk-over for one party or the other1 or ,i had a choice between two unknown persons1 mysteriously selected as candidates by obscure busy people with local interests in the constituency4 ,every intelligent person knows that this is the usual experience of a free and independent voter in ,england4 ,the fight of an ordinary ,parliamentary election in ,england is about as straight as the business of a thimble rigger4 ,and consider just what these complications are of which the opponents of ,proportional ,representation chant so loudly4 ,in the sham election of to-day1 which the politicians claim gives them a mandate to muddle up our affairs1 the voter puts a x against the name of the least detestable of the two candidates that are thrust upon him4 ,under the ,proportional ,representation method there will be a larger constituency1 a larger list of candidates1 and a larger number of people to be elected1 and he will put ,i against the name of the man he most wants to be elected1 #b against his second choice1 and if he likes he may indulge in marking a third1 or even a further choice4 ,he may1 if he thinks fit1 number off the whole list of candidates4 ,that is all he will have to do4 ,that is the stupendous intricacy of the method that flattens out the minds of ,lord ,harcourt and ,sir ,thomas ,whittaker4 ,and as for the working of it1 if you must go into that1 all that happens is that if your first choice gets more votes than he needs for his return1 he takes only the fraction of your vote that he requires1 and the rest of the vote goes on to your ,number #b4 ,if #b isn't in need of all of it1 the rest goes on to #c4 ,and so on4 ,that is the profound mathematical mystery1 that is the riddle beyond the wit of ,westminster1 which overpowers these fine intelligences and sets them babbling of senior wranglers4 ,each time there is a debate on this question in the ,house1 member after member hostile to the proposal will play the ignorant fool and pretend to be confused himself1 and will try to confuse others1 by deliberately clumsy statements of these most elementary ideas4 ,surely if there were no other argument for a change of type in the ,house1 these poor knitted brows1 these public perspirations of the gentry who cannot understand ,p4,r41 should suffice4 ,but let us be just2 it is not all pretence2 the inability of ,mr4 ,austen ,chamberlain to grasp the simple facts before him was undoubtedly genuine4 ,he followed ,mr4 ,burdett ,coutts1 in support of ,mr4 ,burdett ,coutts1 with the most ,christian disregard of the nasty things ,mr4 ,burdett ,coutts had seemed to be saying about the ,birmingham caucus from which he sprang4 ,he had a childish story to tell of how voters would not give their first votes to their real preferences1 because they would assume he would get in in any case--,god knows why4 ,of course on the assumption that the voter behaves like an idiot1 anything is possible4 ,and never apparently having heard of fractions1 this great ,birmingham leader was unable to understand that a voter who puts #a against a candidate's name votes for that candidate anyhow4 ,he could not imagine any feeling on the part of the voter that ,no4 #a was his man4 ,a vote is a vote to this simple rather than lucid mind1 a thing one and indivisible4 ,read this-- ,birmingham1 he said1 referring to a ,schedule under consideration1 is to be cut into three constituencies of four members each4 ,i am to have a constituency of #ajj1jjj electors1 ,i suppose4 ,how many thousand inhabitants ,i do not know4 ,every effort will be made to prevent any of those electors knowing--in fact1 it would be impossible for any of them to know--whether they voted for me or not1 or at any rate whether they effectively voted for me or not1 or whether the vote which they wished to give to me was really diverted to somebody else4 ,only in a house of habitually inattentive men could any one talk such nonsense without reproof1 but ,i look in vain through ,hansard's record of this debate for a single contemptuous reference to ,mr4 ,chamberlain's obtuseness4 ,and the rest of his speech was a lamentable account of the time and trouble he would have to spend upon his constituents if the new method came in4 ,he was the perfect figure of the parochially important person in a state of defensive excitement4 ,no doubt his speech appealed to many in the ,house4 ,of course ,lord ,harcourt was quite right in saying that the character of the average ,house of ,commons member will be changed by ,proportional ,representation4 ,it will4 ,it will make the election of obscure and unknown men1 of carpet-bag candidates who work a constituency as a hawker works a village1 of local pomposities and village-pump leaders almost impossible4 ,it will replace such candidates by better known and more widely known men4 ,it will make the ,house of ,commons so much the more a real gathering of the nation1 so much the more a house of representative men4 7,lord ,harcourt's faddists and mugwumps47 ,and it is perfectly true as ,mr4 ,ramsay ,macdonald 7also an opponent7 declares1 that ,proportional ,representation means constituencies so big that it will be impossible for a poor man to cultivate and work them4 ,that is unquestionable4 ,but1 mark another point1 it will also make it useless1 as ,mr4 ,chamberlain has testified1 for rich men to cultivate and work them4 ,all this cultivating and working1 all this going about and making things right with this little jobber here1 that contractor there1 all the squaring of small political clubs and organizations1 all the subscription blackmail and charity bribery1 that now makes a ,parliamentary candidature so utterly rotten an influence upon public life1 will be killed dead by ,proportional ,representation4 ,you cannot job men into ,parliament by ,proportional ,representation4 ,proportional ,representation lets in the outsider4 ,it lets in the common1 unassigned voter who isn't in the local clique4 ,that is the clue to nearly all this opposition of the politicians4 ,it makes democracy possible for the first time in modern history4 ,and that poor man of ,mr4 ,ramsay ,macdonald's imagination1 instead of cadging about a constituency in order to start politician1 will have to make good in some more useful way--as a leader of the workers in their practical affairs1 for example--before people will hear of him and begin to believe in him4 ,the opposition to ,proportional ,representation of ,mr4 ,sidney ,webb and his little circle is a trifle more scientific in tone than these naive objections of the common run of antagonist1 but underlying it is the same passionate desire to keep politics a close game for the politician and to bar out the politically unspecialized man4 ,there is more conceit and less jobbery behind the criticisms of this type of mind4 ,it is an opposition based on the idea that the common man is a fool who does not know what is good for him4 ,so he has to be stampeded4 ,politics1 according to this school1 is a sort of cattle-driving4 ,the ,webbites do not deny the broad facts of the case4 ,our present electoral system1 with our big modern constituencies of thousands of voters1 leads to huge turnovers of political power with a relatively small shifting of public opinion4 ,it makes a mock of public opinion by caricature1 and ,parliament becomes the distorting mirror of the nation4 ,under some loud false issue a few score of thousands of votes turn over1 and in goes this party or that with a big sham majority4 ,this the ,webbites admit4 ,but they applaud it4 ,it gives us1 they say1 a strong ,government4 ,public opinion1 the intelligent man outside the ,house1 is ruled out of the game4 ,he has no power of intervention at all4 ,the artful little ,fabian politicians rub their hands and say1 ,now we can get to work with the wires6 ,no one can stop us4 ,and when the public complains of the results1 there is always the repartee1 ,you elected them4 ,but the ,fabian psychology is the psychology of a very small group of pedants who believe that fair ends may be reached by foul means4 ,it is much easier and more natural to serve foul ends by foul means4 ,in practice it is not tricky benevolence but tricky bargaining among the interests that will secure control of the political wires4 ,that is a bad enough state of affairs in ordinary times1 but in times of tragic necessity like the present men will not be mocked in this way4 ,life is going to be very intense in the years ahead of us4 ,if we go right on to another caricature ,parliament1 with perhaps half a hundred leading men in it and the rest hacks and nobodies1 the baffled and discontented outsiders in the streets may presently be driven to rioting and the throwing of bombs4 ,unless1 indeed1 the insurrection of the outsiders takes a still graver form1 and the ,press1 which has ceased entirely to be a ,party ,press in ,great ,britain1 helps some adventurous ,prime ,minister to flout and set aside the lower ,house altogether4 ,there is neither much moral nor much physical force behind the ,house of ,commons at the present time4 ,the argument of the ,fabian opponents to ,proportional ,representation is frankly that the strongest ,government is got in a ,house of half a hundred or fewer leading men1 with the rest of the ,parliament driven sheep4 ,but the whole mischief of the present system is that the obscure members of ,parliament are not sheep2 they are a crowd of little-minded1 second-rate men just as greedy and eager and self-seeking as any of us4 ,they vote straight indeed on all the main party questions1 they obey their ,whips like sheep then2 but there is a great bulk of business in ,parliament outside the main party questions1 and obedience is not without its price4 ,these are matters vitally affecting our railways and ships and communications generally1 the food and health of the people1 armaments1 every sort of employment1 the appointment of public servants1 the everyday texture of all our lives4 ,then the nobody becomes somebody1 the party hack gets busy1 the rat is in the granary4444 ,in these recent debates in the ,house of ,commons one can see every stock trick of the wire-puller in operation4 ,particularly we have the old dodge of the man who is in theory quite in sympathy with ,proportional ,representation1 but 444 ,it is1 he declares regretfully1 too late4 ,it will cause delay4 ,difficult to make arrangements4 ,later on perhaps4 ,and so on4 ,it is never too late for a vital issue4 ,upon the speedy adoption of ,proportional ,representation depends1 as ,mr4 ,balfour made plain in an admirable speech1 whether the great occasions of the peace and after the peace are to be handled by a grand council of all that is best and most leaderlike in the nation1 or whether they are to be left to a few leaders1 apparently leading1 but really profoundly swayed by the obscure crowd of politicians and jobbers behind them4 ,are the politicians to hamper and stifle us in this supreme crisis of our national destinies or are we ,british peoples to have a real control of our own affairs in this momentous time8 ,are men of light and purpose to have a voice in public affairs or not8 ,proportional ,representation is supremely a test question4 ,it is a question that no adverse decision in the ,house of ,commons can stifle4 ,there are too many people now who grasp its importance and significance4 ,every one who sets a proper value upon purity in public life and the vitality of democratic institutions will1 ,i am convinced1 vote and continue to vote across every other question against the antiquated1 foul1 and fraudulent electoral methods that have hitherto robbed democracy of three-quarters of its efficiency4 ,,xi ,,the ,,study ,,and ,,propaganda ,,of ,,democracy ,in the preceding chapter ,i have dealt with the discussion of ,proportional ,representation in the ,british ,house of ,commons in order to illustrate the intellectual squalor amidst which public affairs have to be handled at the present time1 even in a country professedly democratic4 ,i have taken this one discussion as a sample to illustrate the present imperfection of our democratic instrument4 ,all over the world1 in every country1 great multitudes of intelligent and serious people are now inspired by the idea of a new order of things in the world1 of a world-wide establishment of peace and mutual aid between nation and nation and man and man4 ,but1 chiefly because of the elementary crudity of existing electoral methods1 hardly anywhere at present1 except at ,washington1 do these great ideas and this world-wide will find expression4 ,amidst the other politicians and statesmen of the world ,president ,wilson towers up with an effect almost divine4 ,but it is no ingratitude to him to say that he is not nearly so exceptional a being among educated men as he is among the official leaders of mankind4 ,everywhere now one may find something of the ,wilson purpose and intelligence1 but nearly everywhere it is silenced or muffled or made ineffective by the political advantage of privileged or of violent and adventurous inferior men4 ,he is one of us1 but it is his good fortune to have got his head out of the sack that is about the heads of most of us4 ,in the official world1 in the world of rulers and representatives and statesmen1 he almost alone1 speaks for the modern intelligence4 ,this general stifling of the better intelligence of the world and its possible release to expression and power1 seems to me to be the fundamental issue underlying all the present troubles of mankind4 ,we cannot get on while everywhere fools and vulgarians hold the levers that can kill1 imprison1 silence and starve men4 ,we cannot get on with false government and we cannot get on with mob government2 we must have right government4 ,the intellectual people of the world have a duty of co-operation they have too long neglected4 ,the modernization of political institutions1 the study of these institutions until we have worked out and achieved the very best and most efficient methods whereby the whole community of mankind may work together under the direction of its chosen intelligences1 is the common duty of every one who has a brain for the service4 ,and before everything else we have to realize this crudity and imperfection in what we call democracy at the present time4 ,democracy is still chiefly an aspiration1 it is a spirit1 it is an idea2 for the most part its methods are still to seek4 ,and still more is this ,league of ,free ,nations as yet but an aspiration4 ,let us not underrate the task before us4 ,only the disinterested devotion of hundreds of thousands of active brains in school1 in pulpit1 in book and press and assembly can ever bring these redeeming conceptions down to the solid earth to rule4 ,all round the world there is this same obscuration of the real intelligence of men4 ,in ,germany1 human good will and every fine mind are subordinated to political forms that have for a mouthpiece a ,chancellor with his brains manifestly addled by the theories of ,welt-,politik and the ,bismarckian tradition1 and for a figurehead a mad ,kaiser4 ,nevertheless there comes even from ,germany muffled cries for a new age4 ,a grinning figure like a bloodstained ,punch is all that speaks for the best brains in ,bulgaria4 ,yes4 ,we ,western allies know all that by heart2 but1 after all1 the immediate question for each one of us is1 ,what speaks for me8 ,so far as official political forms go ,i myself am as ineffective as any right-thinking ,german or ,bulgarian could possibly be4 ,i am more ineffective than a ,galician ,pole or a ,bohemian who votes for his nationalist representative4 ,politically ,i am a negligible item in the constituency of this ,mr4 ,burdett ,coutts into whose brain we have been peeping4 ,politically ,i am less than a waistcoat button on that quaint figure4 ,and that is all ,i am--except that ,i revolt4 ,i have written of it so far as if it were just a joke4 ,but indeed bad and foolish political institutions cannot be a joke4 ,sooner or later they prove themselves to be tragedy4 ,this war is that4 ,it is yesterday's lazy1 tolerant1 sense of humour wading out now into the lakes of blood it refused to foresee4 ,it is absurd to suppose that anywhere to-day the nationalisms1 the suspicions and hatreds1 the cants and policies1 and dead phrases that sway men represent the current intelligence of mankind4 ,they are merely the evidences of its disorganization4 ,even now we know we could do far better4 ,give mankind but a generation or so of peace and right education and this world could mock at the poor imaginations that conceived a millennium4 ,but we have to get intelligences together1 we have to canalize thought before it can work and produce its due effects4 ,to that end1 ,i suppose1 there has been a vast amount of mental activity among us political negligibles4 ,for my own part ,i have thought of the idea of ,god as the banner of human unity and justice1 and ,i have made some tentatives in that direction1 but men1 ,i perceive1 have argued themselves mean and petty about religion4 ,at the word ,god passions bristle4 ,the word ,god does not unite men1 it angers them4 ,but ,i doubt if ,god cares greatly whether we call ,him ,god or no4 ,his service is the service of man4 ,this double idea of the ,league of ,free ,nations1 linked with the idea of democracy as universal justice1 is free from the jealousy of the theologians and great enough for men to unite upon everywhere4 ,i know how warily one must reckon with the spite of the priest1 but surely these ideas may call upon the teachers of all the great world religions for their support4 ,the world is full now of confused propaganda1 propaganda of national ideas1 of traditions of hate1 of sentimental and degrading loyalties1 of every sort of error that divides and tortures and slays mankind4 ,all human institutions are made of propaganda1 are sustained by propaganda and perish when it ceases2 they must be continually explained and re-explained to the young and the negligent4 ,and for this new world of democracy and the ,league of ,free ,nations to which all reasonable men are looking1 there must needs be the greatest of all propagandas4 ,for that cause every one must become a teacher and a missionary4 ,persuade to it and make the idea of it and the necessity for it plain1 that is the duty of every school teacher1 every tutor1 every religious teacher1 every writer1 every lecturer1 every parent1 every trusted friend throughout the world4 ,for it1 too1 every one must become a student1 must go on with the task of making vague intentions into definite intentions1 of analyzing and destroying obstacles1 of mastering the ten thousand difficulties of detail4444 ,i am a man who looks now towards the end of life2 fifty-one years have ,i scratched off from my calendar1 another slips by1 and ,i cannot tell how many more of the sparse remainder of possible years are really mine4 ,i live in days of hardship and privation1 when it seems more natural to feel ill than well2 without holidays or rest or peace2 friends and the sons of my friends have been killed2 death seems to be feeling always now for those ,i most love2 the newspapers that come in to my house tell mostly of blood and disaster1 of drownings and slaughterings1 of cruelties and base intrigues4 ,yet never have ,i been so sure that there is a divinity in man and that a great order of human life1 a reign of justice and world-wide happiness1 of plenty1 power1 hope1 and gigantic creative effort1 lies close at hand4 ,even now we have the science and the ability available for a universal welfare1 though it is scattered about the world like a handful of money dropped by a child2 even now there exists all the knowledge that is needed to make mankind universally free and human life sweet and noble4 ,we need but the faith for it1 and it is at hand2 we need but the courage to lay our hands upon it and in a little space of years it can be ours4 ,,the ,,end4