What must inevitably happen if the nations take the line of the “practical man,” and limit their energies simply and purely to piling up armaments?
A British critic once put to me what he evidently deemed a poser: “Do you urge that we shall be stronger than our enemy, or weaker?”
To which I replied: “The last time that question was asked me was in Berlin, by Germans. What would you have had me reply to those Germans?”—a reply which, of course, meant this: In attempting to find the solution of this question in terms of one party, you are attempting the impossible. The outcome will be war, and war would not settle it. It would all have to be begun over again.
The British Navy League catechism says: “Defence consists in being so strong that it will be dangerous for your enemy to attack you.”115 Mr. Churchill, even, goes farther than the Navy League, and says: “The way to make war impossible is to make victory certain.”
The Navy League definition is at least possible of application to practical politics, because rough equality of the two parties would make attack by either dangerous. Mr. Churchill’s principle is impossible of application to practical politics, because it could only be applied by one party, and would, in the terms of the Navy League principle, deprive the other party of the right of defence. As a matter of simple fact, both the British Navy League, by its demand for two ships to one, and Mr. Churchill, by his demand for certain victory, deny in this matter Germany’s right to defend herself; and such denial is bound, on the part of a people animated by like motives to themselves, to provoke a challenge. When the British Navy League says, as it does, that a self-respecting nation should not depend upon the goodwill of foreigners for its safety, but upon its own strength, it recommends Germany to maintain her efforts to arrive at some sort of equality with England. When Mr. Churchill goes farther, and says that a nation is entitled to be so strong as to make victory over its rivals certain, he knows that if Germany were to adopt his own doctrine, its certain outcome would be war.
In anticipation of such an objection, Mr. Churchill says that preponderant power at sea is a luxury to Germany, a necessity to Britain; that these efforts of Germany are, as it were, a mere whim in no way dictated by the real necessities of her people, and having behind them no impulse wrapped up with national needs.116
If that be the truth, then it is the strongest argument imaginable for the settlement of this Anglo-German rivalry by agreement: by bringing about that Political Reformation of Europe which it is the object of these pages to urge.
Here are those of the school of Mr. Churchill who say: The danger of aggression from Germany is so great that England must have an enormous preponderance of force—two to one; so great are the risks Germany is prepared to take, that unless victory on the English side is certain she will attack. And yet, explain this same school, the impulse which creates these immense burdens and involves these immense risks is a mere whim, a luxury; the whole thing is dissociated from any real national need.
If that really be the case, then, indeed, is it time for a campaign of Education in Europe; time that the sixty-five millions, more or less, of hardworking and not very rich people, whose money support alone makes this rivalry possible, learned what it is all about. This “whim” has cost the two nations, in the last ten years, a sum larger than the indemnity France paid to Germany. Does Mr. Churchill suppose that these millions know, or think, this struggle one for a mere luxury, or whim? And if they did know, would it be quite a simple matter for the German Government to keep up the game?
But those who, during the last decade in England, have in and out of season carried on this active campaign for the increase of British armaments, do not believe that Germany’s action is the result of a mere whim. They, being part of the public opinion of Europe, subscribe to the general European doctrine that Germany is pushed to do these things by real national necessities, by her need for expansion, for finding food and livelihood for all these increasing millions. And if this is so, the English are asking Germany, in surrendering this contest, to betray future German generations—wilfully to withhold from them those fields which the strength and fortitude of this generation might win. If this common doctrine is true, the English are asking Germany to commit national suicide.117
Why should it be assumed that Germany will do it? That she will be less persistent in protecting her national interest, her posterity, be less faithful than the British themselves to great national impulses? Has not the day gone by when educated men can calmly assume that any Englishman is worth three foreigners? And yet such an assumption, ignorant and provincial as we are bound to admit it to be, is the only one that can possibly justify this policy of concentrating upon armament alone.
Even Admiral Fisher can write:
The supremacy of the British Navy is the best security for the peace of the world. … If you rub it in, both at home and abroad, that you are ready for instant war, with every unit of your strength in the first line and waiting to be first in, and hit your enemy in the belly and kick him when he is down, and boil your prisoners in oil (if you take any), and torture his women and children, then people will keep clear of you.
Would Admiral Fisher refrain from taking a given line merely because, if he took it, someone
