The Great Illusion

would “hit him in the belly,” etc.? He would repudiate the idea with the utmost scorn, and probably reply that the threat would give him an added incentive to take the line in question. But why should Admiral Fisher suppose that he has a monopoly of courage, and that a German Admiral would act otherwise than he? Is it not about time that each nation abandoned the somewhat childish assumption that it has a monopoly of the courage and the persistence in the world, and that things which would never frighten or deter it will frighten and deter its rivals?

Yet in this matter the English assume either that the Germans will be less persistent than they, or that in this contest their backs will break first. A coadjutor of Lord Roberts is calmly talking of a Naval Budget of 400 or 500 million dollars, and universal service as well, as a possibility of the all but immediate future.118 If England can stand that now, why should not Germany, who is, we are told, growing industrially more rapidly than the English, be able to stand as much? But when she has arrived at that point, the English, at the same rate, must have a naval budget of anything from 750 to 1000 million dollars, a total armament budget of something in the region of 1250 millions. The longer it goes on, the worse will be England’s relative position, because she has imposed on herself a progressive handicap.

The end can only be conflict, and already the policy of precipitating that conflict is raising its head.

Sir Edmund C. Cox writes in the premier English review, the Nineteenth Century, for April, 1910:

Is there no alternative to this endless yet futile competition in shipbuilding? Yes, there is. It is one which a Cromwell, a William Pitt, a Palmerston, a Disraeli, would have adopted long ago. This is that alternative⁠—the only possible conclusion. It is to say to Germany: “All that you have been doing constitutes a series of unfriendly acts. Your fair words go for nothing. Once for all, you must put an end to your warlike preparations. If we are not satisfied that you do so, we shall forthwith sink every battleship and cruiser which you possess. The situation which you have created is intolerable. If you determine to fight us, if you insist upon war, war you shall have; but the time shall be of our choosing and not of yours, and that time shall be now.” And that is where the present policy, the sheer bulldog piling up of armaments without reference to or effort towards a better political doctrine in Europe, inevitably leads.

III

Is the Political Reformation Possible?

Men are little disposed to listen to reason, “therefore we should not talk reason”⁠—Are men’s ideas immutable?

We have seen, therefore⁠—

1. That the need for defence arises from the existence of a motive for attack.

2. That that motive is, consequently, part of the problem of defence.

3. That, since as between the advanced peoples we are dealing with in this matter, one party is as able in the long run to pile up armaments as the other, we cannot get nearer to solution by armaments alone; we must get at the original provoking cause⁠—the motive making for aggression.

4. That if that motive results from a true judgment of the facts; if the determining factor in a nation’s well-being and progress is really its power to obtain by force advantage over others, the present situation of armament rivalry tempered by war is a natural and inevitable one.

5. That if, however, the view is a false one, our progress towards solution will be marked by the extent to which the error becomes generally recognized in international public opinion.

That brings me to the last entrenchment of those who actively or passively oppose propaganda looking towards reform in this matter.

As already pointed out, the last year or two has revealed a suggestive shifting of position on the part of such opposition. The original position of the defenders of the old political creeds was that the economic thesis here outlined was just simply wrong; then, that the principles themselves were sound enough, but that they were irrelevant, because not interests, but ideals, constituted the cause of conflict between nations. In reply to which, of course, came the query, What ideals, apart from questions of interest, lie at the bottom of the conflict which is the most typical of our time⁠—what ideal motive is Germany, for instance, pursuing in its presumed aggression upon England? Consequently that position has generally been abandoned. Then we were told that men don’t act by logic, but passion. Then the critics were asked how they explained the general character of la haute politique, its cold intrigues and expediency, the extraordinary rapid changes in alliances and ententes, all following exactly a line of passionless interest reasoned, though from false premises, with very great logic indeed; and were asked whether all experience does not show that, while passion may determine the energy with which a given line of conduct is pursued, the direction of that line of conduct is determined by processes of another kind: John, seeing James, his lifelong and long-sought enemy, in the distance, has his hatred passionately stirred, and harbors thoughts of murder. As he comes near he sees that it is not James at all, but a quiet and inoffensive neighbor, Peter. John’s thoughts of murder are appeased, not because he has changed his nature, but because the recognition of a simple fact has changed the direction of his passion. What we in this matter hope to do is to show that the nations are mistaking Peter for James.

Well, the last entrenchment of those who oppose the work is the dogmatic assertion that though we are right as to the material fact, its demonstration can never be made; that this political reformation of Europe the political rationalists talk about is a hopeless matter; it implies a change of