The Future of England/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
OUR INTERNATIONAL FUTURE (continued)
Internationally, then, it seems, that our interests, even down to the root of domestic finance, are becoming more and more exposed to the play of European influences. It appears, too, that, in Europe itself, the virulence of the war fever tends to be more manageable than formerly, to the extent that it is assuming an intermittent rather than a chronic form. These two propositions in combination indicate that, in the future, we shall find it expedient, and not wildly hazardous, to take a more active part than formerly in the continental blind-man's buff. But what part? Look again across the Narrow Seas.
The guiding idea of Bismarck, from 1870 up to his fall in 1890, may be described as one of insurance against war. His first expedient was to organise a league, or understanding, between the three emperors of Germany, Austria, and Russia. "I have thrown a bridge across to Vienna," he said, "without breaking down that older one to St. Petersburg." But presently, owing to her diverging views on the Eastern question, Russia parted company; so that the Chancellor was left with Austria, with whom he established a definite alliance, enlarged later into the Triple Alliance, by the adhesion of Italy. He had, indeed, lost Russia for the time, but he determined "not to cut the wire to St. Petersburg," and to regain her favour as far as possible; so he effected a reinsurance by negotiating an agreement with Russia too. In due course, however, Russia once again drew away, and formed later the Dual Alliance with France.
Before entering upon times more recent, it is well to mark an important feature in the transactions thus briefly mentioned. Observe that Bismarck did not attempt merely to construct a triple league against France; he planned also to cast his lasso round the neck of Russia, so as to form an European combination of overwhelming strength. True, he did not succeed finally; yet for several years after 1872, and also for several years after 1884, he attained the goal of his far-reaching policy.
To proceed, not long after the fall of the Prince, the whirligig of diplomacy brought back his ideal in another shape. In 1895, the world was somewhat startled to discover that Germany and Russia, together with France herself, were in close and zealous confabulation. The "Break-up of China" was thought to be imminent, and the savour of an unparalleled carcass seemed wafted down the east wind into Christendom. No time that for western braves to be scalping each other. Accordingly, from 1895 to 1898, these three powers at Kuang-chou-wan, at Kiao-Chao, and at Port Arthur, cut and carved unmercifully at the body politic of the Son of Heaven.
Remark, again, how lightly intestine quarrels sit upon our neighbours when big game is reported abroad.
Generally speaking, however, the event that commanded the attention of Europe during the generation after 1870 was the consolidation of all that was powerful and progressive into the two opposing alliances. The constant tendency of these same powers to effect a merger, passed as a subsidiary affair.
This grand evolution of the European world placed England at once in a highly embarrassing situation. With the Dual Alliance of France and Russia we could not side by any means. For the world-wide aggressions of Russia in the Far East and in south-eastern Europe disturbed us profoundly; not less were we vexed by the ubiquitous efforts of France in search of a colonial empire. This animus reached its pitch in 1898, with Russia over China, and with France over the valley of the Nile.
If, then, we were not disposed to side with the Dual Alliance, it seemed less impracticable to march in unison with the central powers. And for this Lord Salisbury appeared by no means indisposed. If he could not go so far as to say, as Sir Robert Peel said in 1841 to Bunsen, "I am a good German," yet he looked to the Triple Alliance with a distinctly friendly eye. In earlier days he had eulogised the Austrian "sentinel" of the Balkans; he had hailed the Austro-German alliance as glad tidings of great joy; and, as late as November 1899, he could declare that Germany was the State "with which we have for many years entertained relations of sympathy and friendship beyond all others."
Yet this policy, too, was closed to us by a very cogent reason. To side with the Triple Alliance definitely would be to give overwhelming preponderance to that association of the powers. But since immemorial days, since the days even of the mediæval Papacy, the policy of England had been to set her face against any would-be master of Christendom. She had ever, on occasion, struck the proudest lilies with her rod. Whoso throughout the ages had stretched his hand against the ark of European freedom, she had thwarted him in the bold design.
Therefore our policy, during the generation after 1870, was to adopt isolation, since there seemed room for nothing else.
Yet somehow the current of human affairs, or the tide of necessity, or that situation in life which is the dictator of duty, began insensibly to shift us from our solitary moorings. For though, in the forefront of European affairs, the mutual antagonism of the Triple and the Dual Alliances appeared to promise us security, in the background there was ever that danger of a combination of all the powers, directed this time against the haughty and selfish privateer who, recking nought of others and recked of by none, was skirting the farthest capes for plunder, and stealing marches in every tropic, so as to rear a sky-scraping empire against the "ancient lights" of Europe itself.
Already, as so often happens, warnings rich with futurity were offered in the market-place and found no public. In Vienna, at the close of 1897, a voice was raised, not extremely important perhaps, yet significant certainly. Count Goluchowski, the Foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, whose policy was the united action of Austria and Russia in the Balkans, declared that the time was ripe when a combination of European powers was needed to preserve the Continent against "trans-oceanic influences." But it is England who in Southern Asia, in Australia, in Africa, and in America, has founded these parvenu powers that ruffle the complacency, and upset the balance, of the Old World.
More weighty was Mr. Chamberlain's speech of May 1898. Of that utterance it may be said without exaggeration, not indeed that it opened a new chapter in our international destiny, but that it indicated for the first time clearly that such a chapter must be opened soon.
The minister pointed out that, ever since the Crimean War, England had adopted a policy of isolation, so that she had had no allies, and, it was to be feared, no friends. This had been well enough hitherto. But now "a new situation has arisen in the world"; the world was combining into great organisations, so that "we are liable at any moment to be confronted by a combination of great powers." He concluded that the time had definitely come for us to abandon our aloofness, and "we must not reject the idea of an alliance with the power whose interests are closest to our own." For the nonce, inaction and protests and queries; yet those words were pregnant with things to come.
As the years passed after 1898, the signs of the times accumulated about our head. In the first place, during this period, from 1892 to 1901 at any rate, the German Emperor steadily pursued a highly sagacious policy of conciliation with France. An ample and even embarrassing jet of international courtesies and diplomatic compliments was showered from Berlin upon Paris, "our chivalrous enemy, always so useful to the cause of civilisation," and upon "French soldiers, who fight with the courage of despair." Perhaps the climax was reached in 1900, when French and German troops co-operated in China.
Next, there was the outbreak of the South African War, on which occasion, in the words of Lord Rosebery, who expressed the opinion of our leading statesmen, our public realised "the hatred and ill-will" with which we were regarded "almost unanimously by the peoples of Europe."
Thus, by the teaching of a long catalogue of events, two facts of importance had been clearly brought home to us at the opening of the twentieth century. The first was that, in spite of the apparent or nominal division of Europe into two mutually antagonistic leagues, the nations composing these leagues constantly display many tendencies towards unity. And this fact often haunts us. Speaking in March 1911 with reference to the Triple and Dual Alliances, our Foreign minister said, "Gradually, in the last five years at any rate, things which might have brought these groups into opposition to each other, have been disappearing." The second fact was that the European peoples generally appeared to be animated from time to time by a common policy of resentment against us, an antagonism which our policy of isolation obviously could not cure and probably fostered. This was a dangerous and even an intolerable situation. A fresh international epoch must begin for England.
It was February 1902 which marked definitely the inauguration of this new era. From that date another destiny, filling generations of the future, opens before the eyes of the English people.
In February 1902 Lord Lansdowne announced in the House of Lords that the time had at last come for "a new departure." We must finally put away and abjure for ever "any old formula or old-fashioned superstition as to the desirability of pursuing a policy of isolation for this country." He warned us against "a coalition of other powers." He pointed out that the world is becoming dangerous to those who have no allies, and that we must have them. So we had allied ourselves with Japan! In criticism hereof, it was pointed out, with force, that this was the first time that we had taken any similar action, that the treaty deprived us to some extent of the freedom of individual initiative, and that we had embarked upon a future which no one could at that moment foresee.
Since all alliances are melted down one day or another, this one will some day vanish naturally with the rest. But its consequences seem likely to be permanent.
The Japanese treaty provided, in its original shape, that if two powers, or, in its later shapes of 1905 and 1911, that if one power, attacked Japan, we were to go to war on her behalf. This involved an important obligation, but was not the main thing. In the view of Europe, England in taking this step had definitely turned the tables on the West; had preferred alliance with an oriental power only yesterday barbarous; had openly proclaimed her own non-European sympathies, or, at least, had avowed the preponderance of her Asiatic interests; had cast away any pretence of co-operation with Christendom; and had, by that act, justified all that the chancelleries had suspected of her treachery. For all eyes saw that England had thus definitely forbidden Europe to overwhelm Japan, to divide up China, and generally to consign into untimely graves the various valetudinarians of the Far East. This was a flashlight upon the foreign destiny of England.
But there was something else of moment which this instrument accomplished. Its enactment cut away, once and for the future, the logical basis upon which our policy had stood hitherto. Obviously, if to England isolation was henceforth "an old-fashioned superstition," she would not stop at an alliance with a remote island in the depth of a distant sea.
In view of European feeling, there was no time for us to lose, and no time was lost. With the spring of 1903 the new international epoch of comprehensive and forward action dawned clearly for the English people. But the results are not yet.
This new departure is, for the most part, the active participation of England in Europe for a definite end. That end is, primarily, nothing more grandiose or occult than security, in view of the changing aspect of continental affairs. Our security, however, is to be safeguarded henceforth on a five-fold line. First, a definite side is to be taken in the balance of Europe; secondly, foreign nations, whether in our scale of the balance or not, are to be conciliated by a novel method of comprehensive settlement, embracing all outstanding questions likely to cause hostility; thirdly, a military and naval reorganisation is to be executed with a view to the possibility of European action; fourthly, the Concert of Europe, and fifthly, international arbitration, are to be regularly supported and, if possible, established.
It will be patent at once that, though a step or two, more or less tentative, have been taken already in each of these directions, in no one of them is there even a prospect of finality for many decades to come.
Nevertheless, in order to gauge the future, it is desirable to inspect those several expedients summarily, and then to look beyond them still.
As regards the first, our choice of a side in the balance of Europe, that is a matter of particular difficulty. Lord Salisbury, as has been seen, towards the end of his career emphasised our special attachment to Germany. It was in accordance with this view that Mr. Chamberlain, in the early days of the Boer War, definitely proposed our alliance with the fatherland. He said that it is now "evident to everybody that the natural alliance is between ourselves and the great German empire." But against this policy there still is our old-rooted feeling that in Europe we must suspect a rising star. Besides, Germany, with her aspirations towards sea power, would not have it. The sea intervenes, the sea of which England must be victim or queen.
But if we were to incline towards France and Russia, we must also put into force our second expedient of a comprehensive settlement with each of them, and in due course with Germany herself. With France we had accumulated, throughout some decades of animosity, any number of irritating questions, in Newfoundland, in Zanzibar, in Madagascar, in Siam, in Morocco, in Algiers, in Tunis, on the Congo, on the Niger, in Egypt, and the Soudan. Therefore, negotiations, beginning in the spring of 1903, were announced in 1904 as having produced "a comprehensive scheme" for the settlement of these issues, constituting hitherto "a standing menace to an international friendship."
The next step in this sphere was to agree with Russia, so as to terminate what Lord Curzon called "this long feud, which has been the source of so much anxiety, which has produced such incessant intrigues, and has involved such great expenditure to Russia, to India, and ourselves." Accordingly, in 1907, we made a treaty with Russia in regard to oriental matters, which the same authority described as the most important concluded by us for the last fifty years, and "pregnant with inexpressible influence upon the future." Lord Lansdowne reinforced this by saying that "the time has come when agreements of this kind are really inevitable." He added that this convention "marked the beginning of a new era in our relations with Russia," and that he trusted Russia to observe it with absolute loyalty.
Thirdly, if we are to take a line in European affairs, we shall obviously need forces competent, to some degree at least, to meet European necessities. Hitherto, the unavowed but underlying principle, regulating our naval and military dispositions, had been that those forces would not be wanted to contend against highly trained troops or first-class modern navies assembled in European waters. Our ships, now concentrated, were scattered over the globe, while our army was organised confessedly for not much more than frontier fighting and "little wars." Or rather, there had hitherto been a complete lack of any agreement at all upon broad principles. Through the dim haze of military chaos might be discerned, indeed, three lines—the first, a professional force; the second, a semi-professional force, the militia; and the third, a purely voluntary organisation. But, as the War minister himself said in 1907, "our first line is full of gaps; our second line is decadent; and the third is totally disorganised." Up till now, in regard to overseas action, the mountain of our military reorganisation has brought forth what some esteem a mouse, an "expeditionary force," fitted presumably to manœuvre by the side of some big rat of a European ally. But, as Lord Haldane himself has often stated, "we are only at the beginning of the work."
The fourth line of defence is action in support of the Concert of Europe. This is a legacy from the later years of Lord Salisbury. He himself, he said, preferred to call it the Federation of Europe. On several occasions he defined its main purpose as the prevention of European war. He realised that it was as yet of only intermittent value, but he pointed out that the Concert has a great future, and is "the embryo of the only possible structure of Europe which can save civilisation from the desolating effects of a disastrous war."
The fifth method which we have advocated is international arbitration. The age of the Renaissance exalted the irresponsibility of international action, but since that date a strong and increasing cry has gone up from Europe to bring that irresponsibility under the law. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did, indeed, establish permanent embassies as an instrument of peace, while the eighteenth founded the rudiments of a law of neutrality; but it was reserved for the nineteenth to establish international arbitration as a permanent factor in the world. This system, to be precise, dates from 1794, when England and the United States concluded an arbitration treaty to deal with questions arising under the Peace Treaty of 1783. Thus international arbitration is of Anglo-Saxon origin, was inaugurated by our race, and we, most of all, have practised it. La Fontaine, the learned historian of that subject, estimates that from 1794 to 1900 there were actually 177 instances of this arbitrament, of which he assigns no less than 70 cases as shared in by Great Britain, 56 by the United States, and 26 by France, with other nations relatively nowhere. Under Anglo-Saxon auspices the arbitration of sovereigns has been superseded by that of jurists, and the institution has ceased to be diplomatic in order to become judicial. Thus it is we who have written the name of international arbitration on the roll-call of freedom.
Nor has our energetic advocacy ceased with the century. Mr. Balfour, speaking in 1905, pointed out that England during recent years had "struggled to develop to the utmost the whole principle of arbitration," and had recently brought an increasing number of cases to judgment with success. But it is 1903 that really marks an epoch. For, in that year, following on the Anglo-French Agreement, a new departure was taken. An Anglo-French treaty was negotiated, agreeing to refer to the Permanent Court of Arbitration recently established at the Hague all differences and disputes between the two countries, "not affecting the vital interests, the independence, or the honour, of the two contracting States." M. Renault, who has summarised the proceedings of the second Hague Conference, has estimated that, from 1903 up to the middle of 1908 alone, no less than sixty other treaties have been modelled upon that precedent. It remains for us to widen the scope of this procedure, so that the Anglo-Saxon race may still guide the world in a department of political action so markedly its own.
So far, therefore, it has become apparent that in the future we shall play an increasingly energetic part in Europe, acting in these specific ways. It remains to inquire whether these methods will have a powerful influence towards promoting our ultimate purpose of a peaceful and free Christendom. Undoubtedly. But further, will they be adequate by themselves actually to guarantee and secure such a consummation? No.
A very little thought will demonstrate that neither our entry into the balance of Europe, nor our settlements with individual powers, nor our reorganisation of our navy and an expeditionary force, nor our support of the Concert of Europe, nor our cultivation of international arbitraments, are more than highly laudable and very important palliatives against the seizures and paroxysms to which Europe has been subject for fifteen centuries. Enough surely to remember that, though all these expedients of ours are in operation at this moment, our western barbarism, though modified, is still itself. War, in the Miltonic phrase, is still "in procinct." As the Prime Minister, recently speaking of armaments, has said: "We have tried to get other nations to hold their hand. But they will not; they are not in the mood for it." Therefore, we must look farther into the future, asking ourselves whether the resources of England are indeed exhausted with this catalogue, and whether we cannot shoulder some other more effective accoutrement drawn from the armoury of the coming time. To understand how this is possible, we must extend our vision beyond the boundaries of Europe itself.
During the vast span of the last five centuries, Europe has spared time from her internal combustions to discover and conquer the outer world, the four continents of Africa, Asia, America, and Australia. Henry the Navigator of Portugal began the work in the fifteenth century by exploring West Africa, and Henry Stanley completed it in our own day by discovering the Congo region close by.
These four continents had one feature only in common: political debility was universal. For they were all tenanted either by helpless savages, as in the cases of America, Australia, and a good part of Africa, or else, as in the case of Asia, by monarchies either discredited or of fortuitous strength. For though Asia could boast fine resources, teeming numbers, and glittering governments, in the East glory and havoc are sworn allies. Or, in the stately phrase of Gibbon, all Asiatic dynasties are "one unceasing round of valour, greatness, discord, degeneracy, and decay."
It was inevitable in these circumstances, that the European nations, with their insatiable appetites, should fall with zest upon such dazzling loot. Great was the animus furandi. Accordingly, for five centuries a scramble for the outer world ensued, begun by anointed culprits, and completed by unanointed democracy. For we have witnessed the wholesale deglutition of Africa, and the digestion of huge portions of Asia into the European maw. To-day some minor nations yet remain to be cut up into sirloins and briskets by our butchers, who scruple not to dot their proposed partitions even on living hides.
To this famous crusade all the leading nations of Christendom, except Austria-Hungary and, until to-day, Italy, have despatched a respectable contingent of conquistadors. For example, Spaniards, Portuguese, French, and English have absorbed America north and south; while Russia, France, England, Holland, and Germany have raided a good part of Asia and the Far East; and so on with the other continents.
All this has exercised very naturally an immense stimulus upon the passions of Europe. Not only have formal wars arisen between the western nations over the division of their quarry, but also, what is less noticed, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century unofficial conflicts between them raged constantly in the outer world. Besides, almost from the first, at the back of the motive of sheer plunder, a subtler consideration and a more far-sighted dream took shape. For, obviously, any nation that could become master in the outer world would presently become master in Europe, and probably vice versa. Therefore, in the lists of war, now made infinitely more spacious, the charging knights gathered a double momentum. The internal conflict of Christendom became reincarnate on a vastly dilated scale.
As for England, she felt this great change more than any other power. Unambitious in Europe, and only anxious to have no more Cæsars, she perceived that it was no longer the liberties of Europe, but the liberties of the world that were at stake. For, if the existence of England depended upon freedom in Europe, freedom in Europe in its turn now hinged upon the freedom of the world.
Therefore, behind her practical and business-like motive, already mentioned, of organising an empire in order to protect the commerce essential to her life, the profounder thought has increasingly possessed her that she must expend her last penny and her last drop of blood in maintaining not merely the balance of Europe, but the balance of the globe.
Thus the ultimate destiny of England, in this sphere of politics, begins to stand revealed. By mere action in Europe, by the sole agency of all that fivefold list of excellent expedients, she will evidently not settle the European question. But she will come, and is coming, to realise that at her own instigation, and by her own contrivance, the New World, in the sense of the world outside Europe, must, in default of all other plans, be trained to be the policeman and warden of the Old.
Let us gather precisely how this bids fair to be.
If we could put ourselves into the position of the statesmen, say, of the central powers in Europe, we should find that England's action and influence in the outer world increasingly hampers their warlike proclivities in a specific way. To her, incomparably above all other nations, is due the continuous rise of a number of communities outside Europe, all capable of providing homes for European emigrants flying from the burdens of militarism, and the constant anxieties of war. These are the United States, Canada, Australasia, and South Africa. Besides these communities, there are the South American States, of which it is perhaps not too much to say that, whereas the original colonists merely pitched camps and called them republics, now, with the ceaseless and immense influx of British capital and British energy, they have been rendered suitable homes for the Germanic and Latin stocks.
Therefore, European statesmen see a new world rising rapidly yonder, alienated from themselves, in touch with us, destined to be the rival of Europe, and growing the faster as they indulge in their time-honoured Kriegspiel. Meanwhile, their best and bravest, their invaluable citizens, will take wing across the ocean to better continents, while the weakling and the pauper will stay behind. Thus an ever-ascending scale of impositions will fall upon peoples ever less disposed to bear them. "The burden of armaments," said our Foreign minister in March 1911, "will be dissipated by internal revolution, by the revolt of masses of men against taxation." So one day, when some galloping imperial Rupert has finished charging, he will wheel right about, only to find his camp in the hands of his own socialists. Such thoughts give pause.
There is a second course adopted by England, equally calculated in the long run to check the internal passions of Christendom. The outer world, as already pointed out, was incapable, in its original state, of meeting the onslaught of Europe, thus providing an active incitement to wars waged between the western powers for so rich a prize. But England is gradually finding her mission in building up these politically decadent peoples into more stable communities, capable of resisting the attack, and thus of abating a definite cause of European strife. For instance, Southern Asia, and the seas that wash it, were once the scene of continuous battles between ourselves, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the French; and, but for our presence, Russians and Germans would probably be fighting there now. In this instance alone, no inconsiderable portion of the human species has been removed by ourselves from the arena and the lions. But this is not all, by any means. This country has actively used her influence not merely to fortify the weak, who live under her own ægis in all parts of the world, but also to defend, by her diplomacy and even by her soldiers, many peoples not under her sway at all. For example, her Japanese Alliance of 1902 was signed in order not only to protect Japan from European aggression, but also to save the Chinese Empire from partition by the powers. In Europe itself she has constantly, though not always happily, ministered to the Turk, and has even fought for him. Even as early as 1816, Nesselrode, on behalf of Russia, could complain of "the incessant attempts of the cabinet of St. James's to interfere in the relations of Russia with Turkey and Persia," to support, that is, those governments against inroads from the Czar.
So it comes about that, very largely owing to the wealth, the diplomacy, and the arms of England, we are witnesses in our own day of a resurrection of the world outside Europe. South America no longer lies open to the first comer, whether purveying a Monroe doctrine or not. Asia is refusing to be made the mere running track of Christendom. Everywhere the European pathfinder is warned away, finding his trespass barred and prosecution threatened, not so much by a European neighbour as by a local magnate. Europe halts, or has to proceed with infinitely more cautious steps.
The third measure which this country is taking outside Europe, calculated to arrest continental animosities, is cultivation of friendship with the United States, who are now evidently preparing to take a hand in external affairs. This has been one of the main legacies of the last few years of the nineteenth century, for, since 1896 and the Venezuela crisis, when the two countries seemed not far from war, Lord Salisbury steadily laboured for better relations. We have done everything possible, so far. For instance, it had been one of the cardinal axioms of British policy that no first-class power should control the Sound, the Bosphorus, Gibraltar, Suez, or Darien. Yet we have practically abandoned the latter position in favour of the Americans. Again, even Canning, who tried to establish an Anglo-American alliance, laid it down in 1822 that no one must seize Cuba. Yet, when the United States took that island in 1898, we sided with them. This policy is now being pursued systematically, so that Sir Edward Grey has said that the pursuit of friendship with the United States is a main feature of our diplomacy, while an American ambassador has declared that friendship between the two countries is more solidly established now than for a hundred years.
In the very darkest hour of our history, within a week of the date when the provisional articles of the Treaty of Paris had been signed in 1782, our House of Commons passed one of the best resolutions in its long history. Now that our offspring, in alliance with our bitterest enemies, had successfully revolted against us, we put it on record that "we most ardently wish that religion, language, interests, and affection may yet prove the bond of permanent union between the two countries." After so long an interval, we are now taking active steps to realise an aspiration which, if consummated, will provide another method of guaranteeing the peace of the world.
A fourth resource available for England lies in the fact that so many of the powers of Europe have themselves acquired important colonies. As time goes on, these will be seen more and more to be hostages given to peace. These colonies are in the main peopled by alien races, who may be supposed to be not unwilling to seize any opportunity afforded them by the absorption of their possessors in domestic affrays. Besides, if Bismarck could defend himself by moving against England in Egypt, so conversely may England, with her superior influence abroad, do the same against any continental power desirous of breaking bounds at home.
The fifth and last resource of England in the outer world is the one most pregnant with power for the future. Under the stress of the European danger, and of the vast weight imposed upon us by the growth of European armaments, we have been obliged, as we all know, to draw back upon ourselves, and to urge the Dominions to relieve us to some degree of the burden of their defence. The military ideal now aimed at is that, in addition to the expeditionary force to act at a distance in case of necessity, there should be "a far-flung line of local defence," as Lord Haldane has termed it, maintained by each nation within the empire, organised as far as possible upon one pattern, and regulated by one school of thought in the shape of a General Staff. Similar principles are to apply to the naval reorganisation. That this ideal, however imperfectly executed at present, exists at all, is due in the main to the apprehensions excited throughout the world by the lengthening range of European armaments, and by the determination to resist the encroachment of western ambitions.
It seems, then, that the destiny of England is changing before our eyes. A while ago we appeared to aspire to be the Mrs. Caudle, or, at any rate, the Madame de Staël, of Europe. Our candidature was for the respectable post of finishing governess to Christendom. But, after 1870, as our pupils grew big and restive at our lecturing, we gave notice and retired. With the twentieth century we have come back in a rather different role, having read in the gospel according to Bismarck that "we shall not avoid the dangers that lie in the bosom of the future by amiability."
We did not emerge from the isolation of the past because Europe, in the generation following 1870, organised itself into two opposing combinations of immense strength. On the contrary, the formation of such antagonistic bodies would of itself only furnish us with another reason for remaining aloof, in composed contemplation of the balance of power. The real reason, therefore, for our advance into the current of European life was the painful knowledge, gradually borne in upon us, that there was, from our point of view, an essential unreality in these antagonisms of the Triple and Dual Alliances, which might easily terminate at any moment to our prejudice, and that, accordingly, it was impossible, without incurring the gravest danger of a common hostility directed against us, to stand apart any more.
Therefore, we are seeking our own safety, and that of the world, both inside and outside Europe. First, in supporting the Concert of Europe, we have tried to lay the foundations of a true federation of Christendom. Failing that genuine concord, still so far from the minds of men, we have done our best to foster the growth of judicial arbitration, so that the coherent and comprehensible voice of the law may prevail in the babel of disagreeing diplomacies. In default of arbitration in its turn, we have begun to establish, by general agreements, our separate peace and concord with the individual powers. In further default of such a process, and as we approached reluctantly the realm of sheer force, we have indicated our side and our sympathies as between the alliances dividing Christendom. Fifthly, since this, too, would not be enough, in that danger zone where argument dies away and only might flourishes, we have initiated the reorganisation of our armaments, remembering that, of all the gods and goddesses, only one never lays aside her spear and shield and helmet. It is the goddess of wisdom.
And next, as though all else may fail us in Europe, force and argument and morality alike, we have striven, and shall strive, to mobilise the outer world in succour. We are providing oversea conduits and safety-valves for the superheated passions of the Occident; large spaces, too, where the ichor of western animosities may evaporate under a torrid sun.
We have conciliated the United States, hoping to arouse the interest of the New World in the common good of Christendom, so coincident ultimately with its own. We have laboured also abundantly to bring home to our distant Dominions of the Newest World that, even if affection or regard for our welfare do not prompt them to dip their feet in the vortex of militarism, it is yet vital for them to know that, on our slaughter, siege will be laid to them, and that our collapse will postulate their catastrophe.
The paradox and scandal of the world is that for fifteen centuries, since the adoption by the continent of Christianity, European history has been a tale of blood. To resolve that paradox, to abate that scandal, to substitute concert for conflict, to bring the glories or the devilries of war to their lowest dimension, and to teach mankind to grow great in common, is the international future of England. She provides a remedy. If Europe will not accept, and will cling to force as its beatitude, western civilisation will perish, for mankind will tear up its title-deeds, as surely as they tore up those of feudalism. Then, echoing the words of Napoleon, "cette vieille Europe m'ennuie," England will turn away for ever to those young nations of hers that are becoming ancient, and to those old nations of the East that are becoming young.
But before she does so, not playing the part of the wounded benefactor, she offers still to open the era of the great amnesty, and to close the old history of wrong. She asks that nationhood, hitherto the signal of animosity, shall become the symbol of association, and that it shall lean upon humanity, and not betray.