A MORAL FOR PACIFISTS

What is the outcome of the foregoing considerations?  The only moral at present which I am disposed to draw is one which may be addressed to pacifists in general, and to all those who avail themselves of large and generous phrases, such as “the public will of Europe,” or “the common consciousness of civilised states.”  The solution of the problem before us is not to be gained by the use of abstract terms, but by very definite and concrete experience used in the most practical way to secure immediate reforms.  We demand, for instance, the creation of what is to all intents and purposes an international federal system applied to Europe at large.  Now it is obvious that a federal system can be created amongst nations more or less at the same level of civilisation, inspired by much the same ideals, acknowledging the same end of their political and social activity.  But in what sense is this true of Europe as we know it?  There is every kind of diversity between the constituent elements of the suggested federation.  There is no real uniformity of political institutions and ideals.  But in order that our object may be realised it is precisely this uniformity of political institutions and ideals amongst the nations which we require.  How is a public opinion formed in any given state?  It comes into being owing to a certain community of sentiments, opinions, and prejudices, and without such community it cannot develop.  The same thing holds true of international affairs.  If we desiderate the public voice of Europe, or the public conscience of Europe, Europe must grow to be far more concordant than it is at present, both in actual political institutions and in those inspiring ideals which form the life-blood of institutions.  How many states, for instance, recognise or put into practice a really representative system of government?

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION

If we turn to the programme of the pacifists, we shall be confronted by similar difficulties.  Pacifism, as such, involves an appeal to all the democracies, asking them to come into line, as it were, for the execution of certain definite projects intended to seek peace and ensure it.  The first stage of the peace movement is the general recognition of the principle of arbitration between states.  That first period has, we may take it, been already realised.  The second stage is the recognition of compulsory arbitration.  When, in 1907, the second Hague Conference was held, this principle was supported by thirty-two different states, representing more than a thousand million human beings.  Something like three or four hundred millions remained not yet prepared to admit the principle in its entirety.  I may remark in passing that the verbal acceptance of a general principle is one thing, the application, as we have lately had much reason to discover, is quite another.