Part 10

Back of these arguments, however, there usually lies the conviction that the public is superficial, easily swayed, excitable and altogether delighting more in the hurrah of war than in the humdrum of peace. It might be remarked that if such had actually been the case, the most recent experience of the people with war has probably given them a different idea of the attractiveness of that kind of excitement; unless indeed the mass of humanity are irremediably and forever fools, when taken in the aggregate.

The sensational character of the daily press must be considered in this connection. The news value of normal, peaceable developments is very small. It is therefore a godsend to the newspapers when something extraordinary happens, particularly in international affairs. For this reason, the daily news frequently presents an untrue or warped picture of the actual situation. Gilbert Murray asks what people are referred to by those who demand popular control of diplomacy; are they the people of educational societies, or of the music halls? The public is not homogeneous, or so organized as to give expression to convictions on current affairs which have been maturely considered. It lacks the leisure and training for penetrating superficialities and going to the bottom of difficult questions. Lord Cromer believes in general that democracies are not peaceful, and he refers particularly to the American democracy for proof; Lord Lytton said, “Governments are generally for diplomacy, the people for war.”

Men of all shades of opinion are agreed that the people are not greatly interested in foreign affairs, and the opponents of proposals of democratic control argue that it would be useless to create machinery for action where there exists no interest, nor purpose to act.

It is quite true that the public during the nineteenth century seemed less interested in foreign affairs than during the eighteenth. At the earlier time, diplomacy was a fascinating, personal game, about which the wiseacres in the coffee houses were eager to make their criticisms and prognostications. When the middle class came to power in the nineteenth century, it was primarily interested in economic and other domestic questions, and was satisfied to leave the conduct of foreign affairs to statesmen and diplomats. The constantly growing political consciousness of the public at large was concentrated chiefly on questions of internal politics and reform. Foreign affairs, as they reached the public, were thought of still from the point of view of the onlooker, rather than of him who actually had to bear the brunt of the burden. Those who had to bleed and die when hostilities had been brought about, never had any chance, nor determination, to influence the course of diplomacy leading up to wars.

With such a general apathy of the public, it was not surprising that diplomacy should cling to its caste privileges, should try to preserve its discretionary powers, and should often attempt deliberately to keep people in the dark. “In the public interest” is the curtain beyond which no one may peer. Even in the American Government, particularly during and since the war, foreign affairs have been handled with what would ordinarily seem insufficient information to the public; in fact, with occasional putting forth of misleading and entirely partial information, or the refusal to furnish information even when requested by those having official responsibilities. This is a notable change, as up to 1914 it was substantially true that the United States had no diplomatic secrets.

While from the point of view of traditional diplomacy, and of international relations as they were up to the Great War, it seems quite natural that democratic control should be thought by many to be unpractical; and while indeed no one can flatter himself that through a change of method the conduct of international affairs could suddenly be rendered more wise and entirely effective towards the public welfare, yet I cannot avoid the conclusion that there is a wrong orientation in the emphasis of the need of secrecy and of the unfitness of the people to deal with problems of foreign affairs. The belief in the unfitness of the people in this matter appears to be the result of a preconceived notion as to the overpowering difficulty, complexity and almost sanctity of foreign affairs. Modern governments are based on the principle that all legislation must meet the test of public criticism and rest on public consent; certainly it cannot be argued that matters of the incidence of taxation, the proper organization of credit, and the determination of commercial policies, are less complex and intricate than are foreign affairs. It is indeed true that it is difficult for one nation thoroughly to appreciate in detail the conditions of life in another. This truth should have its greatest value in dissuading a nation from meddling with the internal affairs of another, even from good motives. Those international questions which are apt to produce war may indeed relate to intricate matters, but the essential point is always the contention for power, influence or commercial advantage, and it is not apparent why the public in general should be unfit to judge as to whether national treasure and life are eventually to be spent in huge quantities to bring about, or to prevent, any such shifting of power or influence.

It is, however, because the motives involved are so largely connected with class interests, or survivals of pride of race, that those concerned in them are eager to deny the fitness of the general public, which if called on to decide would put into the foreground the question, “How does the control of this or that group of capitalists in Morocco, for instance, or the greater or smaller influence of Austria or Russia in Servia, affect the daily life and welfare of our people?” It is certainly true that questions of peace and war have never definitely been reasoned out on that basis. There has always been the assumption that certain things were essential to national prestige and could not be questioned; it is only when the actually existing broader base of national political life is organized also for active control of foreign affairs, that these considerations will have their full weight. Only the most exceptional statesmen could lift themselves out of the narrow groove of tradition and precedent; and more exceptional still, in fact all but impossible, is the capacity of one man to represent in himself in just proportion, all the interests and feelings of a nation.

Infallibility cannot be expected in the handling of foreign affairs, whether under a broad discretion of statesmen or under strict democratic control. There will always be an alternative of wisdom and rashness, constructive planning and headlong action, carefulness and negligence. But past experience has certainly established beyond peradventure of doubt that secret diplomacy is not infallible, and particularly that diplomacy acting under absolutist traditions, as in Germany before the war, may make the most fatal mistakes of judgment and of policy. Balfour said: “I do not think the Government in June, 1914, had the slightest idea that there was any danger ahead.” A remarkable statement, when we consider the actions and reactions of secret diplomacy during the decade preceding the war. It has been quite truly said that diplomacy is far more eminent in autopsy than in diagnosis. M. Cheradame somewhat severely observes, “The typical diplomat lives in a world of his own. His information is rarely obtained by direct observation of people and facts.” And while ordinarily men of exceptional talents are selected for the difficulty position of Minister for Foreign Affairs, yet all considered, it is hard to believe that were decisions on the essential matters of international life made on a broader basis, and influenced more by a direct action of public opinion, the result would be less wise.

Active participation of the people in the making of momentous decisions regarding foreign affairs, is denied either under the assumption that the people might not be ready to face the fateful test, or, by the majority, with the thought that the people are too excitable and rash to be trusted with such far-reaching decisions. While it is indeed easy to generate warlike excitement among the masses, it must be remembered, when such a charge of rashness is made, that the people have never been currently informed of the development of international dangers, but usually at a critical time shreds of information have been flashed on them, designed or at least apt to stir up all their atavistic love of fight and fear of attack. Even thus, the greatest noise is made usually by those who do not in the event of hostilities actually have to risk their blood and bones.

It stands to reason that if honestly kept informed about international relationships, the people would be far less prone to sudden excitement. Very few people indeed appear to doubt that had the decision of war or no war been laid before the peoples of Europe in 1914, with a full knowledge of the facts, the terrible catastrophe would never have come about. As Mr. Lowes Dickinson has said, if the people had been allowed to share the apprehension and precautions of the diplomats before 1914, there would have been quite a simple and clear question before the English people, for one. It could have decided whether it would pursue a policy that might lead at any moment to a general European war, or to take the alternative which Sir Edward Grey later spoke of, namely, “to promote some arrangement, to which Germany could be a party by which she could be assured that no aggressive or hostile policy would be pursued against her by France, Russia and ourselves, jointly or separately.” Without the support of the people, kept in line by fear of hidden dangers, not even the militarists of Germany could have forced military action.

One of the first acts of the Russian Soviet Government was to announce its hostility to secret diplomacy. When it first published the secret treaties and documents of the Czarist Government, its motive was, as shown by Trotsky’s declaration made at the time, thoroughly to discredit the management of affairs under the old régime. In the same connection, it announced its own purpose of conducting foreign affairs in the open. Such seems indeed to have been its general practice with respect to the announcement of policies, though its agents continued to use underground methods. One thing, however, the Soviet Government is evidently trying to bring about, namely, a broad public interest in the conduct of foreign affairs. It desires the Russian people, and more particularly the members of the ruling Communist Party, to be currently informed about the progress of international affairs and about arrangements concluded. Observers report that at the meeting of the provincial soviets the first business ordinarily taken up is the reading and discussion of a report on international relations sent by the central government. We have no means to check up the truth of these reports; but this effort to interest the broad mass of the population in the outward relations of the state is certainly worth notice. The expectation is encouraged that the reason for acts relating to foreign affairs will be explained, particularly when sacrifices are demanded.

XIII

A SURVIVAL OF ABSOLUTISM

Those who view the modern state as a purely predatory organization,--for exploitation within and without,--point to the methods, practices and results of diplomacy as one of the plainest indications of the sinister nature of the political state. Such criticism cannot be safely brushed aside as utterly unreasonable; it should rather call forth a searching inquiry as to whether, as a matter of fact, the conduct of foreign affairs could not and should not be brought into greater consonance with genuinely democratic principles, and be placed on the sound basis of well-informed public support.

No matter what opinion one may hold with respect to the necessity of secret diplomacy, it must be recognized that this practice involves a very narrow conception of the active scope of democracy. It is in fact a historical survival from the period of the absolutist state; or in other words, that aspect of the modern state which deals with foreign affairs has retained the character of absolutism. It is a superstition, in the picturesque sense of that word used by Lowell, when he defines it as “something left standing over from one of the world’s witenagemotes to the other.” In this case, indeed the most recent witenagemote approached the question and proposed a step in advance towards its solution. But the difficulty still persists.

In its relations with other states, the state is considered to be absolute, not bound by any laws, responsible only for its own security, welfare and progressing influence. The struggle for political power still exists among states, in essentially the same keenness and rigidity with which it appeared to the eyes of Machiavelli. The importance of world-wide human relationships, and of international coöperation in scientific and economic life, has indeed been brought forth and given its place in the public mind; but because of the manner in which the conduct of international affairs is actually handled, the feeling thus generated does not have much chance to influence action at critical times, when the people are startled and excited by the sudden revelation of dangers, which awaken in them all the bitter feelings engendered by the past struggles of mankind.

This survival is given strength by class interests, pride of race, and by the manipulations of plutocratic control. Where affairs are handled by a narrow circle of men, no matter how high-minded and how thoroughly conscious of their public responsibility, yet with the necessary limitations of the human mind, they cannot but be influenced at every turn by the opinions of others with whom they are actually in contact; so that in decisions on these momentous matters, the thing which is concretely present is very often an interest comparatively narrow in itself, and related to the public welfare only by a series of remote inferences which are accepted at their face value. The most successful statesman of the nineteenth century said that the whole Balkan question was not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier; yet his successors in power risked the very existence of the nations of Europe for one phase of that question.

Powerful interests will always have means, formal or informal, to lay their needs and desires before the men in power. They may indeed be very important and may deserve special attention, but unfortunately, many cases have happened in which their point of view has been adopted without making sure that there existed a general public interest sufficiently important to warrant taking the risks involved.

A diplomatic caste recruited from a certain class of society, trained in the traditions of authority, in contact all the time with men of similar views and principles, cannot in the nature of things free itself from the limitations of such environment and such training.

From the personal point of view diplomacy has adhered to the belief in the superior intelligence, ability and foresight in the handling of foreign affairs, on the part of those who by inherited traditions and special experience may be said to belong to a caste distinguished from the mass of humanity. Some one has said, there is a great danger in that there exists a caste of people who have taken the making of history as their profession; who still cling to the erroneous idea that the manipulation of large masses of people, the redistribution of territories, and the modification of the natural processes of grouping and settlement, is history. But such people who believe they are making history are really obstructing it. Even so unusual a man as Bismarck, working as he did on a great national problem, did not gain lasting success in action whereby he endeavored to anticipate the developments of history. The artful contrivance and harsh, ruthless execution of many of his plans left a heritage of evil to the world; but the greatest evil lay in the example given by so successful a man in making it seem that history could actually thus be made. The attitude which is taken in behalf of such men, in claiming for them a completely free and full discretion in controlling foreign affairs, recalls a statement made by H. G. Wells concerning a British leader: “He believes that he belongs to a particularly gifted and privileged class of beings to whom the lives and affairs of common men are given over--the raw material for brilliant careers. It seems to him an act of insolence that the common man should form judgments on matters of statecraft.” The diplomats of the old school indeed do require the people, but only as material with which to work out their grandiose projects. Their view not too distantly resembles that of the German militarists to whom ordinary humanity existed only for one purpose, “to do their damn’d duty.”

We should naturally expect to find the greatest secrecy and the most callous use of secretive methods, where absolutism remains most completely established. In the last remaining absolutism, that of Japan, these expectations are fulfilled, both as regards carefully-guarded secrecy of all diplomatic action, and the habitual use of well phrased declarations of a theoretical policy, announced for public consumption, but bearing only a Platonic relation to the details of actual doings. But more liberally governed states have not by any means all freed themselves from this practice, even to the extent of faithfully keeping the representative bodies, and the public, informed of the true character and aims of important national policies.

During the discussions of the last few years, a great many remedies for this state of affairs have been suggested. The Constitutional practice of the United States has been taken as a model in England in the suggestion that there should be a representative committee on foreign affairs in the House of Commons, which should keep in constant touch with the diplomatic officials and supervise the conduct of foreign relations; that there should be at least two days given to the discussion of the Foreign Office Vote; that there should be full reports made on the progress of all important negotiations; and that treaties and alliances should not be concluded, nor war made, without a previous authorization on the part of Parliament. The last formal proposal of this kind was the motion made in March, 1918, in the House of Commons, the opposition to which by Mr. Balfour has already been alluded to. That he should object particularly to the prying into foreign affairs on the part of persons “not responsible,” and by “politicians,” that the proposed committee of the House of Commons should be thus characterized, throws light on the prejudices involved; but it also reveals the absurdity of the present arrangement from the point of view of free government. In France there has existed, since 1902, a standing committee on foreign and colonial affairs in the Chamber of Deputies.

When he was premier, in 1920, Signor Giolliti introduced a bill carrying the following provision: “Treaties and International understandings, whatever be their subject and character, are valid only after they have been approved by Parliament. The Government of the King can declare war only with the approval of the two Chambers.” The ministry of Giolliti fell before this sound measure could be passed.

It may be questioned whether many of the arrangements suggested could be more than palliatives, as long as an intelligent and constant public interest in foreign affairs has not been aroused, and as long as the absolutist aspect of foreign policy continues. The suggestion that war should not be made without a previous national referendum, has indeed logic on its side from the point of view of the democratic theory of state, but it has thus far not entered into the state of practical consideration.

The most important remedy as yet attempted is the provision in the Covenant of the League of Nations, that all treaties shall be made public. No greater encouragement, indeed, could be given to the growth of confidence and the destruction of baneful suspicions and fears, throughout international life, than if it were possible to assure the nations of the world that all engagements imposing international obligations of any kind whatsoever would be made known immediately upon their conclusion. This provision of the Covenant has already gone into force, and numerous new treaties have been submitted, even by governments who are not as yet members of the League. But certain governments have delayed compliance in cases where treaties are known to have been made secretly. As there is no specific sanction for this provision in the Covenant, and as actually binding agreements can be made without taking the form of a treaty or convention, this remedy is not in itself powerful enough to remove the evil. If two or three states are willing to keep an engagement secret at the risk of later incurring a certain amount of opprobrium when the fact is discovered, there is no means as yet available for obliging them to abandon such course. Nevertheless, this provision of the Covenant constitutes a great advance in the work of placing the public business of the world on the only sound basis, and cultivating that confidence upon which depends the future immunity of mankind from constant danger of suffering and destruction. It will, however, not be a real remedy until the nations agree actually to outlaw all secret agreements as a conspiracy against the general welfare and safety.

The other important advance made in the Covenant is found in the provisions for the investigation of any cause of conflict before hostilities shall be resorted to. If after the first shock of excitement, which accompanies the revelation of a serious international crisis, public opinion can be given a certain space of time to inform itself, then it may indeed be hoped that a different temper will control the giving of the fateful doom of war. As Count Czernin has stated, on the night of August 4, 1914, between the hours of nine and midnight the decision as to whether England would come into the war, lay with the German Government. A system under which such tremendous issues have to be decided in such a manner, is absurd to the verge of insanity.[E]

[E] A German writer puts the blame for the outbreak of the war on the telegraph. He says that if there had been no telegraphic communication between the capitals, the fatal crisis would not have arisen; there would have been time for reflection and a decision to make war would never have been taken in blood.