Page 1
There has never been a time when
there has been so widespread and
determined an attack on the institution
of war. There have been periods of
relative peace in human history, when
great empires made war impossible
or unprofitable over vast stretches of
the earth's surface. There have been
centuries, like the last, when war was
relatively rare, as compared with its
frequency during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. But never
before, I think, has public opinion
over a large part of the earth come to
recognise both that war is
incompatible with a civilized life and
that it is an institution which ought to
be and can be abolished.
On the other hand, most thinking
people today realise that the great
movement against war which grew
up among the democracies during
and after the World War of 1914-18
has failed so far to realise its promise,
and that at this moment, at any rate,
we are steadily drifting back towards
a worse war than the last.
"War is an institution which
ought to be and can be
abolished."
That drift is shown by the withdrawal
of Germany and Japan and the
continued abstention of the United
States from the League of Nations,
the failure of the Disarmament
Conference, the recommencement of
the race in armaments, the rise in
international fear and diplomatic
tension, and the absence of any
counter-movement, save the adhesion
of Russia to the League, to offset these
melancholy events.
Moreover, it is clear that if war does
come again it will be far more
devastating than in 1914-18. Not
only has the conquest of the air
added a new weapon to the armoury
of nations and a new terror for the
civilian, but mass production has
immensely facilitated the manufacture
of all the instruments of death, and
the new totalitarian states are much
more highly organised for war than
was any state in 1914. The next war,
if it comes, will start with a far more
rapid and overwhelming offensive
attack, and that attack will be
directed almost as much at the
morale of the civilian population as at
the armed forces themselves. Do not
let us deceive ourselves about these
things. The fury of the next war will be
immeasurably greater than that of the
last.
"War, of course, is not
inevitable. If it comes it will
be because humanity has
failed to take the steps
necessary to end it."
In consequence of this return towards
militarism, there is a fresh outcrop of
expedients for avoiding or preventing
war. Some people proclaim that war
is murder and that they will go to jail
or be shot as passive resisters rather
than join in the organised killing of
their fellow men. Others denounce
the futility of war as a method of
settling disputes, the inherent injustice
of its decisions, the inevitable disaster
it brings upon belligerents and
neutrals, victors and vanquished
alike. One group pins its faith on
strengthening collective security;
another group preaches the virtues of
the policy of virtuous isolation. There
is a section which regards the
armament makers as the real
merchants of death and sees
salvation in the nationalisation of the
munition industry. The largest group
still believes in the League of Nations,
as the peace ballot shows, though
recent events have done much to
shake confidence in its ability to
prevent war. But despite these efforts
millions are beginning to feel that war
is once more approaching and
inevitable and to make preparations
so that when it does come they will
find themselves in the end at the top
and not at the bottom of the blasted
and mangled heap.
War, of course, is not inevitable. If it
comes it will be because humanity
has failed to take the steps necessary
to end it. What is clear, however, is
that the post-war peace movement
has failed, so far, to find the way to
prevent war. That is why I want today
to probe ruthlessly to the real causes
of war and to try to set out what I
believe to be the only final remedy.
For fifteen years the peace movement
has been largely engaged in what
psychologists call wishful thinking. It
has not penetrated to the
fundamentals or faced up to the price
which must be paid if war is to be
ended. That is probably a more
dangerous attitude than that of the
hard-boiled realist, who is solely
concerned to avoid war if he can and
to win it if he cannot. If we are to
FEDERAL UNION
Pacifism is not enough
nor patriotism either
28 May 1935By Lord Lothian
Page 2
Pacifism is not enough
make a success of a renewed attack
on the institution of war we must think
and act from more fundamental and
eternal premises than we have yet
done.
II
What is war? And what do we really
mean by peace? War is armed
conflict between sovereign states or
states claiming to be sovereign. It
may be concerned to bring about
political or economic reform, or to
satisfy greed or ambition; it may arise
from misunderstanding or the
necessity of self-defence; or it may
spring from accident or a chivalrous
desire to help the weak. The occasion
of war is irrelevant. War is the ultima
ratio regum, the legislative instrument
whereby issues between sovereign
states, which will not yield to
voluntary agreement, can alone be
settled. War is a struggle of will
between states or groups of states
each using every possible resource,
including mass destruction of human
life, which is necessary to enable one
side to enforce its will on the other.
What is peace? Peace is not merely
the negative condition in which war is
not being waged. It is a positive
thing. Peace is that state of society in
which political, economic, and social
issues are settled by constitutional
means under the reign of law, and
violence or war between contending
individuals, groups, parties, or
nations, is prohibited and prevented.
Peace, in the political sense of the
word, does not just happen. It is the
creation of a specific political
institution. That institution is the state.
The raison d'tre for the state is that it
is the instrument which enables
human beings to end war and bring
about change and reform by
constitutional and pacific means.
Never from the beginning of
recorded history nor on any part of
the earth's surface has there been
peace except within a state. The state
may be a primitive tribal rulership in
Africa or a vast Communist empire
like Soviet Russia. It may be an
advanced democratic republic like
the United States, a totalitarian
dictatorship like National Socialist
Germany, or a placid constitutional
monarchy like modern Sweden. But
peace only appears when there is a
government whose business it is to
consider the interests and command
the allegiance of every individual
within the confines of its territory, and
possessed of the power to make laws
regulating society which the citizen is
bound to obey and which, where
obedience is withheld, it is able to
enforce. Until the state appears there
is only anarchy and violence and
private or public war. And no other
institution has ever been devised as a
substitute for the state, because the
coming into being of the state is itself
the ending of war and the substitution
for war of the reign of law.
"Peace is not merely the
negative condition in which
war is not being waged. It is
a positive thing."
The state, as an institution, is in
fundamentals the same under all the
different forms I have mentioned. The
differences lie in the method whereby
and the purposes for which the
omnipotent power of the state is used.
The director of executive action and
legislation may be a single autocratic
ruler, an aristocracy, the propertied
bourgeoisie, the proletariat, or a
majority of the representatives of the
people voting by universal suffrage. It
makes a great deal of difference to
the practical conditions of life how
those who wield the power of the
state are appointed or elected, for the
nature of the laws and the
consideration they will give to the
interests of the different classes of the
community, will depend upon it.
Civilization develops in proportion as
a free public opinion replaces
dictatorship as the controller of the
powers of the state. But none of these
things affect the principle of the state
itself. The state is the institution which
ends anarchy and its consequence,
war, by creating an organically
united community, and sets up
legislative, judicial, and executive
organs whereby its citizens come to
live under the reign of law and are
prevented, collectively or individually,
from attempting to make their own
will prevail by fraud or violence.
"Never from the beginning of
recorded history nor on any
part of the earth's surface
has there been peace except
within a state."
The state itself does not eschew
violence. On the contrary, it claims
that it alone is entitled to use violence.
It could not, indeed, exist without the
use of violence. It habitually uses
violence. Moreover, the violence it
uses is irresistible violence. A great
number of the laws it enacts and the
changes which it brings about are
inevitably objected to by individuals
or sections of the community. They
are often only obeyed by minorities
because they know that disobedience
involves fines, imprisonment, or death.
Yet if the state did not enforce the
law, and do so irresistibly, individuals
and groups would inevitably begin to
use violence or fraud to defend or
promote their own rights or interests,
and society itself would dissolve in
anarchy. In one sense, therefore, the
state is violence, but violence only
used in accordance with law and, in
a democratic and constitutional state,
in the interests of the community as a
whole and as a result of a decision
by a majority of its citizens.
Page 3
III
In the modern world the functions of
the state are steadily increasing. One
reason for this - though not the only
one - is that modern scientific
invention has immensely increased
the flux and change in every aspect
of human life. The need for constant
legislative and administrative
adjustments in order to keep society
functioning smoothly and to enable its
elements to live in harmony with one
another is greater than it has ever
been. Unless the laws of the state are
changed to meet the needs of the
community revolution follows; that is
to say, some group tries to capture
the machinery of the state by violence
so as to use its power for their own
ends or policies.
"Unless the laws of the state
are changed to meet the
needs of the community
revolution follows"
The need, however, for constant
change and adjustment is just as
great today in the international
sphere as the domestic. There was a
time when the world was static, when
wars were waged between kings and
ruling oligarchies to obtain territory
and revenue for themselves, while the
life of the peasant and the merchant
remained almost unaffected. That has
disappeared. The world
economically has become an
interdependent whole. Fewer and
fewer people are individually selfsupporting.
More and more are
performing a tiny specialised job in a
huge economic process which has its
roots and ramifications in every part
of the globe. Mankind can now only
live in peace and prosperity if the
constant adjustments which are
necessary inside the state are also
made in the international sphere. Yet
the world as a whole today has no
means of making these changes,
where negotiation fails, save by resort
to war. The state, the instrument of
peace and for political and economic
adjustment by pacific means, does
not exist in the world as a whole.
It is my purpose today to attempt to
establish three propositions. The first is
that war is inherent and cannot be
prevented in a world of sovereign
states. The second is that the League
of Nations and the Kellogg Pact,
however valuable they may be as
intermediate educative steps, cannot
end war or preserve civilization or
peace. The third is that peace, in the
political sense of the word, that is, the
ending of war, can only be
established by bringing the whole
world under the reign of law, through
the creation of a world state, and that
until we succeed in creating a federal
commonwealth of nations, which
need not, at the start, embrace the
whole earth, we shall not have laid
even the foundation for the ending of
the institution of war upon earth. I
shall, in conclusion, endeavour to
show that events are forcing us to
action far more rapidly than most
people realize, and I shall make a
few observations about the nature
and the possible ways of establishing
such a federation.
IV
If you asked an intelligent citizen to
name the principal causes of war he
would probably choose some among
the following causes: unjust treaties,
racial or religious or cultural
differences, maltreatment of
minorities, need for raw materials or
markets, imperialist ambition, strategic
considerations, or the arms traffic,
and he might end with one of two
omnibus words, capitalism or
nationalism. I venture to think that
none of these things is the
fundamental cause of war.
"peace, in the political sense
of the word, that is, the
ending of war, can only be
established by bringing the
whole world under the reign
of law"
Most of these so-called causes of
war, the grievances of minorities, the
pressure of economic competition,
class rivalry, differences in race,
religion, culture, and language, exist
inside states. They produce
controversy and political conflict. But
they do not produce war. They do not
produce war for two reasons. First,
because inside the state the
government has the power and the
duty to legislate and enforce solutions
in what it thinks the best interest of the
community as a whole. Second,
because strategic considerations do
not arise. The basic cause of war is
that there is no authority to decide
international problems from the point
of view of the world community as a
whole, and that in international
negotiation considerations of reason,
justice, and goodwill are constantly
and inevitably thrust on one side by
considerations of security, by the
supreme and overriding necessity in a
world of anarchy that nations must
think in terms of what will happen to
them in the event of the outbreak of
war.
Let me apply this argument to the two
omnibus explanations of war capitalism
and nationalism.
V
When people - other than educated
socialists - say that capitalism is a
cause of war, they mean that in their
opinion the present poverty and
unemployment and depression, which
certainly make powerfully for
revolution, dictatorship, and
international tension, and therefore
for war, are due to the economic
Pacifism is not enough
Page 4
failure of the capitalist system to work.
Socialists, on the other hand, regard
private property in the instruments of
production as the root of all evil, and
war as the inevitable outcome of the
capitalist system.
I venture to take exactly the opposite
view. Whatever may be the merits or
demerits of capitalism, it is
international anarchy which is
wrecking capitalism, not capitalism,
as a system, which is producing either
economic nationalism or war.
The main cause of unemployment in
the world today is that the
international division of labour, the
adjustment between world supply
and demand, which under a system
of free enterprise is brought about by
the effect of price in the market, has
been interrupted by the action of the
sovereign states, in going to war - a
political act - in creating tariffs and
other barriers in the name of selfsufficiency,
and in refusing to make
voluntarily the adjustments in
international indebtedness which
economic nationalism requires.
Looking at the world as a whole,
economic nationalism, the
characteristic expression of state
sovereignty, has gradually turned the
traffic lights into toll bars, with the
inevitable result that people are being
forced to make things in their own
countries of which there is already a
glut in the world as a whole, and
some producers are therefore forced
to sell them at prices below the cost
of production in the world market or
burn them or throw them into the sea.
This economic nationalism, the
product of state sovereignty, has
made impossible that constant
movement of capital and labour to
those places and occupations where
they are producing goods and
services which, in sum total, are
exchangeable with one another,
which is necessary to full employment
and a constantly rising standard of
living. It is inter-state anarchy which is
the fundamental cause of poverty and
unemployment, of the partial
breakdown of capitalism, and of war,
in this modern world.
"The main cause of
unemployment in the world
today is that the international
division of labour has been
interrupted by the action of
the sovereign states"
To say that capitalism is a cause of
war seems to me to be a complete
fallacy. Capitalism, in itself, is an
international force. Businessmen have
few racial or national prejudices in
their business. They will trade, build,
or bank wherever they can do so
profitably. It is perfectly true that both
capitalists and trade unions are
largely responsible for ever-mounting
tariffs, and endeavour to enlist the
support of Foreign Offices in their
search for foreign markets or to
protect their interests abroad, or their
standard of living at home - all of
which adds to international tension. It
is perfectly true that certain
armaments manufacturers and certain
newspapers have fomented
international suspicion as a method of
getting profitable orders or circulation
for themselves. But these things are
the consequences and not the cause
of the division of the world into sixty
sovereign states. The division of the
world into state sovereignties long
antedated modern capitalism.
Capitalism does not cause war inside
the state. Nor would it produce war
inside a federation of nations. It is the
division of humanity into sovereign
states which disturbs the pacific
functioning of capitalism as an
international force and causes war,
not capitalism which is the cause of
the division of the world into an
anarchy of sovereign states.
"The root of our economic as
of our political troubles is the
division of the world into
sovereign states."
Can socialism remedy these evils?
Only if it creates a federal
commonwealth of nations. In my
personal view there are only two
basic ways in which it is possible to
conduct the economic life of the
world. One is communism - a system
in which production, distribution, and
exchange are planned and carried
out as a single whole by an economic
general staff, which determines
everything as in an army and in
which individual initiative and private
property are necessarily entirely
suppressed because to permit them
would dislocate the plan. The other is
the system with which we have been
familiar hitherto, under which the
power of economic initiative and
therefore the right to private property
is left open to the individual, and
production, distribution, and
exchange are ultimately governed by
the free choice of the consumer as
reflected by price in the market, but
subject to an increasing social
regulation by the state and to a
considerable field of monopoly work
and development being carried out
by public authority.
It is not my purpose to discuss the
merits of these two systems today. I
only want to point out that the
international anarchy inherent in state
sovereignty makes impossible the
functioning of either. The catastrophe
which economic nationalism has
wrought to the so-called capitalist
system is now a commonplace.
Everybody admits it. But the problem
Pacifism is not enough
Page 5
would not be solved if all the sixty
states became socialist states. Sixty
socialist sovereign states can no
more be self-supporting than can
sixty capitalist states. Only Russia
and the United States, by tremendous
efforts, might make themselves selfcontained
under either system. Yet it
is going to be no more easy for sixty
sovereign socialist states to agree
upon what each is to produce for
and take from the other, with the
tremendous consequences involved
on the internal standard of living and
the distribution of labour and
employment in each, than it is for
sixty capitalist states to arrange
barter systems or mutually beneficial
tariff systems. Their relations might
even become more violent because
every economic act would be an act
of state which might bring ruin or
starvation to other states. The root of
our economic as of our political
troubles is the division of the world
into sovereign states. Neither
capitalism nor socialism can function
until this anarchy is overcome.
VI
I come now to nationalism. What is
nationalism? Is it race, language,
culture, religion, or civilization? Or is
it, fundamentally, the product of
membership of the sovereign states? I
have no doubt whatever that in its
evil aspect - for nationalism within its
right limits is a noble and creative
force - it is the product of state
sovereignty.
Differences in race, language,
culture, religion, or civilization are
not, in themselves, necessary
foundations of the state, though in the
modern world they have tended to
become so. There have been many
states whose inhabitants have been
divided in these ways which have for
long maintained unity and peace.
The Russian Empire was one. The
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is
another. The British Empire has been
a third. The United States have been
a fourth. Differences of this kind exist.
They will continue to exist for a very
long time. It will never be desirable
that humanity should become a
single uniform nationality. Variety of
individuality, collective as well as
individual, is the seasoning of an
interesting society. These differences
admittedly make the union or
federation of states extremely
difficult. They are, perhaps, the
principal impediment in the way. But
they are not in themselves
incompatible with unity, or the cause
of war. They exist, and make for
controversy, and sometimes for
political conflict, within the state.
They exist, indeed, in greater or less
degree in every state. Yet they are
not a cause of war within the state.
Why? Because it is the purpose of
the state to make adjustments in the
interest of harmony of the whole, and
every individual owes loyalty and
obedience to the whole before he
owes it to the section to which he
himself belongs.
"It will never be desirable
that humanity should
become a single uniform
nationality."
What makes these differences seem
the cause of war is the fact that so
often they coincide with divisions
between state sovereignties. Then
they immensely inflame every interstate
controversy with fear, hatred,
and suspicion. But nationalism, at
bottom, is not race or language or
culture, though these are important
enough; it is the feeling of common
citizenship, common loyalty to the
state, buttressed in every possible
way by the law, by the omnipotence
of the legislative and executive
authority, by diplomatic antagonisms
with other states, by the duty of every
citizen to lay down his life in defence
of the state, if it is attacked or its
rights impugned. Everything in the
sovereign state focuses in the state
itself.
Hence, it is the anarchy of sovereign
states, not race or language or
culture, which is the dynamic fountain
of nationalism, the factor which
stresses the separateness of every
citizen from his fellow men
elsewhere, which encourages him to
look at international problems only
from his own national point of view
to view with fear and suspicion every
act by another state which may
affect his own state's security or
prosperity, to confuse national
selfishness and self-consciousness
with the great virtue of patriotism.
It may be said that the growth of
democracy has been a factor in
intensifying inter-state divisions. This is
true in so far as the process of
electioneering tends to stimulate
appeals to race, language, religion,
and other elements of nationalism for
vote-catching purposes. Thus it has
been the spread of democracy which
has intensified Dominion nationalism
and has broken the old unity of the
British Empire into an association of
six, in effect, sovereign states under
the Crown. The demand for that
national self-determination which has
Balkanized Europe has been in some
measure a by-product of the
democratic movement. It has been
the vote, with its consequence that
those who can command a majority
will wield political power, which has
intensified communal divisions in
India, and which, if the precedent of
Europe prevails, is tending to break
India into states based upon race
and religion, as the unifying power
Pacifism is not enough
Page 6
of Britain is withdrawn. It is certainly
true that the peacemakers of 1919
had an infinitely more difficult task
than the diplomats of 1815, because
they were dependent on majorities in
democracies which had been
inflamed by four years of one-sided
wartime propaganda.
"it is the anarchy of
sovereign states, not race or
language or culture, which is
the dynamic fountain of
nationalism"
But while hitherto democracy has
intensified popular nationalism I do
not think that democracy any more
than capitalism is a cause of war or
a permanent impediment to a world
state. Democracy disrupts empire,
but if it receives autonomy need not
make for separate sovereignties.
Thus federation is the remedy for the
disruptiveness of provincialism in
India, as it is everywhere. All the
great federations, in fact, have been
democratic. Democracies, indeed, in
temperament, are less warlike and
less expansionist than dictatorships,
for they respect the right of others to
govern themselves. They accept
more readily, I think, the ideal
represented by the League of
Nations, the concept of the
brotherhood and equality of nations,
the basic presuppositions on which
an organised world community must
rest. In the case of democracy, as in
the case of capitalism and
nationalism, it is the existence of the
sovereign state which is the dynamic
cause that makes for war. If the
separate state did not exist
democracy would not create it. It
would only demand provincial
autonomy within a federation of
nations.
I propose now to test this theoretic
reasoning by the touchstone of
experience. I will examine the history
which led up to the World War, and
also the history of the post-war years,
which, despite the League of
Nations, has ended in the
reappearance of the menace of
world war, and see if it confirms my
theoretic conclusions.
VII
For centuries before Bismarck
Germany had been the cockpit of
Europe. This was mainly due to the
fact that Germany itself was divided
into two or three hundred
principalities. Napoleon reduced
these states to about thirty. Bismarck
saw that if Germany was to have
peace, security, and prosperity she
must have unity. But he found that the
difficulty in obtaining united action in
the old German confederation of
sovereign states was insuperable. So
he pronounced his famous dictum
about blood and iron and by means
of three wars united Germany,
except for Austria, into a single
federated state.
"If the separate state did not
exist democracy would not
create it."
In doing so he ended what was left
of the old concert of Europe. Europe
became a mere anarchy of fifteen
sovereign states. Inevitably in the
interest of self-preservation these
states formed groups and alliances.
Gradually, after twenty years of
dexterous diplomatic jugglery by
Bismarck to prevent it, Europe settled
down to the system whereby its
destinies were controlled by two
great alliances - the Triple Alliance of
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and a
rather doubtful partner Italy, and the
Dual Alliance of France and Russia.
Alterations in the political structure of
Europe to meet the changing
conditions of the times could
thereafter only be made by
agreement between these two
groups and every such question
came to be judged not mainly by
considerations of reason or justice
but according to whether a particular
proposal increased or diminished the
security or the prospect of victory of
either of the groups or of the
particular states within it, in the event
of war. Thereafter every local conflict
tended to develop immediately into a
general European war. As an
inevitable corollary, might became
the supreme element in European
politics - for the ultimate question in
every particular controversy was
whether either side was prepared to
throw the sword into the scale. This
system was called Machtpolitik or
power diplomacy, and arose not
from the malignity of this nation or
that, though some played it more
readily than others, but inexorably
from the anarchy of Europe.
By the end of the century Germany
was no longer content with a purely
European position. Her union had
led to immense economic
development. She had become
interested in world trade. She
became dissatisfied at finding that
world politics were being decided by
Britain and Japan, Britain and
France, or the United States without
bringing Germany into consultation.
Hence the launching of the German
navy Bills by the Kaiser.
"The system of power
diplomacy arose not from
the malignity of this nation
or that, though some played
it more readily than others,
but inexorably from the
anarchy of Europe."
These Bills were not intended to give
Germany supremacy, but, as their
preamble stated, to ensure that no
decision should be made without
Pacifism is not enough
Page 7
taking Germany's wishes into
account. Germany, in the old phrase,
demanded "her place in the sun", a
phrase which translated into post-war
parlance is the word "equality".
There was nothing wicked about this
desire in itself. What made it fatal
was that European anarchy had led
to an alliance system and to an
intensity of competition in armaments
which turned every international
question into a conflict of interest
between the groups, rendered it
practically impossible to alter the
status quo except by war, and made
it almost inevitable that any local
conflict in which any of the major
powers became involved turned
instantly into a general European
war.
The rest of the story is familiar.
Gradually the tension rose, and with
the tension the competition in
armaments - especially naval
armaments. In 1908 Germany threw
the "shining sword" into the scale in
order to induce Russia not to
intervene in the crisis which arose
when Austria-Hungary formally
annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina from
Turkey, a province which she had in
fact been governing for years. In
1911 Great Britain threw the sword
into the scale to induce Germany to
withdraw when she sent a small
warship to Agadir to show her
resentment at France's monopolizing
Morocco under the Anglo-French
agreement of 1904 about Egypt and
Morocco. Then came the Balkan
crisis. The dissolution of the old
Turkish Empire in Europe, the
growing weakness of the AustroHungarian
Empire as the power of
the Slavs increased, and Russia's
recoil to the West after her defeat by
Japan in Manchuria, had created a
dangerous situation; for if AustriaHungary
broke up, or if either
Germany or Russia became
predominant in the Balkans, the
strategic balance between the Dual
and the Triple Alliance would be
upset. The two Balkan wars passed
off without precipitating a general
war because they did not markedly
affect the balance between the two
groups and were fought mainly at
the expense of "the sick man of
Europe". Then came the
assassination of Franz Ferdinand the
heir to the Austro-Hungarian
throne - by a Serbian assassin at
Sarajevo. This was a very different
pair of shoes. It affected the very
existence of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire and therefore the future of
Russia, Germany, and Italy, and was,
as you all know, the event which
precipitated the World War.
"It is equally possible to take
the view that Europe
stumbled into war without
anybody deliberately
pressing the button for the
World War"
I am not concerned today to make
any estimate of the relative
responsibility of the various Powers
for the outbreak of war. It is worth
noting that by that time almost all the
minor matters of dispute between the
European Powers had been got out
of the way by agreement, including
the Baghdad railway. The vital issue
centred round the future of the
Balkan peninsula. It is possible to
take the view that the inner military
group in Germany and AustriaHungary
had made up their minds
that the two Empires would be at
their maximum military superiority
between 1914 and 1917, that there
was no possibility of Germany being
accorded, by agreement, that
position in the world to which her
energy and her talents entitled her,
that if she did not seize her
opportunity to dominate SouthEastern
Europe by force it might
never recur, because with the rise of
Russian armaments she might
become weaker than her rivals, and
that she should seize the first chance
to make herself paramount by a short
and decisive campaign. On that view
the opportunity which was created
by the assassination of Franz
Ferdinand in June 1914 was
promptly seized. It is equally possible
to take the view that Europe
stumbled into war without anybody
deliberately pressing the button for
the World War, because once it had
entered what Mr. J. A. Spender calls
the atmosphere of war, the military
time-table became predominant, and
the accident of the assassination
thrust the statesmen on one side and
swept everybody helplessly and
headlong into the abyss.
"the moment mobilization
was ordered anywhere an
entirely new factor entered
upon the scene which rapidly
and fatally swept diplomacy
and the statesmen on one
side."
Let me deal in more detail with the
matter of the time-table because it
shows the decisive influence which,
under conditions of anarchy, is
exercised in a crisis by strategic
considerations. The murder of the
Austro-Hungarian Archduke by a
Serbian assassin made some kind of
ultimatum to Serbia almost inevitable,
for it shook the very foundations of
the Monarchy. It is common form in
power diplomacy that one way of
preventing general war is that one
side or the other should indicate that
in certain events it would accept the
challenge of war. Then the weaker
or less resolute side comes to a
compromise. That had been done by
Germany in 1908 and by Britain in
1911, as I have described.
Pacifism is not enough
Page 8
Germany, no doubt, believed that by
supporting the extremely stiff AustroHungarian
ultimatum to Serbia she
would procure for Vienna a success
which would restore the stability of
the Monarchy and enhance her own
influence and power in the Balkans,
without war, because Russia, faced
by the certainty of war, would retreat
as she had done in 1908. There are
many who think that if Britain had
similarly thrown her sword into the
scale on the other side Germany
would have withdrawn. I shall have
a word to say about this later.
"In an anarchy of sovereign
states the military time-table
inevitably becomes a
governing factor"
But the essential difference from the
1908 and the 1911 crises was that
in 1914 Austria-Hungary mobilized
a large part of her army and
prepared to occupy Belgrade. That
was the percussion cap which ignited
the World War. I will not enter into
the vexed question of who was
responsible for the dates and
character of the Austro-Hungarian
and Russian mobilizations. The point
I want to make is that the moment
mobilization was ordered anywhere
an entirely new factor entered upon
the scene which rapidly and fatally
swept diplomacy and the statesmen
on one side. Austria-Hungary began
by mobilizing the proportion of her
army which she thought was
necessary to compel the submission
of Serbia. Russia retaliated partly to
be prepared to save her fellow Slav
state, Serbia, from extinction, if
necessary, partly because her
general staff declared that if she did
not mobilize a large part of the
Russian army the Austro-Hungarian
army could march unopposed to
Warsaw directly its mobilization was
complete. But no sooner had Russia
mobilized than the Kaiser was put
into a fearful predicament - as is
clearly shown by the famous WillyNicky
telegrams. From a military
point of view Germany felt herself
the nut between the nut-crackers. Her
very existence in the event of war her
chance of victory - depended, as
she believed - upon her being able to
defeat one of her two allied
neighbours before the other was
ready. Russia possessed much the
more numerous army, but she
mobilized far more slowly than her
neighbours. The famous Schlieffen
plan therefore provided that in the
event of war the German army
should put its whole strength into
overwhelming France and then turn
back against Russia, before the
Russian `steam roller' could reach
Berlin - in order that Germany might
not be caught by the necessity of
fighting numerically superior forces
simultaneously on two fronts. On the
other hand, France and Russia
realized that Germany and AustriaHungary
had the immense
advantage of the interior position
and could move their armies from
front to front whereas the French and
Russian armies could never combine.
Everything, therefore, for both sides
depended upon their not being
caught unmobilized and unprepared.
Hence as soon as the factor of
mobilization was introduced strategic
considerations swept Sir Edward
Grey's diplomacy ruthlessly aside.
Each side implored the other to
cancel its mobilization if war was to
be avoided. Neither was willing,
perhaps able, to comply. This was
the terrible time-table which dragged
the whole of Europe into
mobilization, with irresistible
violence, and why when its
mobilization was complete the
German army strode through
Belgium to endeavour - on the
ground that it was the only way both
to avoid defeat and to gain a victory
- to encircle and roll up the French
army before Russia was ready.
In an anarchy of sovereign states the
military time-table inevitably becomes
a governing factor when the
competition in armaments and
alliances has reached a certain point
of tension and nations began to think
in terms of whether their national
existence may not depend, if not
upon getting in the first blow at least
in not being caught unprepared. A
declaration by the British
Government of its intention to fight
for Belgium might have affected the
course of events if it had been made
before Franz Ferdinand was
assassinated. It could have made no
difference after mobilization had
been ordered.
"Anarchy, not national
wickedness, was the villain
of the tragic drama which
ended in the World War."
As I have already said, I am not
attempting to assess relative
responsibility in the acts which
preceded the war of 1914. The
question is irrelevant. On either view
the ultimate cause of the war was the
European anarchy in which every
state had to depend upon its own
arms or its alliances for its security,
and it was nobody's business to think
of Europe as a whole. Any one who
believes in the general idea of the
League of Nations must admit that
the ultimate cause of catastrophe
was that there was no collective
system of any kind before the war. In
an anarchic world Machtpolitik,
power diplomacy, becomes
inevitable. Nations must think in terms
of security rather than of merits. And
all the time the soldiers and sailors
and airmen are whispering to the
statesmen the risks they run if they
allow their neighbours to gain an
Pacifism is not enough
Page 9
advantage, in territory, in armament,
in the diplomatic game of bluff,
because it may make the difference
between defeat and victory in the
event of war. Then the decision
begins to pass out of the hands of
statesmen and Parliaments. A knave,
a fool, or an accident can precipitate
an event in some corner of the world
which thrusts the diplomats on one
side and puts the military time-table
in command and slides the whole
world into a war which nobody
wants. Anarchy, not national
wickedness, was the villain of the
tragic drama which ended in the
World War. The most sinister fact
today is that this time-table has
begun to reappear, made immensely
more dangerous by the air.
VIII
Let me now turn to what has
happened since 1918. During the
war groups of thinkers among the
allied nations, notably in Britain, the
United States, and France, in seeking
for an explanation for the
catastrophe which had overtaken
civilization and for the remedy, had
been driven to the conclusion that the
main cause was international
anarchy.
"the decision begins to pass
out of the hands of
statesmen and Parliaments.
A knave, a fool, or an
accident can precipitate an
event in some corner of the
world"
They realized that war was inherent
and would be chronic in a world
without government - as it was before
1914 - especially as scientific
invention was hourly contracting time
and space - and that the only remedy
was to end anarchy by creating an
ordered world society based upon
the reign of law. The outcome of
these deliberations, moulded by the
statesmen and politicians assembled
at Paris into what was regarded as
being practical at that time, was the
Covenant of the League of Nations.
The Covenant created an assembly
intended to include representatives of
all the states of the world which was
to meet at Geneva once a year to
consider the international problems
of the time, and it gave that Assembly
executive organs in a Council
meeting not less than four times a
year and a permanent Secretariat.
The main function of these bodies
was to take cognizance of disputes
which might lead to war and to
promote a just settlement of them by
peaceful means. All members
undertook to submit disputes to the
International Court, to arbitration or
to investigation and report by the
Council or Assembly of the League,
which was to be rendered within six
months, and to refrain from resort to
war until three months after
presentation of the judgement,
award, or report.
"The League has given the
small nations a place in the
councils of mankind. It has
been an effective focus for
world opinion."
The Covenant further provided that
the Assembly should have the right under
Article XIX - to advise the
reconsideration of treaties which had
become inapplicable and about
international conditions whose
continuance might endanger the
peace of the world, and - under
Article XVI - that members were
under the duty to take common
action - called sanctions - against any
state, member or non-member of the
League, which went to war without
first resorting to the pacific procedure
laid down in the Covenant. One of
the primary tasks of the League,
recognized to be necessary to its
success, was to bring about a
measure of universal disarmament. It
is important to note that the Covenant
did not forbid resort to war
altogether, but only before the
pacific procedure laid down in the
Covenant had been used. The total
renunciation of war as an instrument
of policy, which is often erroneously
attributed to the Covenant, did not
take place until the Kellogg Pact of
1928.
"The League for the first time
has made millions realize
that it is possible to end war
and substitute justice as the
ruling principle in world
affairs."
Has this noble ideal succeeded in
realizing the hopes of its authors?
The League for the first time has
made millions realize that it is
possible to end war and substitute
justice as the ruling principle in world
affairs. It has done admirable work in
settling disputes of secondary
importance and in organizing
reforms of non-political kind. It has
given the small nations a place in the
councils of mankind. It has been an
effective focus for world opinion.
What is much more important,
perhaps, its existence and activities
have broken the old spell of isolated
nationalism and have begun to make
multitudes of people everywhere
think in collective and not merely in
national terms. Its establishment
unquestionably marked a turning
point in world history. But it requires
no argument to show that in
fundamentals it has so far failed. It
has not been able to secure the
adherence of all nations. It has not
been able to abate economic
nationalism and lower the tariffs and
restrictions which have caused
Pacifism is not enough
Page 10
unemployment everywhere and
destroyed democracy in many lands.
It has not been able to bring about
all-round disarmament. It has not
been able to revise the treaties of
peace except in ephemeral and
minor particulars. It has not been
able to mobilize the kind of strength
which would enable it to compel one
of the great powers to conform to
that public opinion. Today,
international politics are less and less
being discussed on their merits, in
terms right or wrong, justice or the
reverse, but more and more in terms
of power, prestige, and security in
the event of war. What the reason
for this? What is it which has thus
inexorably destroyed the real
effectiveness of the League and is
ruthlessly wading the world back to
armaments, ever-mounting tariffs,
poverty and unemployment, power
diplomacy and war?
we can never escape from
war as long as we build on
the sovereignty of the
national state.
The answer is perfectly plain. It is not
the malignity of any nation. It is not
general international ill-will. These
factors exist. But what inflames them
all, and is more important than all, is
that the Covenant, like the Kellogg
Pact, is built on the foundation of the
complete sovereignty of the signatory
and member states. The fact of state
sovereignty is the vital flaw in the
Covenant. For acceptance of state
sovereignty in effect perpetuates
anarchy, and therefore, despite all
our hopes and professions, tends
powerfully to nullify the effect of the
other provisions of the Covenant and
to let loose the evils to which
anarchy inevitably leads. The
sovereignty of the national state has
been the main cause of the failure of
the League and the post-war peace
movement, as it was the ultimate
cause of the World War and will be
the dynamic cause of the next war,
unless we can mitigate it in time.
You may reply, with justice, that
nothing else was possible, that the
idea that the nations, in 1918 or
today, were or are prepared to
abate their sovereign independence
is absurd and that you must deal with
the world as you find it. I don't deny
this in the least. I was at the Peace
Conference and know that nothing
else was possible. But it does not
lessen in the slightest degree the truth
of what I am trying to convince you
of today - that the League cannot
save us from war and that we can
never escape from war as long as
we build on the sovereignty of the
national state.
"international politics are
less and less being discussed
on their merits, in terms right
or wrong, justice or the
reverse, but more and more
in terms of power, prestige,
and security in the event of
war."
Until the peace movement realize this
central fact and base their longdistance
policy upon it, it will stand in
the ranks of those who follow
Sisyphus. Every time it succeeds, by
immense and consecrated effort, in
rolling the stone of national
sovereignty near to the top of the hill
of international co-operation, it will
find that stone slipping out of its
control and rushing down to
overwhelm its leaders and their
followers behind them.
IX
Let me first try to justify this view on
grounds of theory. There are four
main reasons why the League or any
system based upon the contractual
co-operation of sovereign states is
bound sooner or later to fail and to
lead back to anarchy and war, as
every such system has done from the
Confederacy of Delos, through the
American Confederation from 1781
to 1789, to the League of Nations
today and perhaps the British
Commonwealth of Nations
tomorrow.
"The Council and the
Assembly are, in essence,
diplomatic conferences. Thus
the League has done little to
create a European or world
patriotism."
The first is because every unit in the
League or Confederacy inevitably
tends to look at every issue from its
own point of view and not from that
of the whole. There is no body
whose business it is to consider the
interests of the whole. Each
representative in the Council or
Assembly is, in the last resort, the
delegate of his own state, controlled
by it and responsible to it. Every
important problem, therefore, tends
to be considered as a conflict of
national points of view. The Council
and the Assembly are, in essence,
diplomatic conferences. Thus the
League has done little to create a
European or world patriotism. State
patriotism is, if anything, stronger
today than it was in 1920.
The second reason for failure is that
the Council or Assembly cannot
wield any real power. By the very
nature of its constitution it can
possess no revenues of its own nor
command the obedience of a single
citizen. For its revenues and armies it
must depend upon the subventions
and contingents of the sovereign
states. If these are withheld it is
powerless. If there is a conflict of
opinion between the League and any
member or state the allegiance of the
Pacifism is not enough
Page 11
individual citizen is owed to the state
and not to the League. All
experience shows that in Leagues
and Confederations sovereign units
invariably fail to act together. They
may fail because of internal
difficulties of their own, because they
dislike the policy, or because no
direct national interest of their own is
involved. Directly one important
member defaults others begin to
default also. No league of sovereign
states can proceed by majority
decision. Agreement in critical
matters is usually impossible to reach
and decisive action is prevented by
fear of provoking secession. The
League, therefore, is a body
incapable either of decision or
responsibility. Its meetings may carry
moral weight. It may reflect world
opinion. But it has none of the
attributes of power, either as
government, legislature, or court.
"All experience shows that in
Leagues and Confederations
sovereign units invariably
fail to act together."
The third reason is that neither the
Council nor the Assembly can revise
any treaty, modify any tariff or
commercial discrimination, or
remodel in any way the political
structure of Europe or the world,
except with the voluntary consent of
the state or states immediately
concerned. This, in important matters,
it is never able to obtain. And it is
unable to obtain it, not only because
sovereign states find it difficult not to
behave selfishly but because in a
world of national sovereignties their
policy is invariably subordinated to
the necessity of security. Moral
considerations are thrust aside by
strategic considerations. That is why
disarmament is impossible under a
League system. Disarmament may be
possible for a time where all states in
a region are satisfied with the
political status quo: it is impossible
where some nations are dissatisfied
and there is no prospect of obtaining
a remedy by pacific means.
"in a world of national
sovereignties their policy is
invariably subordinated to
the necessity of security."
The fourth and final reason why the
League system cannot end war is that
the only weapon it can use either to
bring about change or to prevent
other nations from attempting it by
aggression, is war or the threat of
war. When the League can mobilize
overwhelming economic and military
preponderance sanctions may be
effective without war. Where it is not
overwhelming to use them merely
risks turning a local conflict into a
world war. Thus Mr. Baldwin,
speaking in the House of Commons
in July 1934, said: "There is no such
thing as a sanction that will work that
does not mean war; or in other
words, if you are going to adopt a
sanction you must prepare for war".
To use sanctions is to attempt to
coerce a sovereign state against its
will, and that means war, if the
power or powers in question resist. In
other words, in the last resort, the
instrument of the League is war. It is
not a peace system. It is only a
system for making war an instrument
of collective instead of national
policy.
"To end war the principle of
the state must be applied on
a worldwide scale."
It was this fatal flaw which forced the
Philadelphia Convention in 1787 to
decide that federation was the only
solution of the problem presented to
the revolted and independent
thirteen American colonies. It saw
that not only could the Federal
Government not succeed if it had to
depend upon the voluntary support
of the states, but that even if it was
authorized to give them orders the
only way in which it could compel
them to obey was by war. The
essence of the federal system, the
only true peace system, is the division
of governmental power between two
organs each responsible to the
people for the exercise of the powers
in its own sphere and neither having
power over or being responsible to
the other.
"You cannot erect a peace
system on a basis of the
coercion of governments by
governments,"
It is exactly the same on the larger
world field. You cannot erect a
peace system on a basis of the
coercion of governments by
governments, because that is trying
to build a peace system on a
foundation of war. The only basis for
a peace system is a pooling of
sovereignty for supernational
purposes, that is the creation of a
common nationhood, above but
entirely separate from the diverse
local nationhoods. To end war the
principle of the state - the instrument
of peace - must be applied on a
worldwide scale. We must bring into
being a constitutional union of nation
states with a government able to look
at world problems from the point of
view of the well-being of the whole,
empowered to legislate in matters of
common concern, and to wield the
irresistible power of the state to
enforce obedience to the law not on
the governments but on the individual
in its own super-national sphere, and
entitled to claim the loyalty and
obedience of every individual in that
sphere.
Pacifism is not enough
Page 12
The pacifist may lay down his life in
order to refuse to kill his fellow men.
He will have done little to end war.
The League of Nations enthusiast
may bind himself in the name of
collective security to take sanctions
and go to war against an aggressor
anywhere. He will have done little to
end war. He may wage wiser and
better wars than national states have
done, but he will wage war none the
less and run the risk of turning every
local conflict into a world war. The
isolationist may hope to escape war.
He will fail because every war now
tends to become a world war and so
imperil the security of his own state
and compel him to take sides. There
is no way of ending war and
establishing peace and liberty on
earth save by creating a true
Federation (not a League) of
Nations. That is the central truth
which I want pacifists and realists
alike to realize, Only then shall we
begin to move, however, slowly,
towards our real goal.
X
I want now, once again, to test these
theoretic criticisms of the League as
an instrument for preventing or
ending war by the touchstone of the
experience of the last fifteen years.
"There is no way of ending
war and establishing peace
and liberty on earth save by
creating a true Federation
(not a League) of Nations."
Few will dispute that economic
disorder has been one of the main
causes not only of poverty and
unemployment since the war, but of
the breakdown of democracy, the
rise of the dictatorships, and the
international friction which has led to
the revival of militarism and of
competition in armaments. In
President Wilson's original plan one
of the functions of the League was to
reduce obstructions to trade. Yet the
League and its ancillary institution,
the International Labour Office, have
been utterly unable to turn the
international traffic lights from "stop"
to "go". In fact they have gone not
from amber to green but from amber
to red. Why? Because the system of
state sovereignty makes economic
nationalism inevitable. Economically
every state thinks first of its own
interests, and follows the famous
advice given to Parliament by
Canning after the breakdown of the
collective system created in Europe
after the Napoleonic wars: "Every
nation for itself and the devil take the
hindmost".
The universal economic disorder of
the modern world is the inescapable
effect of political anarchy - an effect
which the League system cannot
prevent or control, because it is the
state and not the League which is
sovereign.
"the system of state
sovereignty makes economic
nationalism inevitable."
Then there has been the problem of
political reform. Most people now
agree that a real pacification of
Europe requires some revision, by
agreement, of the Treaties of Peace.
The Western peoples are as clear as
ever that the basic principle which
triumphed in the World War - the
right of every nation to independent
self-government - was true as
compared with the alternative then
presented, that of military empire. But
because of the number of
belligerents, the effects of wartime
propaganda on democracies, and
the necessity for prompt decisions
over so gigantic a field if the world
was to get back to work, the treaty
was both one-sided and imposed
after far less discussion and
negotiation than was likely to
produce a result in which everybody
could acquiesce. The Treaty of
Vienna, thanks to Wellington, was
drawn up while Talleyrand, the
representative of France, was
present. Yet a large part of that
settlement had been eroded by
events twenty years later. So today, if
Europe is to settle down to peaceful
neighbourliness, revisions both of the
Treaties of Peace and of many other
treaties are already necessary and
more will be necessary tomorrow.
Wilson in introducing the Covenant
to the Peace Conference sadly
expressed the hope that one of the
central functions of the League would
be to bring about peaceful revision
of injustices which war passion made
unavoidable at the time.
But the League has never been able
to do this, either under Article XIX or
Article XI or Article XV. Reparations
have disappeared - but through the
pressure of facts, not of agreement.
The unilateral disarmament of
Germany has disappeared, not by
agreement, despite three years of
discussion, but by unilateral action.
The only important agreed relaxation
has been the evacuation of the
Rhineland five years before the
appointed day. It has never been
possible seriously to discuss the
Polish-German frontiers, the question
whether Austria was to have a free
choice as to her own destiny, the
duration of the unilateral
demilitarization of Germany's
western frontiers, the colonial
question, the Hungarian frontiers. If
there is to be real peace, agreed
solutions for some of these questions
are essential. In the Far East the
League made a gallant attempt to
revise treaties by pacific means, but
failed.
Pacifism is not enough
Page 13
Yet every day revision is becoming
more difficult. Why? Because as
armaments increase every problem is
more and more considered in terms
of security in the event of war and
less and less on its merits. It is often
said, for instance, that even to talk
about revision, however just in
theory, in face of the menace of
totalitarian National Socialist
Germany is to show weakness and
to encourage and inflame its spirit of
aggression. In other words, as
Germany moves towards the use of
force to recover full "equality" her
neighbours consolidate their forces
to maintain the full treaty status quo.
Again, the Treaty of Trianon forbade
the Anschluss, not because any one
wanted to prevent Austrian-Germans
from uniting with German-Germans,
but because the Anschluss would
undermine the strategic security of
Czechoslovakia, Italy, the Balkans,
and of Europe as a whole. These
considerations are becoming more
powerful than ever now that
Germany has re-armed. It is the same
with even minor revisions of frontiers.
They also have strategic effect.
"so long as mankind is
organised on the basis of
state sovereignty, that
reform of political conditions
which is essential to any
healthy or peaceful society is
almost impossible."
Why, for instance, do we object to
returning a colony? Not because we
are purse-proud about territory. It is
partly, no doubt, because of the
arguments against continually
changing the rulers and forms of
government from the point of view of
the native, but far more because
colonies may be used as naval or air
bases in the event of war. In other
words, so long as mankind is
organised on the basis of state
sovereignty, that constant and often
far-reaching reform of out-of-date
treaties and of other political
conditions which is essential to any
healthy or peaceful society is almost
impossible. The League has tried to
bring about reform but it has been
unable to succeed, partly because
nothing can be done without the
voluntary consent of the sovereign
states concerned unless it is prepared
to use force - war or the threat of war
- to compel them to yield, but far
more because so long as state
sovereignty exists every state's
decision is governed not by the
merits of the case but by
considerations of its own security in
the event of war.
XI
It has been the same with
disarmament. The ideal of
disarmament, essential to the
functioning of the League, has been
destroyed by the need of the
sovereign state for security.
Armaments are the instruments for
ensuring national security in an
anarchic world. If all nations are
agreed and satisfied, as they have
been for short periods in history, a
limitation of armaments is possible as
in the Washington Treaties in
1922. But where some are not
satisfied and there is little hope of
their needs or their desires being met
by pacific agreement, the dissatisfied
begin to look upon their arms as
instruments with which to obtain what
they desire, by power diplomacy or
war, and their neighbours begin to
regard them as the instruments of selfdefence
whereby they can keep
what they have got. That is what
began to happen about 1900 and
ended in the World War, and what,
commencing once more in
Manchuria in 1931, is beginning to
happen in Europe and the Far East
again today. Every nation declares,
and probably perfectly honestly, that
it is against war and thinking only of
its own security. But no nation, in
fact, relies on the League for its
security. It relies on nothing less than
its own armaments, supplemented if
necessary by a military alliance,
though that alliance may be
disguised in League phraseology.
Therefore every state endeavours,
either by superior numbers,
equipment, efficiency, speed of
mobilization, strategic position, or by
alliances, to obtain a decisive
preponderance so that it can deter its
neighbour from war, get it own way
without war, or come out on the top
of the heap in the event of war. In
other words, it tries to assure its own
security through its neighbour's
insecurity, and that spells competition
in arms and alliances.
"But no nation, in fact, relies
on the League for its security.
It relies on nothing less than
its own armaments,"
Have we not all witnessed the power
of this inexorable law of anarchy
during the last year or so? What has
prevented agreement on
disarmament? Not malignancy, but
the unwillingness of any state to
surrender any weapon or any
advantage in numbers or position
that it thought necessary for its own
security - so long as war was a
possibility. France had to consider
the superior potential de guerre of
an equal Germany. Germany had to
consider that she might have enemies
to meet on two fronts. So did Russia.
The security of Japan depended
upon being able to keep the United
States and Great Britain at a
distance from the Far East. The
United States had to have large
cruisers because she had no
overseas bases. Britain wanted a
Pacifism is not enough
Page 14
superiority in small cruisers to defend
her vital trade routes. Air
disarmament was impossible unless
all the nations of the world acted in
unison and not only abolished
military air forces but
internationalized their civilian
aircraft. And now we have reached
the second stage of the competition
when every nation has begun to
calculate its need for armaments in
terms of the alliances and pacts and
treaties of mutual assistance which its
neighbours have signed.
"Obedience to moral
principle is only possible
inside the state, where the
reign of law has replaced the
reign of naked force."
What is this competition in arms and
alliances leading to? Two things: in
the first place fear, suspicion,
secrecy, hatred between nations often
exploited by governments in
order to get credits for the
armaments which will keep them
ahead in the race. Fear and
suspicion is once more giving
credence to every rumour. Economic
strain is producing hate. Diplomacy
is becoming less and less a search
for justice and more and more a
game of poker, in which guile and
deceit and intrigue are accepted as
"military necessities', just as in war
killing is justified as no murder,
because under conditions of
anarchy, self-preservation is the
highest law. "War", said Clausewitz,
"is the continuation of policy". But
under conditions of anarchy
diplomacy tends to become a
continuation of the purpose of war,
which is the imposition of one will on
another. "All war", said Napoleon,
"is a struggle for position", and if you
can gain a position by diplomacy
without war you have, in effect, won
a war without the cost of war. The
inescapable result of anarchy is that
morality is dethroned in international
affairs. Obedience to moral principle
is only possible inside the state,
where the reign of law has replaced
the reign of naked force. That is the
reason for the sense of moral
frustration and paralysis which
everyone feels who has to engage in
what used to be called the old
diplomacy - the diplomacy which is
now rapidly returning to control - and
why the League, which was intended
to rest on moral ideas, and to solve
international problems on grounds of
reason and justice, is inexorably
being prevented from doing so by
the necessity which its members feel
of putting the consideration of
national security first.
The second consequence of
competition has been the reemergence
of the fatal military timetable
as a factor in policy. The
general staffs, feeling that war is
possible, are once more beginning to
consider the most favourable moment
for themselves, and to plan how the
other side can be deprived of the
advantage of the initiative. As the
alliance system becomes more
complete the factor of time will
become more decisive. How quick
will be the German mobilization as
compared with the French or the
Russian, the Italian, or the Japanese?
In the event of war, will it be
necessary for Germany or Russia to
attempt to defeat one of their
neighbours before the other is
ready? Today the air arm is making
the time factor infinitely more
imperative. The question of the
power of air initiative to delay and
paralyse mobilization or munitions
production or food supplies is
becoming a dominant consideration?
Are not other and bigger and more
terrible Schlieffen plans inherent in
such a situation whereby every local
war will become immediately not a
European but a world war, and
whereby the world war can be "let
off" by an accident, a knave or a
fool, as the war of 1914 was "let
off" by the accident of the
assassination of Franz Ferdinand. For
what will start the conflagration will
not be a deliberate decision to go to
war but the first act which begins to
bring the security of other states into
jeopardy, unless they take equivalent
action. For instance, supposing, after
the alliance system is complete, the
people of Austria decided for the
Anschluss - not at all a wicked act and
suppose one of their neighbours
ordered mobilization or a movement
of its air force to prevent it, would not
the general staffs of all Europe and
possibly of Asia as well go to their
respective heads of state and
demand equivalent mobilization so
that their own countries might not be
caught at a disadvantage, and as the
mobilizations proceeded might not
the argument for starting instantly an
air bombardment to delay the
mobilization of their neighbours and
so give its initiator the advantage,
rapidly become as powerful in the
minds of the general staffs as the
argument which led Germany in
1914 to violate the neutrality of
Belgium which she had guaranteed?
And when national existence is at
stake what statesman can resist?
"The inescapable result of
anarchy is that morality is
dethroned in international
affairs."
If and when the military time-table
comes into force in Europe once
more - and while it is not yet drawn
up, it is only a question of time
before it is drawn up, if we go on as
we are now going - Europe and Asia
will begin to quake under the
knowledge that a minor incident
Pacifism is not enough
Page 15
anywhere may let off a world war,
which, unless air defence overtakes
air attack, will probably begin by an
intensive aerial bombardment by
thousands of bombers of all the
industrial and nerve centres, which
may come out of the blue at a few
hours' notice. That is the horrible
truth. And it is no use blaming the
ruthlessness of the National Socialists
in Germany, or the failure of France
to make concessions in time or seize
her opportunities, or the feebleness
of British policy, or any of the causes
it is fashionable to talk about today.
The root reason is the anarchy which
is inherent in state sovereignty and
the fact that the League of Nations is
unable to do anything effective to
counteract the inexorable
consequences of that anarchy
because its own constitution is based
upon the sovereignty of its members.
XII
But, you will ask, what about Article
XVI, what about the principle of
collective security? Article XVI, of
course, is a different thing from the
"collective security" people are
talking about s today. The sanctions
provided for under Article XVI
presuppose a League of which all
the great powers are loyal members,
universal disarmament, and a
general willingness both to submit
disputes to third-party investigation
and report and to combine against
any state which goes to war without
resorting to the pacific procedure of
the League. "Collective security" is
what members of the League are
driven to fall back upon when the
fatal element of state sovereignty has
carried three or four of the great
powers outside the League, because
they are dissatisfied with the status
quo or the prospect of its being
altered by the League.
"Collective security" then tends to
mean little more than a military
alliance to prevent that status quo
from being altered by war. It may be
the best method of self-defence, of
preserving the liberties of small
nations, of securing the democracies
against defeat by the dictatorships,
and of preventing a return to the
crude balance of power. If its
members are really strong and united
and are prepared for a just revision
of treaties by pacific means, it may
prepare the way for a return to the
full League system. Even so it has
certain inherent limitations. In the first
place it is liable to the weaknesses
inherent in all coalitions. Sanctions,
economic and otherwise, may be
effective enough when the great
powers are united in coercing a
small power. Their action has then
something of that irresistibility which
is the characteristic of true police
action. But when the delinquent is a
great power, sanctions may well
spell war of a most formidable kind.
"collective security is not a
peace system. It is a system
for using war, or the threat
of war, as the instrument of
collective policy."
And because this is so, when the
crisis arises, how many of the
members will actually take the
decisive step? The small nations will
plead impotence or gravitate to the
side most likely to assure their
security. The big nations, unless their
own vital interests are involved, will
find excuses for avoiding definite
commitment and not going beyond
moral reprimand. Collective security,
therefore, tends to become no more
than a military combination of the
nations whose security and
possessions are menaced by
powerful nations outside the League.
In the second place, "collective
security" is not a peace system. It is a
system for using war, or the threat of
war, as the instrument of collective
policy. Like the old alliance system,
therefore, it may simply become a
system for turning every local dispute
into a world war. That, I believe, was
Lord Morley's fear about the League
- that while it might prevent some
local wars it might multiply world
wars. Already Europe is becoming a
network of so-called regional pacts,
for the maintenance of the status
quo, nominally independent of one
another but really part of an
indivisible whole through the
Covenant and the Locarno Pacts. It is
not peace but liability to war which is
indivisible under a system of
collective security.
XIII
Some people believe that while the
League in its present form cannot
give security to its members or bring
about revision, or establish peace, it
might be able to do these things if it
is was equipped with new institutions.
The best known of these proposals is
the scheme associated with Lord
Davies for creating a tribunal of
equity to adjudicate on all matters
which cannot be settled by
agreement and an international force
capable of enforcing the decisions of
the tribunal and of preventing war.
Another proposal is that for making
the League the sole possessor of air
power, both military and civil. All
these proposals, however, are
attempts to make the League perform
the functions of a world state without
facing the fundamental difficulty of
pooling state sovereignty. The fatal
fact of national sovereignty will
destroy all these schemes as it is
undermining the League. To succeed
it would be necessary to induce all
the Powers to accept the decisions of
an independent tribunal in matters of
Pacifism is not enough
Page 16
high policy and carry them
voluntarily into effect, to agree to
reduce their own forces to the police
level, to subscribe regularly the
immense sums necessary to maintain
an international army or air force
capable of certainly and
overwhelmingly defeating any
national army, or coalition of armies,
and to agree both as to the supreme
command and as to the occasions
and purposes for which it was to be
used. There is no evidence in all
history that national sovereignties
can ever co-operate in this way except
in the stress and agony and
danger of war. It was difficult
enough to get unity of command
among the Allies even at the height
of the Great War, and even then it
was never suggested or possible that
the national armies could be fused
into a single international force
financed by subsidies by the several
allies. If nations are ready for these
steps they will be ready for
federation.
"There is only one way of
ending war and of
establishing peace and that
is by introducing into the
international sphere the
principle of the state"
But even if these prodigious
difficulties could be overcome there
would remain two insuperable
obstacles - the first that the allegiance
of the individual would still be owed
to his national sovereign state and
not to the League, and that when
there is a difference of opinion it will
be his legal duty to support his state
against the League; the second that
the only method the League would
have of stopping aggression or of
compelling resort to the tribunal of
equity or compliance with its
decisions, would be by coercing
sovereign governments - that is by
threatening or using war. No peace
system can rest upon the use of war.
There is only one way of ending war
and of establishing peace, in the
political sense of the word, and that
is by introducing into the
international sphere the principle of
the state, that is, by creating a
federation of nations with a
government which can wield the
taxing, executive, legislative, and
judicial power, and command the
exclusive allegiance of the individual
in the super-national sphere.* Until
that is accomplished the system of
state sovereignty will continue to
operate against the forces of reason
and goodwill and to force us back
towards the old armed and
competitive alliance system which is
the inevitable outcome of anarchy,
and which will in future tend to
embrace, not Europe alone, but the
whole of the world.
XIV
If the only final remedy for war is a
federation of nations, what is to
happen in the intermediate stages
through which we must pass before
that consummation is reached? For
the world commonwealth or the
federation even of a group of likeminded
nations is still a long way off.
One of two alternatives, I suggest,
will happen. The first is a
reconstitution of the League of
Nations. The second is a return to the
alliance system. I have stressed the
tremendous power exercised by state
sovereignty and its overriding
demand for security in defeating
- - *
If any want to study the basic principles
involved I would recommend them to read
the classic statement on the subject - a book
called The Commonwealth of Nations, by
Lionel Curtis, published in 1916 by
Macmillan.
projects for international cooperation
and in driving the nations
back towards war, because it is
essential that we should recognize
what the retention of state
sovereignty implies. But that does not
mean that the sovereign nations
themselves, if they recognize the
danger, will not make a determined
effort, even while retaining their
sovereignty, to live together in
reasonable amity, at any rate for a
time. The great merit of the League
system is that it makes it far easier for
the sovereign states to do this, if they
so desire. It is possible, therefore,
that the nations, now that they are
confronted by the abyss into which a
renewed competition in armaments is
leading them, may agree to make a
fresh attempt to make the League of
Nations work. The great powers may
come to terms which will give a
respite from war for a definite term of
years, and that respite may make
possible a renewal of the League
experiment. If the League, however,
is to be successful four conditions
must be fulfilled. The first is that it
should include all nations and
especially the United States. The
second is that it should recognize
that its purpose is just as much to
bring about revision by pacific
means as to prevent revision by war.
Otherwise it becomes a mere
combination to maintain the status
quo, which sooner or later will end in
war. The third is an all-round
agreement for the limitation of
armaments. The fourth is a return to
the principles set forth in the
Covenant and distorted since 1928
by the Kellogg Pact. The principle
underlying the Kellogg Pact - that is,
the total outlawry of war - is
irreproachable in itself, but it is a
principle which can only be realized
by the creation of a world
federation. The principle of the state
applied to the world as a whole is
Pacifism is not enough
Page 17
the only instrument whereby the ideal
embodied in the Kellogg Pact can be
realized. In so far as the world state
is still out of reach the Covenant is a
more practical document. It
recognizes that it is impossible to
escape the use of force in this world either
inside or outside the state.
Force is an indispensable element in
the maintenance of the reign of law.
The Covenant does not try to abolish
war altogether but to bring it under
some measure of control. It provides
that an individual member state may
resort to force, but only after having
full recourse to collective pacific
procedure as laid down in the
Covenant.
"the ominous vertebrae of
the world alliance system are
beginning to appear"
The resort to force - or the knowledge
that failing redress force may be
resorted to - may often be the only
method by which overdue reform
and revision of treaties can be
effected. But the Covenant also
provides that a real attempt must first
be made to settle disputes by
collective pacific means by requiring
all members to take sanctions, under
Article XVI, against an aggressor, but
it defines an aggressor not as a
nation which resorts to war or
violates a treaty but only as one
which resorts to war without having
first used the machinery set up for the
pacific settlement of disputes.
The League cannot be made to
perform the functions of a world
state. It cannot end war altogether. It
will break in our hands if we attempt
to make it do so. We shall only see
how to use the League properly so
long as we remember that it is not a
government but a piece of
diplomatic machinery, and that the
League is no more than what the
governments in the national capitals
make it. If the League is to succeed
as an intermediate system it will be
because its members are resolved
that grievances can be remedied
and treaties reformed by its collective
procedure, that they can rely upon
one another for security against
aggression unless there has first been
resort to that procedure, and that if
war does break out over some
dispute which will not yield to pacific
methods it can be localized and
prevented from leading to a world
war. The League will be unable to
assure these results or bring about
the disarmament which is essential to
prevent the re-appearance of the
military time-table, only if all the
great powers are members and are
resolved to live up to their
obligations under the Covenant.
If it proves impossible to revitalize the
League, and the necessary
conditions will be difficult to realize,
the world will inevitably drift back
towards the old alliance system. The
alliance system, of course, means
that in the last resort diplomacy will
rest on might. Power diplomacy does
not necessarily mean the deliberate
use of war. Indeed, the power
diplomat whose policy ends in war
has failed. It is the essence of
successful power diplomacy that it
should bring about changes which
cannot be effected by agreement, by
coercion, but without war by putting
the other side in a position in which it
will yield rather than incur certain
defeat. The evil of power diplomacy
is that it dethrones morality in favour
of might in international affairs and
that in the end, after a series of
crises, it becomes more and more
difficult for either side to give way,
the status quo becomes unalterable
save by war, the tension in
armaments becomes intolerable, war
seems inevitable, the military timeable
becomes predominant, and it is
possible for an accident, a knave or
a fool, to precipitate an act which
sets the whole vast military machine
in motion all over the world.
"If it proves impossible to
revitalize the League, and
the necessary conditions will
be difficult to realize, the
world will inevitably drift
back towards the old alliance
system."
It is in this direction that we are
drifting today. Already the ominous
vertebrae of the world alliance
system are beginning to appear. The
rearmament of Germany ended the
forcible pacification of Europe by the
predominance of France and her
allies. It was followed first by the
Franco-Italian rapprochement and,
after Germany had announced her
intention of creating a huge conscript
army of 36 divisions, by the FrancoRussian
Treaty of Mutual Assistance.
Logically each side will tend to try
and create a preponderance of
force in its own favour either by
expanding or improving its own
armaments, in the air, on the land, or
on the sea, or by making alliances
and pacts with other powers. Finally,
the inexorable principles of the
Schlieffen plan will come into effect,
whereby in the event of war each
side endeavours by seizing the
initiative to end the war rapidly in its
own favour by annihilating the
preparations of its rival. So will the
inexorable demand for security in an
anarchic world gradually drive all
the sovereign states of Europe and
Asia to associate themselves with
one of two or more great, highly
armed, military groups. Great Britain
will vainly endeavour to confine her
commitment to Western Europe,
though the alliance system itself and
the military time-table must instantly
turn any way into a general
Pacifism is not enough
Page 18
European or Europe-Asiatic war as
soon as it breaks out. The United
States and to some extent the
Dominions will try to avoid
commitment altogether and will try to
occupy the position held by Great
Britain alone in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. They will arm
but endeavour not to form part of the
balance of power between the two
alliances. But, as used to be the case
with Great Britain, they will
eventually be dragged into any war
which breaks out, partly because
their weight will be decisive in
determining which side shall win probably
a matter vital to themselves
if one side is democratic and the
other dictatorial - and partly because
their own security will compel them
to intervene to prevent aggressive
and expansionist powers from
obtaining territory or naval or
airbases near their shores. However
pacifist they may be, the need for
security in an anarchic world will
force their hands.
"As the alliance system
tightens it will become more
and more difficult to settle
major international
questions on grounds of
justice and reason."
As the alliance system tightens it will
become more and more difficult to
settle major international questions
on grounds of justice and reason.
Every issue will tend increasingly to
be considered in the light of its effect
on the relative security of the two
sides. War will more and more
become the only instrument of
change, and every war will tend to
become instantly a world war.
It is a sobering and a melancholy
reflection that twenty years after the
outbreak of the world's greatest war
we should once more be drifting
back to an alignment making for a
repetition of the same kind of
struggle but on a vaster and far more
devastating scale, because we have
been unable to grapple with that
anarchy of state sovereignties which
is the root cause of war.
XV
Is this our only destiny? There is, in
my view, only one possible way of
breaking out of the vicious alliance
circle today, and that is to return to
the underlying concept of the Peace
Conference of 1919, a concept now
quite lost sight of, which was
embodied in the Anglo-American
Treaty of Guarantee to France. The
League was to have a centre of
gravity - the three victorious
democracies - collectively so strong
that no state could challenge their
authority - even if they disarmed in a
disarmed world - yet so liberal that
no one would fear them. There was
to be in the League a preponderant
centre which would have done for
the world what Great Britain did for
the Empire - and for the world up to
1914. What enabled the old British
Empire to keep the peace so long
was the overwhelming power of
Great Britain, which rendered any
successful local war impossible and
made it possible for her to arbitrate
disputes within it. What preserved the
peace of the world during the
nineteenth century and ended the
long series of world wars of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
was the complete naval supremacy
of Britain after Trafalgar. It was
impossible for any nation to bring
about world war because no nation
could dream of successfully
challenging British sea power outside
the Continent of Europe.
The underlying idea at Paris in 1919
was that the United States, France,
and the British Empire should
collectively discharge through a
League of Nations which gave
representation to all peoples, the
ultimate stabilizing function which
Great Britain alone had performed in
the preceding century and in an even
more liberal way. The possibility of
this kind of stability disappeared with
the withdrawal of the United States
to the isolation of absolute national
sovereignty and the return of Great
Britain and the Dominions to that
semi-detachment from Europe which
followed M. Poincaré's decision to
reject the British proposal of
guarantee and to invade the Ruhr.
France, for a time, created a local
military preponderance in Europe
with Poland and the Little Entente.
Once Germany began to rearm that
preponderance disappeared and the
inevitable occurred. Unable to rely
on the United States, France turned
to Russia to maintain the European
balance, despite the menace that
such a course might imprison both
Europe and Asia in the terrible
military and air time-tables which are
implicit in the alliance system.
If such a central combination were
possible - a combination, for
instance, of the democracies fronting
on the great oceans of the world and
between them controlling all the
entries into those oceans, Panama,
Hawaii, Singapore, Suez, Gibraltar,
the Straits of Dover, and the North
Sea, and committed to free
institutions - it might create a "pax"
for a large part of mankind. For it
would be a combination which if
organized to bring its resources into
play would be invulnerable to attack,
a centre of world gravity which might
therefore escape from automatic
commitment to the Europe-Asia
alliance system and the military timetable,
yet which, by its economic,
military, and air strength, would be
an immensely powerful influence to
Pacifism is not enough
Page 19
deter other nations from resorting to
war except under the conditions
provided for in the Covenant, or if
war did break out to localize it, end
it on reasonably just terms, and in
any case prevent it from becoming a
world war in which they themselves
would inevitably become involved.
Such a system can be brought about
by no political propaganda. If it
comes into being it will be in
response to the pressure of events.
And in this uncertain anarchic world,
in which groupings constantly
change and revolution follows
revolution, events may well make
some other combination - the
combination, for instance, once
dreamed of by Cecil Rhodes - the
centre of gravity against world war. I
am solely concerned today to argue
that in the creation of such an
independent central block may be
found the only alternative, in present
conditions, to a repetition of that fatal
alliance system which produced the
world war of 1914, and which
would now embrace the whole
world.
XVI
May I now return to the
fundamentals with which this lecture
began. I have made an excursion
into the by-path of contemporary
diplomatic problems partly because I
wanted to analyse the tremendous
forces which the anarchy inherent in
state sovereignty inevitably lets loose
and the unexpected effect they have
on national policy. But I have done
so partly for another reason. Some of
you, no doubt, have thought that my
argument that the federation of
nations is the only foundation for the
ending of war and the establishment
of the reign of peace was academic.
I believe, on the other hand, that
while public opinion today may be
far from thinking in these terms,
events are driving the issue to the
front with tremendous speed.
"while public opinion today
may be far from thinking in
these terms, events are
driving the issue to the front
with tremendous speed."
It is inconceivable to me that we can
continue much longer as an anarchy
of twenty-six states in Europe and
over sixty states in the world, each
raising its tariffs to the clouds against
one another, each armed to the
teeth, and each darkening the skies
with bombing aeroplanes whose
most fatal destruction would be
directed against the civilian
population. Some form of integration
- both economic and political - is
bound to come, and if this does not
come by voluntary federation it will
come by way of empire. The method
of empire has been that most
commonly used to give peace to a
distracted world. Empire gives unity
and with unity peace. That is its
supreme merit - a merit which
peoples are willing to acknowledge
so long as the memory of anarchy
and war persist. Japan already is
trying to give "peace" to the Far East
by this road today, as we gave it to
India a century ago. It is true that
sooner or later empires decay, partly
because they become rigid and
rotten at the centre, partly because
despotism gradually atrophies the
vigour and initiative of their subjects.
It is true also that federation is the
only lasting method of unity and
peace, because it preserves those
elements of freedom and justice
which are the principle of vitality and
growth, though it s much more
difficult to achieve, for race,
language, culture, history, all
obstruct. The road of a free
federation has practically never been
successfully applied outside the
English-speaking peoples and
Switzerland. None the less anarchy,
because it presses constantly
towards war, presses also towards
integration either by the road of
empire or the road of federation.
Suppose a general war broke out
again, and nobody can now say it is
impossible, what would it be fought
about? It certainly would not be
fought merely about the readjustment
of frontiers. The catastrophic
destruction and gigantic power of
modern war might be unleashed
over some minor issue, but the war
itself would become more and more
a war to end war. Both sides would
inevitably come to fight to end the
possibility of further war by
establishing a permanent
ascendancy - at any rate in their own
part of the world. That was what
Germany and her associates were
planning - and inevitably planning when
they considered what their
peace terms would be during the last
war. If the alignment in such a war
was the same as in the last they
would even more certainly
endeavour, in the event of victory, to
"pacify" Europe by establishing a
permanent military and economic
ascendancy over most of the
Continent.
"if unification does not come
by voluntary federation it
will come by way of empire"
And what of ourselves? If another
general war broke out, should we
fight to perpetuate the anarchy which
raised the number of sovereign states
in Europe from fifteen to twenty-six
and to recreate a League of sixty
sovereignties which had
conspicuously failed to give us
peace? I think not. We should think
much more realistically. We should
realize that if we were victorious we
should have to carry the idea of the
Pacifism is not enough
Page 20
Anglo-American Treaty of Guarantee
much farther and perpetuate in some
form the combination of free peoples
which won the war so that world war
- if not local war - should be
impossible again. And when we
began to think in these terms, is it not
certain that if we rejected the solution
of empire, as we should, we should
be driven to consider its only
alternative, the solution of
federation?
So, unless you think the question of
war is purely academic, the issue of
unity by federation or unity by
empire, if not for the globe as a
whole at least for great sections of
the globe, is not academic. It is the
issue which the re-emergence of the
possibility of war is rapidly bringing
to the front. And that is why I want
the peace movement to think about
it, so that if war does reappear, it will
be prepared, next time, with a
solution which will really end war.
XVII
I imagine that the Burge Memorial
Trust does not desire that its lectures
should deal mainly with political
policy. It is rather concerned, I think,
with those spiritual and metaphysical
truths which are seldom the stock-intrade
of day-to-day politics but to
which, if they are widely enough
recognized by the people, political
policy has in the long run to conform.
So I return to reason with my pacifist
friends, men and women who hate
war, who are prepared to make any
personal sacrifice to end war, but
who are in doubt as to how they
should proceed so as to produce the
result for which they strive. They will
at least have no doubt about my
opinion. It is that if they want to end
war and establish permanent peace
among men they must work for
nothing less than the merging of part
of national sovereignty in a
federation of nations. That is the
predestined method by which alone
the Fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man can come into
visible expression on earth. It is
interesting to remember that the
Founder of Christianity was sent to
his death by the Palestinian mob
because he refused to lend his
support to the Jewish nationalist
movement to break out from the "Pax
Romana".
"It is that if they want to end
war and establish permanent
peace among men they must
work for nothing less than
the merging of part of
national sovereignty in a
federation of nations."
The establishment of a federation of
nations, of course, cannot be done
by empire. The state is sometimes
regarded as being necessarily an
engine of rigid and dictatorial
violence. That is only the old Prussian
and the modern totalitarian
conception - itself the outcome of the
pressure of anarchy outside the state.
In essence the true commonwealth is
the result of the recognition by
people in a great territorial area of
their essential unity - a unity which
can only be assured by the creation
of the machinery necessary to the
establishment of the reign of law law
which in the democratic state
conforms to public opinion and
whose main sanction is not the police
but the voluntary obedience of the
overwhelming majority of the
citizens. The creation of a federation
of nations, therefore, will in essence
be the outcome of a spiritual
movement - the lessening of those
national and racial and linguistic and
cultural divisions to the point which
makes possible an organic
combination for common
supernational affairs. A sufficient
degree of moral or spiritual unity
must be a reality before an enduring
federal commonwealth can come
into being, for premature union may
break down in secession or civil war.
Force may have to play its part in
overcoming obstacles but it cannot
be the main foundation of a lasting
federation. In the profound words of
Admiral Mahan: "The function of
force is to give time for moral ideas
to take root". No one has seen the
true place of force in the world or
applied it more wisely than Abraham
Lincoln. But the process must be
moral and spiritual growth, and the
end an organic act - the enactment of
constitution which will unite men and
nations, make permanent universal
individual and national liberty, stop
the pressure towards dictatorship
and tyranny, poverty, unemployment
and those hideous and non-moral
processes which spring from
international anarchy, and abolish
the institution of war from the earth.
"A sufficient degree of moral
or spiritual unity must be a
reality before an enduring
federal commonwealth can
come into being"
This last and greatest achievement in
what Aristotle regarded as the
noblest activity of man - human
government - may come through the
people rising to the level of
Tennyson's famous vision or being
driven to unity by bitter suffering. Its
first beginnings - for it will begin small
and grow through the adhesion of
those who accept the principles of its
constitution - may come from a
political movement like the
federations of the United States, or
Canada, or Switzerland. It may be
the outcome of another great
struggle, like that of 1914, for right
against might, in world affairs, as
Pacifism is not enough
Page 21
nations come to recognize the moral
impossibility of isolation when certain
vital issues of freedom or justice are
at stake. It may be that its
foundations will first have to be laid
by that marvellous yet almost
invisible process whereby early
Christianity spread through the
pagan Greek and Roman world, by
a light of understanding and
brotherhood passing from mind to
mind, until, despite persecution,
repression, and indifference, religion
became the foundation of a new
order which, despite the collapse of
the old machinery of empire, gave
some measure of unity and freedom
to all the peoples of Christendom. I
will not attempt the dangerous role of
prophecy. I would, in conclusion, say
two things about the nature of the
future federation of nations.
The first is that the physical obstacles
in the way are no longer
insurmountable. You may remember
that in a famous oration Edmund
Burke recognized that the formation
of a constitutional federation was the
only solution of the Anglo-American
quarrel in 1776. He would have
recommended it, but, as he said,
Obstat Natura - the Atlantic forbids.
It was impossible to create a
common parliament for two countries
separated by 3,000 miles of ocean
crossed only by the tiny vessels of
that age. Therefore, if the method of
empire was no longer practicable in
America, it was better to separate in
friendliness than to fight. These
arguments have disappeared.
Nature no longer forbids. Steam,
electricity, the internal combustion
engine, the printing-press, the
aeroplane, and the radio have made
the whole earth smaller than was
Britain in the days of Burke. If during
the era of self-determination many
peoples have learned second
languages in the name of
nationalism, it ought not to be difficult
in a period of integration for all
peoples to learn a second common
language in the name of unity and
peace. And today, despite the
emphasis on race, the civilization
which all peoples practice is rapidly
becoming one. No doubt some new
constitutional device will have to be
contrived. Democracy in the days of
Pericles was confined to the city-state
- because an assembly could not be
larger than the number who could
hear a single orator's voice. England
discovered how to apply the
representative system to political
institutions and so brought into being
the national commonwealth. The
United States discovered the federal
principle and made possible
commonwealths of a continental size.
Some equivalent discovery will have
to be made whereby a government
controlling those matters which lie
beyond the national domain can
enact and enforce law and
command the obedience of all
citizens in its own sphere of power
and be responsible to hem. In this
case, as before, when the will is
there the way will be found. The
main obstacles are only tradition and
opinion.
"Those who will establish
peace on earth in this way
will have learnt that neither
pacifism nor patriotism is
enough."
The second point I want to make is
set out in a conversation which I had
some nine months ago with an
eminent American pacifist divine,
which brings out very clearly, I think,
the fundamentals of the case. My
friend has taken his stand in the
United States as an out-and-out
pacifist on lines very similar to those
adopted in this country by the Rev.
Dick Sheppard. He has come the
conclusion that war is wrong. He has
publicly proclaimed that in no
circumstances will he take part in any
future war and that he will go to jail
rather than be coerced into doing so.
He recently helped to circularize
20,000 ministers of religion in the
United States, of whom 14,000
replied that they believed that the
Christian churches should refuse to
sanction or support any future war,
13,000 replied that it was their
present intention to refuse to
participate in any future war as
combatants, and 8,000 replied that
they would refuse to serve as
chaplains.
I put to him the usual question, "How
do you reconcile this form of
negative pacifism with support of the
policeman inside the state? If you
don't prevent international
lawlessness and aggression, sooner
or later gangster rule will triumph
internationally as it would inside the
nation if the citizens and the police
did not resist". He replied: "I the
League and the Pact for what they
are worth, for they are the crude
beginnings of the new world order,
and because the nations are not
likely to take the next and vital step
until they have substituted cooperation
for unrestricted selfcentredness
and have discovered in
practice that co-operation is not
enough. But none of these methods
can end war or create the conditions
in which it is possible for mankind to
live a free and civilized life. These
will only be established when
enough citizens of national states,
while retaining their full autonomy in
national affairs, are willing to form
themselves into a world nation for
common purposes, to enter into that
organic and indissoluble bond which
is the foundation not of a League but
of a Commonwealth of Nations.
Pacifism is not enough
Page 22
Those who will establish peace on
earth in this way will have learnt that
neither pacifism nor patriotism is
enough. The virtues which make a
good citizen of a parliamentary
democracy are different from those
which make a good citizen of a state
which is fighting for justice as against
might as the ruler of mankind.
Brotherhood, tolerance, public spirit,
a capacity for intelligent discussion
are essential in the one, as selfsacrifice,
discipline, dedication, a
capacity to lay down one's life for
one's friends are essential in the
other.
"the troubles of the world
are due not to the malignity
of their neighbours but to the
anarchy which perverts the
policies of all nations"
The peace movement of the future
will consist of those who combine
both these sets of virtues. Its members
will see all men and nations as one
brotherhood, and recognize that the
troubles of the world are due not to
the malignity of their neighbours but
to the anarchy which perverts the
policies of all nations. And they will
have to be prepared, not only to
pool their national sovereignties in
order that a true reign of law - the
only ending of war, and the only true
peace - may be established on earth,
but, if necessary, to use force - even
war itself - to vindicate justice and the
triumph of wrong over right - the
road of death - until the time is ripe
for peace and unity to come by the
road of organic federation - the road
of liberty and life. When there are
enough "elect" men and women of
this kind in the world, and not before,
there will arise that city,
foreshadowed in Revelation, in
which there is no more war because
the Glory of the Lord is the light
thereof, and the former things have
passed away.
About Lord Lothian
The 11th Marquess of Lothian (Philip
Kerr, 1882-1940) devoted much of
his life to working for world peace
through the creation of more solid
links amongst the nations of the
British Commonwealth and between
the Commonwealth and the United
States. As a young man he was a
member of Lord Milner's group (the
`Kindergarten') in South Africa
during the period of reconstruction
after the Boer War. As editor of The
Round Table from 1910 to 1916,
Lothian was an active proponent of
closer imperial union, and as Private
Secretary to Lloyd George from
1917 to 1921 he had a significant
influence on British foreign policy,
particularly during the Paris Peace
conference of 1919.
During the inter-war years he
devoted much of his influence to
improving Anglo-American relations
and to bringing about the Indian
Federation. He studied the problem
of national sovereignty, developed a
theory of supranational organisation
and became a severe critic of the
League of Nations. After Munich he
took a leading part, with Sir Charles
Kimber, Lionel Curtis, Sir William
Beveridge, Barbara Wootton and
Lionel Robbins, in the establishment
of the Federal Union movement. His
writings on international relations
inspired Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto
Rossi who, during their internment
under Mussolini, developed the case
for a federated Europe after the war
on the basis of the Federal Union
literature. Today Lothian is honoured
in Europe as a founding father of the
British federalist school and a
pioneer of European unification.
This text was written as the Burge
Memorial Lecture, delivered on 28
May 1935. It is rightly recognised as
one of the essential texts in the history
of federalism. This edition was edited
by Richard Laming.
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Pacifism is not enough