The War and Democracy Part 13

P. KHOPOTKIN. _Memoirs of a Revolutionist._ 1907. 6s.

MAURICE BARING. _Russian Literature._ (Home University Library.) 1s.

A. BRuCKNER. _A Literary History of Russia._ 1908. 12s. 6d. net.

MAURICE BARING. _Landmarks in Russian Literature._ 1910. 6s. net.

The last-named are the best available books in English on Russian literature. The works of the great Russian novelists are now accessible to English readers. Nothing helps one to understand Russia so well as reading the works of Tourgeniev, Tolstoi, and Dostoieffsky. The best translations are those of Mrs. Garnett. The following are recommended to those who are beginning the study of Russian literature and who are desirous of reading novels which throw light on the springs of Russian life and thought:--

TOURGENIEV. _Fathers and Children._ Heinemann. 2s. net.

A study of Russian Nihilism in the 'eighties, which may be read and compared with Kropotkin's _Memoirs_.

TOLSTOI. _War and Peace._ Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net. _Anna Karenin._ Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.

The first of these is perhaps the finest treatment of war in modern literature, the subject being the Russian campaign of Napoleon in 1812. No other book gives one a better idea of the way the Russians make war and of the essential greatness of the Russian national spirit.

DOSTOIEFFSKY. _The Brothers Karamazov._ Heinemann. 3s. 6d. net.

This, which is one of the greatest novels ever written, depicts, at once relentlessly and with infinite tenderness, the spiritual conflict which has agitated Russian society for at least fifty years past.

JOSEPH CONRAD. _Under Western Eyes._ 6s.

A powerful study of modern revolutionary types. Conrad, of course, is not a Russian novelist, but he is of Polish origin.

GOGOL. _The Inspector-General._ Walter Scott. 1s. net.

A comedy first produced in Petrograd in 1836. Gogol is one of Russia's cla.s.sics. This play is a humorous treatment of bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency.

CHAPTER VI

FOREIGN POLICY

The present war has raised in the minds of many men a question which we as a people will soon be called upon to answer. Was this war necessary? Or was it caused by the ambitions and foolishness of statesmen? Might it not have been averted if the peoples of Europe had had more control over the way in which foreign policy was carried on?

Out of these questions has arisen a demand for the "democratisation of foreign policy"; that is, for greater popular control over diplomatic negotiations. In view of this, it becomes necessary for every British citizen to gain some idea of what foreign policy is and by what principles it should be governed.

It is the purpose of this chapter to give, first, some account of the actual meaning of the words "foreign policy," and then, secondly, to consider how foreign policy may best be controlled in the interests of the whole population of the British Empire, and in the interests of the world at large.

A. THE MEANING OF FOREIGN POLICY

--1. _The Foreign Office._--To the ordinary man foreign policy is an affair of mystery, and it not unnaturally rouses his suspicions. He does not realise, what is nevertheless the simple truth, that he himself is both the material and the object of all foreign policy.

The business of the Government of a country is to maintain and further the interests of the individual citizen. That is the starting-point of all political inst.i.tutions. The business of the Foreign Office is a part of this work of Government, and consists in the protection of the interests of the individual citizen where those interests depend upon the goodwill of a foreign Government.

But just as in domestic politics the individual citizen is inclined to suspect--too often with truth--that the Government does not give impartial attention to the interests of all the citizens, but is preoccupied in protecting the interests of powerful and privileged persons or groups, so in foreign policy the individual citizen is particularly p.r.o.ne to believe that the time of the Foreign Office is taken up in furthering the interests of rich bondholders or powerful capitalists. Moreover, the charge is sometimes heard that some of the most powerful of these capitalists are engaged in the manufacture of armaments, and that the Foreign Office aims at securing orders from foreign Governments for these firms, thus encouraging the nations of the world to provide themselves with means of destruction.

Now, just as no sensible man will say that Governments do not often oppress the people under their care, so no sensible man will contend that Foreign Offices do not sometimes sin in the same way. But let us try to give an accurate picture of the work on which the British Foreign Office spends its time.

The organisation of the Foreign Office consists of:

(1) An office, situated in Downing Street, manned by a number of clerks, under the direction of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

(2) The Diplomatic Service--that is to say, from three to eight officials residing in the capital of each foreign country. In the more important countries these officials are called an Emba.s.sy, and are under the direction of an Amba.s.sador; in the smaller countries they are called a Legation, and are under the direction of a Minister. These Amba.s.sadors and Ministers receive instructions from and report to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and are the mouthpiece of the British Government in all business which Great Britain transacts with foreign countries.

(3) The Consular Service--that is to say, a large number of officials, called Consuls, distributed over all the towns of the world where British subjects have important trade connections or where there are a considerable number of British subjects. These Consuls are under the direction of the Foreign Office and of the Emba.s.sy or Legation in the country where they reside, and their business is to a.s.sist British trade and protect British subjects.

--2. _The Work of the Foreign Office._--The work of this whole organisation may be divided into four cla.s.ses:

(1) The protection of individual British subjects. This protection often extends to the most petty matters. Through the offices of a Consul and of an Emba.s.sy or Legation flows day by day a continual stream of British subjects who are in small difficulties or have small grievances against the officials of the country. One old lady has lost her luggage; a working man is stranded without work and wants to get back to England; a commercial traveller has got into trouble with the customs officials and asks for redress. But the protection thus given is often concerned with very important matters, and is constantly employed on behalf of the poorest and the most helpless. For instance, our officials in the United States are constantly occupied, in a.s.sisting British immigrant working men and women who are suffering hards.h.i.+ps under the stringent provisions of the United States immigration laws.

(2) The furthering of British trade. It is the duty of the whole Foreign Office organisation, but especially of the Consuls, to give advice to the representatives of commercial firms, to report openings for the sale of British goods abroad, and generally to give a.s.sistance to British trade in its compet.i.tion with foreign trade. Enquiries will, for instance, be received by a Consul at a Chinese port from a manufacturer of pottery or harness or tin-tacks, asking what type of goods will be likely to find a market in that locality. The Consul will then enquire and give such information as his local knowledge enables him to supply. Or again, a foreign country will sometimes make regulations which hinder the importation of English products. English oats may, for instance, be affected with a blight which Italy fears may infect her crops if she allows their importation. It may then become the duty of the British Emba.s.sy at Rome to make arrangements with the Italian Government in order that English farmers may not suffer by losing the market for their produce. But one important point must be remembered, because it is too often forgotten by those who criticise the Foreign Office. There is one general restriction on the activities of the Foreign Office in a.s.sisting British trade: no British official is allowed to invite, or try to persuade, any foreign Government to give orders to British firms, whether for war material or for any other article.

What we have already said applies to the relations between civilised countries. But the relations between civilised countries on the one hand, and uncivilised or semi-civilised countries on the other hand, are very much more difficult in many ways. Difficulties especially arise with regard to commerce. Many of the less-developed countries of the world, such as some South American countries and China, cannot, like their richer neighbours, undertake the development of their own resources. They lack money, scientific training, business ability, and so on. They therefore give what are called "concessions" to foreign companies or capitalists; that is, the Government of the country leases some industry for a term of years to the foreign company. The Mexican Government, for instance, has leased its oil-wells to English, American, and Dutch companies, and the Chinese Government has largely confided the construction and management of its railroads to English, French, and German companies.

Now, in many countries where this happens, the Government is not strong enough or permanent enough to guarantee proper security of tenure to the foreign company to which it grants a concession; very likely some official is bribed to grant the concession to one company and then bribed by another company to cancel it, or the Government is overthrown by a revolution and its successor cancels the concessions it has granted. By this means, British workmen may be thrown out of work and their employment may pa.s.s to workmen in the United States or Germany. Consequently, foreign Governments--the Governments of civilised countries--gradually begin to intervene and give protection to their subjects who have concessions in such countries, provided that they have obtained their concessions in a respectable and proper manner. Compet.i.tion between the different foreign companies then grows up; their Governments gradually begin to support them against each other in this compet.i.tion, until at last it becomes necessary for the different Governments, if bad feeling is to be avoided, to try to arrive at some arrangement among themselves, fixing the way in which the concessions granted by this or that semi-civilised country shall be distributed among the subjects of the Great Powers. Something like this has been recently happening in China.

To a certain extent this line of action seems to be necessary in dealing with backward countries, and it may be made mutually beneficial both to those countries themselves and to the commerce of the Great Powers, but, on the other hand, the whole policy is obviously liable to great abuse.

Consequently, every self-respecting Government knows that all matters relating to concessions must be treated with the greatest caution and forbearance, and that the interests of all concerned will be best served in the long run by gradually helping backward countries along the path of civilisation and strengthening their Governments so that they may be able to a.s.sume complete control of their own finance and commercial enterprises.

We have now described roughly the personal and the commercial work of the Foreign Office. This work covers all the immediate interests of individual British citizens in regard to foreign countries. If each British subject is protected when abroad, and if the trade and industry of the country on which the welfare and livelihood of every individual citizen ultimately depends is fostered and safe-guarded, then the primary duties of the British Government in relation to other Governments have been discharged.

But this is not enough. If the interests of the individual citizen of Great Britain are to be permanently secured in relation to foreign countries, we must be a.s.sured that the policy of foreign Governments is civilised and generally friendly to British subjects. There must be a general rule of law throughout the world on which British subjects can count with a.s.surance of safety. And so the Foreign Office has a third and even more important cla.s.s of work:

(3) The maintenance of permanent good relations with foreign countries.

These good relations are secured, not only by continually friendly communication with foreign Governments over innumerable questions of policy, but also by the conclusion of a network of treaties, some of them designed to establish international co-operation in particular social or economic questions such, for instance, as the existing treaty between Great Britain and France providing for the mutual payment of compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Laws of the two countries, and others concluded with the object of defining the mutual policy of different countries in general matters such as the regulation of trade. The newest and most important cla.s.s of treaties are those which, like the Hague Conventions and the treaties guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium and Luxemburg, attempt to lay down general rules of law which all countries agree to observe.

In other words, the office of diplomacy is to secure _certainty_ in the government of the world, so that every man may know what to expect in dealing with his fellow-man of a different nationality.

It is difficult to describe adequately the complexity of this diplomatic work. The economic and social systems of the world have become so involved and intertwined that there is hardly anything one country can do which does not react in some way on the interests of the subjects of another country.

In every European country, and in the United States, the Government is being more and more called upon to regulate the delicate economic and social machinery on which modern life depends. Each Government adopts an att.i.tude towards such problems which is determined partly by the thought and the beliefs of its public men, and partly by the course of historical development through which each country has pa.s.sed. There thus arises gradually in each country a more or less definite policy with which the country becomes identified. Formerly the policy of most European countries was mainly confined to questions arising in Europe itself, but in these days of industrial expansion the real aims of their policy generally lie outside Europe.

There are vast regions of the world where civilised government does not exist, or is only beginning to exist, but where the citizens of civilised countries travel and carry on trade. No civilised country can prevent its traders going where they please--indeed, the prosperity of every great country now depends to some extent at least upon its traders finding new markets for the sale of their goods--but if these traders go to an uncivilised country like Central Africa or the interior of China or the South Sea Islands the civilised country not only feels obliged to protect them there, but it must also, by every claim of justice and humanity, prevent them from ill-using the uncivilised and helpless natives.

The horrors which accompany the unregulated activity of foreign traders in a savage country may be seen from the _Life of John G. Paton,_ a missionary in the New Hebrides Islands of the Southern Pacific. These islands, before they came under the government of any civilised Power, were visited by European and American traders, especially traders in sandalwood. "The sandalwood traders," wrote Paton, "are as a cla.s.s the most G.o.dless of men.... By them the poor defenceless natives are oppressed and robbed on every hand; and if they offer the slightest resistance they are ruthlessly silenced by the musket or revolver.... The sale of intoxicants, opium, fire-arms, and ammunition by the traders among the New Hebrideans, had become a terrible and intolerable evil." It became necessary for the civilised Powers to prohibit, by international regulation, the sale of fire-arms and intoxicants in the islands. Such international regulations are always very difficult to enforce, and finally the administration of the islands was taken over by Great Britain and France, who now govern them jointly.

Hence the civilised countries of the world have gradually been led to a.s.sume jurisdiction in uncivilised regions, and have converted many of them into colonies or "protectorates" or "spheres of influence." By this process the interests of the nations of Europe reach out into all the far corners of the earth, and constant care and arrangement is needed to prevent those interests clas.h.i.+ng. Where the interests of the different Powers do clash in an uncivilised or semi-civilised part of the world a general international agreement is often necessary to put things straight; for instance, during recent years the interests of Germany, France, and Spain--and to a less degree those of many other countries--were continually clas.h.i.+ng in Morocco, till it became necessary in 1906 to conclude a general international treaty called the Algeciras Act, whereby the relations of all the Powers with regard to Morocco were defined in great detail.

--3. _The Balance of Power._--It is this continual attempt to arrange matters and to keep the different Powers clear of each other in order that their interests may not clash, which is the real underlying cause to-day of what is known as the "Balance of Power." The doctrine of the "Balance of Power" grew up at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century when Europe was threatened by the policy of aggression and conquest undertaken by Louis XIV. of France. From that day onward, European statesmen have sought to establish a definite European system and to limit the growth of the European States in such a way as to ensure that no State should be so strong as to threaten its neighbours.

The history of this attempt has been somewhat as follows. A coalition of the States of Europe was formed against the aggressions of Louis XIV.

After a series of wars a peace was signed at Utrecht in 1713 defining the boundaries of the European States in such a way as to establish equality and a balance of power between them. For about ten years European statesmen attempted to maintain the system thus set up by means of what has since come to be known as the "Concert of Europe"--that is, by means of a series of international congresses where opportunity was given for the settlement of disputes between the different States. Soon, however, it became impossible to satisfy the ambitions of the rulers and peoples of Europe by this means, and the Concert of Europe broke up. Wars followed, during which those statesmen, especially in England, who believed in the "Balance of Power" sought to prevent any European nation from being overwhelmed by its enemies. To this end, England supported Austria against the attacks of Prussia, and then later supported Prussia against a coalition formed by the rest of Europe to crush her. Unfortunately neither England nor France had sufficient strength or courage to prevent the part.i.tion of Poland between Prussia, Russia and Austria, which const.i.tuted a fatal violation of the Balance of Power. Peace did not return to Europe till 1815, when the whole continent had been driven to combine for the overthrow of Napoleon. At the Congress of Vienna in that year the "Concert of Europe" was revived, and for more than thirty years it practically succeeded by means of a series of international congresses in maintaining a stable and balanced system in Europe.