Books of the Day

Nationalism and War

Nationalism. By a study group of the Royal Institute of Inter-

national Affairs. (Oxford University Press. 12s. 6d.) THERE was room, certainly, for a comparative study of modern nationalism. This book, by a Chatham House group under the chairmanship of Professor E. H. Carr, contains a mass of knowledge, fairly assessed and lucidly analysed; yet it is in some respects an unsatisfying, sterile work.

It begins with a valuable series of sketches of the rise of national feeling and national unity in the different countries. The sketch-book, being brief, has to be extremely selective ; and parts of it, especially the non-European parts, are admittedly no more than a sketchy background for the rest of the book.

The European chapters show how the national unity of England and France differs from the unity of such countries as Italy and Germany, being so long established, so slowly grown and deeply rooted, that Englishmen and Frenchmen can forget about their nationhood, taking it for granted. The importance of Rousseau's contribution to the idea of the nation-State is, of course, emphasised ; and this leads on to a summary of the philosophy of nationalism as it emerged in nineteenth-century Germany in the writings of Fichte and Hegel. Perhaps the authors, in their concern to bring out the importance of Hegel, give too little indication of that other Germany which Kant and Goethe represent ; but the sum- mary of Hegel's nationalism serves well to recall how out- standing his contribution has been to the fatal doctrine of the unlimited sovereignty of the nation-State.

Many readers will feel that the pages on Czecho-Slovakia's claim to nationhood are perfunctory and unfair. Perhaps the bias is due to an unexpressed desire to justify the so-called " realism " of the policy which led up to Munich and its sequel. The pages on India will be regarded by most Indian nationalists as emphasising excessively the obstacles in the way of Indian unity when British rule, and the opposition to it, is no longer a unifying force. There is an interesting chapter on Russian nationalism, and one about the Jews as a nation.

In discussing nationalism in the Dominions, the authors ask whether an association so loosely knit as the British Com- monwealth, and containing so many racial problems, will hold together. The Dominions, free now as sovereign States to decide whether or not to participate in wars in which Britain is engaged, are still much affected by the consequences of the foreign policy that is shaped in London ; but they cannot adequately share in the control of this policy, and cannot nowadays even predict its course. It might be expected that the authors would draw the inference that the Commonwealth is most likely to hold together if its members observe a common covenant of peaceful behaviour and fair dealing. But that kind of answer is precluded by their extreme pessi- mism (derived apparently from their chairman, Professor Carr) as regards all collective efforts to prevent aggression and to organise an acceptable peaceful order under any such con- ditions as we may hope to see in our time. The existing League of Nations is briefly, witheringly referred to here in the past tense. (In Professor Carr's book, The Twenty Years Crisis, the idea of a better League, as well as world Federation, is dismissed as "an elegant superstructure," far out of reach at present.) The book asks why nationalism appears in the twentieth century as so often menacing, after having been "regarded by most Europeans in the nineteenth century as a desirable and progressive phenomenon." In answer, it points to the fact that the State and the nation have become " popularised " ; Marx's assertion that "the worker has no country," which had a measure of truth in 1848, has so largely ceased to be true nowadays that Marx's prediction about the dissolution of nation-States owing to the rising power of a denationalised working-class is being falsified. Moreover, the activity and power of Governments have increased enormously, and inter- national rivalries have been intensified, especially since the War of 1914. This is brought out in a chapter on contem- porary European nationalism, and in a very able but heavily compressed chapter on nationalism and the economic order. The authors also pose the question—why does nationalism "appear to assume a morbid and menacing form in some countries and not in others "? Of course, chauvinism is not

a necessary accompaniment of love of one's country : but it has flared up in country after country, not least in our own, when the temptation to aggression has been strong and the

restraint weak. The authors are so concerned—honourably concerned—to avoid national bias and self-righteousness, and so impressed by the formidable difficulties of "peaceful change" of the status quo, that they sometimes fall over backwards into statements about aggression which Goebbels would be happy to exploit as justification for the anarchic militancy of Mein Kampf. To demolish card-houses of

illusion is a service to honest thinking ; and to point out the profound hypocrisy that so easily tricks us in passing moral judgements on international affairs is a salutary warning. But the authors overstate their case until it has the effect of deso- lating cynicism.

"'May not the function of the public conscience be, not to influence national policy, but to provide a moral basis for policies determined on purely national grounds.' . . . The best-intentioned of men would find it hard to decide exactly what would be the moral course of action for his country, even if the fact that it was a national decision did not cause strong emotions to be involved. When those emotions are added, the probability becomes over- whelming that the ultimate decision will be cast in favour of that course of action which conforms to personal or national interests."

The authors are so concerned to avoid the " Utopianism " which Professor Carr derides in his Twenty Years Crisis that they allow themselves no hope that statesmen "in the present

epoch" will be able to do more than "diminish the extent and frequency" of wars. Indeed, the book endorses by implication Professor Carr's view that international peace is really "a special vested interest of predominant Powers," not a general interest at all ; and that, just as the strike is retained as a weapon in the industrial field, so war must be retained as a legitimate and necessary element in the bargaining process called "peaceful change "—at least until a day, probably undesirable and certainly far distant, when a mighty authori- tarian world State can impose binding decrees on all members of the community without their specific assent. It repudiates the assumption, too lightly made in more spacious days, that there is any "harmony of interests" or of ethic between the peoples of " satisfied " and " dissatisfied " States ; and emphasises the difficulty of obtaining general agreement even on the broadest principles.

"Even so simple a principle as the immorality of aggressive wars—which might be expected to act as a certain restraint on nationalism—only commands wholehearted assent in those coun- tries which are satisfied with the status quo or which are weak enough to fear aggression from others. Moreover . . . even if aggressive wars are generally condemned, it is possible to represent almost any war as having a defensive character."

Militant nationalism will never be "neutralised," the authors contend, through any growth of intellectual conviction that national wars are ill-advised or through moral conviction that such wars are wrong, but only "through a fundamental

change in the basis of political organisation, :.e., the trans-

ference of po!itical power and control of wealth to some kind of group other than the nation." Where, then, the reader will ask, shall we find the motive force necessary to achieve this "transference of power "? The authors' answer is a despair- ing one. Mere enlargement of existing units, by federation or by conquest, would not remove the discords which breed chauvinism. "It seems extremely improbable that common material interests would ever be strong enough to produce a spontaneous popular movement to set up a world-wide State above existing States." And even a world-wide government established by a world-conqueror, however impartial and wise, would have great difficulty in generating any sense of world loyalty, "in the inevitable absence of any external opposition."

Everyone who is thinking seriously about peace aims should study this book and Professor Carr's companion volume. Very many readers will profoundly disagree with the conclusions and parts of the analysis. Many will resent as unfair some of the expressions of Professor Carr's smart Foreign Office irony. But not many, if they are honest with themselves, will survive the reading without finding that some parts of the structure of their thinking about "the peace of nations" have been shaken or shot away.

A powerful constructive answer to the two books is needed.

W. ARNOLD-FORSTEFL