THE GREAT ILLUSION.* WE welcome this book, based on Mr.

Norman Angell's

pamphlet entitled Europe's Optical Illusion. The larger space which it occupies naturally allows him to set forth his case more clearly, and to make his points more readily intelligible. Let us begin by saying that we most sincerely wish he could persuade the world to hold the propositions which he lays down, and thereby win mankind from war. For ourselves, as far as his main economic proposition goes, he preaches to the converted. We are quite as sure as he is that theoretically, and from the abstract and material standpoint, war is always unprofitable. The acquisition of unwilling provinces does not bring wealth, while the financial waste of war is certain to cause impoverishment.

But although we agree with Mr. Angell's economics, we are

unconvinced by his psychology. In the first part of his book he considers the case in which a nation is driven to war by the motive of economic ambition, and shows that war can never satisfy this ambition. There remains for consideration the question whether any other motives can lead to war, and this Mr. Angell deals with in his second part. He agrees that such motives may have existed in the past, but attempts to show that human nature is gradually outgrowing its original pugnacity, and that consequently they will cease to operate in the future. But here we cannot follow him, for it seems to us that just as individuals quarrel among themselves, and fight as bitterly as the police and the Law Courts will allow them, not because they think it will make them rich, but because their blood is up, and they want to stand up for what they believe to be their rights, or to revenge themselves for wrongs done to them, as they think, by their fellows, so nations will fight even though it is demonstrable that they will get no material gain thereby. One would imagine from Mr. Angell's book that he had never noted that the greatest and most terrible of modern wars, the American Civil War, was waged with no hope of material gain by either side, but on what might very properly be called idealistic grounds. The North did not stop to calcu- late whether it would pay them to put an end to slavery, and to spend blood and treasure like water to save the Union ; nor did the South in their desire to maintain the Institution and to assert their independence, as they said, trouble the least about the bill. But the American Civil War does not stand by itself. Almost all the great wars of modern times were fought on non-material grounds. No one thought that the invasion of the Crimea was going to fill anybody's pockets, nor would the belief that the combatants would be impoverished by it have prevented it from taking place. That is still truer of the wars by which the Austrian dominance was expelled from Italy, or of the wars with Denmark, with

Austria, and finally with France, by means of which Prussia

first asserted her hegemony in Germany, and then humbled the pride of France and wrested from the Emperor Napoleon III. the position of European arbiter. For good or evil, perhaps for both, men are not merely money-making machines, but creatures impelled by moral motives,—using the word of course in its widest sense. They want sometimes freedom, sometimes power. Sometimes a passion for expan- sion or dominion comes over them. Sometimes they seem impelled to fight for fighting's sake, or, as their leaders and rhetoricians vaguely say, to fulfil their destinies. Sometimes they place their fortunes in the hands of an ambitious or evil- minded man, who recognises that he can only retain his • The Great Itheeien. By Norman Angell. London : William Heinemann [3e. 65. net.]

position by making the nation glorious in arms. Whenever a nation is impelled by any of these positive currents of opinion, it is ttlmost certain to cross and infringe the interests and aspirations of other nations. Then follows a conflict of will, exactly like the conflict of will between individuals. When "I shall !" and "You shall not ! " come to close quarters, men will fight it out,—unless of course some form of universal domination, like the Roman Empire or like our Empire in India, forbids the use of the sword, and enforces some other arbitrament. But if nations are aware, as they are aware, that they may have to meet the "I shall !" of other nations with "You shall not ! " they are bound, as they belong to a genus of creatures which looks forward and backward, which is ruled by experience of the past and by imagination for the future, to prepare to enforce "I shall !" or "You shall not !" Hence grow up those armed conditions which we see to-day, conditions which we venture to believe are inevitable unless we are willing to accept some form of universal monarchy, individual or corporate, which will keep men in order with the big stick. The possibility of war and the power to prosecute war are conditions essential to national independence. Possibly Mr. Angell would think that such independence is purchased too dear. If that is so, we cannot agree with him.

There are a very great number of points in Mr. Angel's book with which we should like to deal. For example, there is his mordant exposition of the fact that, on the Protec- tionist theory, a great war indemnity must be the ruin of the State which receives it. Free-traders have often met the Protectionist argument by the example of the dumping volcano.

They ask Protectionists :—" Would you think yourselves ruined suppose a volcano happened to be developed in the middle of your country which belched forth pig-iron or steel billets in vast numbers, and thus enabled you to have a finished product for nothing ? Would you say that your steel industries were ruined, and that it would have been very much better for the country if the dumping volcano had never become active ? " In the same way we understand Mr.

Norman Angell to suggest that a war indemnity, under which millions of golden sovereigns are dumped into a country, must ruin its industries by depriving its people of work. Whether Mr. Norman Angell is himself a Pro- tectionist, or only using an argument that will gain him converts in Protectionist countries, we do not know. At any rate, our withers are unwrung. We happen to be Free-traders who believe that not work but the products of work are the economic desideratum, and 'therefore we should theoretically welcome both the volcano which throws up pig-iron or steel billets and the war indemnity. We say "theoretically" advisedly, because, as a matter of fact, no war indemnity is ever likely to be big enough to pay for the waste of a war.

Before we leave Mr. Angel's book we must say something, even at the risk of wearying our readers by personal con- troversy, about his remarks on the opinions of the

Spectator and of its editor. He quotes a passage from A New Way of Lzfe, a work which consists of reprints of Spectator

articles, in which we stated that we did not want by letting down our sea power to tempt the nations of the Continent to plunder us. He seems to think this passage implies that we believe that if Germany could conquer England the German people would be the better for it. We believe nothing of the kind ; but unfortunately a very large and important section of the German governing class believe so, and that is what really matters. When we said that if the command of the sea could be taken from us for a week or two these islands and their riches would be open

to the plunderer, we by no means desired to imply that it would be good business for the plunderer. All we were concerned with was the fact that the potential plunderer would think so. We are absolutely convinced that burglary is the poorest of all trades ; but in spite of that fact, there are burglars about, and it is wise not to tempt them by open doors and windows. Let us hasten to say that we do not accuse the German people of being a nation of burglars. They are anything but that. Unfortunately, however, the dominant and governing caste in Germany has, as we have said above, not been converted to Mr. Angel's views, true as they may be, but holds exactly the opposite opinion.

Another case in which Mr. Angell misrepresents us. unconsciously no doubt, but still very effectively, is his citation of an article which appeared in the Spectator of January 16th, 1897, an article in which we pointed out that Germany would at that period, when there was no comparison between her sea power and ours, have suffered terribly by a war with us. Mr. Angell notes that this article was written in reply to a German allega- tion of the helplessness of England, but then proceeds to say that this does not alter the facts. It alters the facts very much. A German newspaper, the Hamburger Nach- richten, made a very offensive attack on England, dwelling on our weakness and helplessness, and in effect urged German statesmen not to be afraid of us. After quoting some Jingoistic and defiant words of Disraeli's, the German newspaper went on :—" Oh that she would try the experi- ment soon [i.e., of war]. In reality her strength is not proportionate to her insufferable presumption." To this we replied by showing that we were not helpless, and that the Germans would be very foolish in precipitating war with us. The article in question was so persistently used by the German Navy League to demand an increase in the Fleet that Herr Richter, the then head of the Liberal Party in Germany, with a full knowledge of Prince Bismarck's Press methods, declared in the Reichstag that the German Government had had the article written in Germany, and had then procured its insertion in the Spectator,—a curious example of what an enlightened German believed, from home experience, to be the natural method of " working " the Press. We have never denied for a single moment the right of Germany to build as big a Navy as she desires. We have not even attempted to argue that her present naval policy is an unfriendly act. On the contrary, we have said again and again that the proper way to meet German activity is not by abusing the Germans for doing what they have a right to do, and what we should do in similar circumstances, but by out- building them. Mr. Angell should, we think, have taken the trouble to make this clear instead of suggesting, as he seems to suggest, though we admit he does not say it in so many words, that the Spectator challenges Germany's right to increase her Navy.

One more word as to Mr. Angell's unconscious misrepre- sentation of our point of view. He quotes our statement that we must face the world as it is, not as we would have it be,—a passage in which we declared that the world at large is controlled by persons who do not take what they would term a Sunday-school view of the universe, but rather the view that man is still a wild beast, and that the battle is to the strong, not to the well-intentioned. He tells us that the view plainly implied by us is that men are too mercenary to take account of sentiment at all, or to be moved by any- thing but their material interests. To say this is merely to beg the question. If he will look at the passage again, he will see that our argument was that men are savages, fighting, bloodthirsty creatures, not that they are calcu- lating materialists. No doubt if nations were perfectly wise

and held perfectly sound economic theories they would recognise that exchange is a union of forces, and that it is very foolish to hate or be jealous of your co-operators. But our whole point was, and is, that men are not wise enough to see this, but when their blood is up will fight for a word or a sign, or, as Mr. Angell would put it, for an illusion. It does not help very much for him to say that "the idea that any sacrifice of self-interest is needed on behalf of peace can be shown to repose upon a series of political and economic illusions." We admit that fully, but we say that it is irrelevant. To repeat our contention, men fight sometimes for the love of fighting, sometimes for great and noble causes, and sometimes for bad causes, but practically never with an account-book and a balance-sheet in their hands.

Possibly the day may come when men will be differently constituted, but that time is far distant, and we are by no means assured that, in spite of the wickedness and misery of war and of the preparation for war, this " accountant " attitude is to be desired. We must never forget that men have fought for good as well as for evil. In any ease, we are convinced that there is only one way to end war and the preparation for war, and that is, as we have said, by a universal monarchy. If we can imagine one country —let us say Russia for the sake of argument—so powerful that she could disarm the rest of the world, and then maintain a force big enough to forbid any Power, either to invade the rights of any other Power without appeal to a civie tribunal, or to prevent any resistance to the decrees of the tribunal, no doubt we should have universal peace. The nations would in that case no more dare to make war, than the present writer would dare to resist a decree of the Ohaneery Division, however unjust he might think it. Whetherom the whole, we should like such a dominance, or be the better for it, is another and a very different question.