WAR-AIMS-II. WHAT IS A JUST PEACE ?
By THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
[The next article in this series is by Sir Norman Angell] THE discussion of war-aims, or the conditions upon which we would readily make peace, must be con- ducted with two objectives. They are, indeed, closely allied, but they are not quite identical. Primary, of course, is the securing of a truly just settlement which shall give no reason- able occasion for any sense of grievance which may lead to a renewal of war. But along with this goes the persuasion of our enemies that such a just settlement is indeed our aim.
What is really meant by a just settlement? And to whom is it to be just?
It is notoriously hard to define justice When Plato set out to do it, he had first to show that all customary accounts of it, such as " rendering to each his due," break down either through ambiguity or through internal contradiction. His own definition at one stage was " doing one's own busi- ness," and at another the herding of " like with like." (On this latter view Heaven and Hell both consist of endless intercourse with characters like our own. Can you, without the Christian revelation, give any better account of them, or one more grim for most of us?) Part of this difficulty of definition arises from the fact that justice has two functions, retributive and distributive, which are by no means easy to combine in practice. If one has to give way to the other, which is to give way? It is at least possible that no answer to that general question can be acceptable, because it may be that different answers are called for in the case of individuals and in the case of nations or other complex units of men.
At the end of the year 1918 there was a great demand for what was conceived—whether reasonably or under the influence of passion does not now matter—to be retributive justice ; " Hang the Kaiser," " Make the Germans Pay." In some respects the Treaty of Versailles reflects this mood. It is apparent in the so-called War-Guilt Clause and the Economic Clauses dealing with Reparations and the like. And it was the clauses influenced by this desire for retribu- tive justice which were the most conspicuous as occasions of grievance and resentment. It is worth while to ask whether this function of justice has any proper applicability to the relations of great communities to one another. It was natural in 1918 to want to punish " Germany." But the only way to do this was to punish Germans. What Germans? Those doomed to longest suffering under the Treaty if it were not modified were the rising generation—those who are now the main strength of the Nazi movement!
For we are here involved in that very difficult question how far a nation is itself a " person " or moral agent. We all personify nations freely when we discuss foreign politics ; we say " Italy wants this " or " France will not stand that." But the "wanting " and the " standing " are done by Italian citizens and French citizens. It is very easy, it seems, to make either too much or too little of the moral unity of a nation. We make too little of it, I think, if we say that it is wrong to shoot German soldiers because Hitler and his colleagues are the guilty parties. The moral duty is to resist the force of Germany directed as it is directed now ; all German citizens are in some degree involved, unless they are rebels, and then they are in concentration camps and not in the army. The German soldiers are consenting to be instruments of Hitler's policy ; they are not altogether free from whatever blame attaches to that policy. If we could check Hitler without shooting them, it would be much better ; but we can't ; and it cannot be said to be unjust that we take the only means open to us of checking him by shoot- ing them ; for they are, even when unwillingly, consenting partners in his crime. There are many humanitarians who press beyond what is true the distinction between the indi- vidual and the nation of which he is a member or the State of which he is a subject. While the war lasts, the identity of the State with the whole body of its citizens—except so far as they rebel—appears to be the most relevant considera- tion.
But is this still so when we come to peace-making? It is indeed likely that one main fault of the Treaty of Versailles was the fact that it represented an effort to reach a per- manent settlement as the immediate aftermath of war. Many who went to Paris in January, 1919, thought their task was to prepare a truce which should last for five or perhaps ten years, after which the permanent terms of peace would be negotiated in a general congress of Europe, including Ger- many. We may well think now that this would have been a better course. And if such a course be followed, there may still be a place for retributive justice, meted out on the supposition that all German citizens are implicated in the guilt of the Nazi Government, in a preliminary truce. I should think it a mistake in this instance to press that view, because the Nazi regime has riveted its control upon the mass of citizens with brutal violence, and their submission to it should not be held very strongly against them. In any case we are thinking now not of a temporary truce but of the permanent peace. What does justice mean as a guiding principle in framing that?
In so far as any generation shares in the guilt of a Government which has committed international crimes, it may deserve to share the blame and to receive a measure of punishment. But it is to be noticed that the humiliation of failure and defeat is itself a serious punishment to any who have been possessed by the demon of aggressiveness ; there is little need or reason for further punitive measures. Still more important is the consideration that this guilty generation passes away ; the result is that any element of retributive justice in a permanent settlement very quickly loses its quality of justice and appears as an oppressive imposition upon persons who had no responsibility for the offence. In other words, any trace of retribution in a per- manent settlement becomes increasingly unjust with every year that passes, until it is nothing else but an injustice demanding remedy. It is not to the past but to the future that we must look in planning a permanent peace the justice in question is not retributive at all, but distribu- tive only.
This does not mean that history can be ignored. If a nation has displayed a habit of throwing up aggressive leaders and then following them, it must be supposed that something in the national tradition and tem- perament tends that way, and that this tradition will to some extent infect the coming generation. That is a fact to be taken into account in estimating what distributive justice requires. But a great step has been taken when it is recognised that a settlement containing any penal element—that is to say, any element included to fulfil a punitive intention—is incapable of being both permanent and just.
The next important step is taken when we recognise that no nation can be an impartial judge, any more than an individual can, where its own interests are concerned. Therefore it must not be the task of the victorious nations to determine what justice requires. Either they and the van- quished must together plead their cause before a tribunal drawn from neutral nations, or both must sit down together at a conference table where the neutral nations also sit. It is urged that we are not ready for this ; that it is utopian tt, hope for it before Germany has suffered the humiliation of failure, and equally utopian to hope for it after that, because of the passions which will have been aroused in the conflict leading to such humiliation. My own view is that discussion in such a congress is possible now if Germany will repudiate the Government which has led her into the war, and will substitute a Government ready to recognise the Czechs and the Poles as sovereign nations, and to join with them, with the French and British, and with the neutral European nations, in negotiating a new peace and a revised Covenant for the ordering of the life of Europe. Consequently I should welcome a declaration from the British and French Governments that they are ready at any time to enter into negotiations on that basis. On the other hand, if the war continues and passions are more deeply stirred, I hope we should determine in advance that we would not attempt to make the permanent peace within five years of the cessation of hostilities. The terms of the truce for those five years would still be of the utmost consequence, for upon them would largely depend the possi- bility of such a quieting of bitter feelings that the real Peace Congress would meet with hope of success.
justice for the generations yet unborn in all nations must be our aim. We may not reach it ; indeed we know that we cannot reach perfect justice. For that is only found where love already reigns. But the establishment of approximate justice is the necessary pre-condition of the growth of anything that can properly be called love.
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