ARBITRATION AND WAR.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1081, 21 March 1911, Page 4

ARBITRATION AND WAR.

Encouraging p.s appears the enthusiasm with which the idea of an arbitration treaty between Britain and America has been taken up in both countries, it would be unwise to'conclude that the road is clear to the sealing of the agreement. The phase of enthusiasm may pass away with nothing done, but one good result will be left behind. The two nations will be readier than ever to recognise the wastefulness of war and the blessings of an unbreakable peace. Hitherto the promoters of the peace movement have appealed to the wrong side of the human mind. They have never ceased to urge the dreadfulncss of war; they have expended enormous energy in preaching to the. nations that war is that it is an unspeakable sin against the race, that men are brothers and should not fight. Now all men and sane nations realise to the full that war is a dreadful thing, but in their hearts men and nations reject the doctrine that war is always wicked and that brotherhood is everything. _ They feel, without translating their feelings into thought, that war can bo a good thing, that peace can be baseness, that armed conflict can be a fire to purge away national ..uncleannesscs. The most terrible of modern, wars, the' American Civil War, was a fight for an ideal. "Sentiment," indeed, has inspired most modern wars. "For good or evil," said the Spectator a few months ago on this very point, "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 expansion 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. . . . Whenever a nation is impelled by any of those positive currents of opinion, it is almost 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." Hence war must remain a permanent possibility.

The energies of the peace party therefore been largely wasted. The best argument against war is the ceonomic argument, which has received much attention since Mr. Norman Angell published his book, The Great Illusion, and for which the prcsont sp'urt by the arbitration principle will procure a still wider notice. Mr. Angell argues that war is bad business, that every victory is a Pyrrhic victory, and he supports this theme by some fundamental propositions which he has condensed into one comprehensive statement: By reason of certain economic phenomena peculiar to our generation—a synchronised bank rate the world over, reacting bourses, and so oil, largely tlio result of lelqgraph and telephone development during the last thirty years—modern wealth has become intangiblo in so far as military conquest is concerned, in that confiscation is bound to react on the ecnfiscalor, and that consequently it is impossible for one country "to enrich itself by subjugating another or by annexation; that, in short, conquest can no longer pay. His first and main proposition we may put in this way: that Germany, after victory in war, could not confiscate British property on a large scale, such is the financial interdependence of modern States, without such a disturbance of credit as would recoil disastrously on her own industry and finance. His other propositions are of doubtful soundness, but this first ono is quite sufficient when to it is added the fact—it is really a fact, not merely an argument—that war is so Costly, so destructive economically, that no conceivably possible indemnity can ever reimburse the victor nation. The Franco-Prussian War is perhaps the war that is generally regarded as the one from which the' victor drew most profit. One opponent of Mr. Angell's estimated that while France lost over £600,000,000 by it, Germany actually made a net profit, in indemnity and ceded territory, amounting.to £188,500,000. But Mr. Angell pointed out in reply that Germany's losses were far greater than tins. She had to increase her peace Army by 530,000 men and keep them from civil occupation and productivity for nine months. Many thousands of families were thrown upon the support of relatives. The German Army had to bo permanently increased by over 100,000 men. Then there was the loss of German trade during the war, loss of markets for Germany involved in the destruction of so many French lives and so much French wealth, loss from the general disturbance throughout Europe. Germany was really made poorer by hundreds of millions when all is counted up. This is so plain, in any case, as almost to make detailed argument unnecessary. Yet, the "accountant" view of war is the one that lias received the smallest attention from the peace propagandists. No amount of economic intelligence will absolutely prevent war, of course. It is not, bom the point o£ view of race-

progress, quite desirable that it should. But a keen realisation, of what war costs must at any rate lessen the chance of war in any given set of circumstances, and must secure that the blood of the nations will less easily reach that temperature at which everything is forgotten but the need for battle. In the meantime, nothing but good can come of a broad Treaty between Britain and America. It would make war upon either nation by a third Power nearly impossible. ' Even in writing off the idea of "a defensive alliance," Sir Edwaiid Grey let the possibility of that development appear. Curiously enough, it is this possibility that turns the liachcals and Socialists against the whole idea. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, like a good Socialist, objects to anything so big and sensible as "an Anglo-Saxon alliance imposing its will on the world.'' What do these people want? An Anglo-Saxon, alliance guaranteed to lie down and be trampled upon'!