8 
LAND & WATER 
November 8, 1917 
framers, it has been essentially the prestige of victory vvliich 
has caused them to flourisii. Conwrsely, if you ask vvliy 
this or that constitution works ill or is unpopular, why author- 
^rity consequently dwindles, and why a continued weakness 
oppresses the State, vou will find, though not universally, the 
roots of the evil to lie in defeat. The standing example of 
this in Europe to-day is, I think, the l-ivnch Parliament. 
True, the system was not chosen by the French and, being an 
oligarchic system, is very ill suited to their democratic 
temperament. It is corrupt as all Parliaments are corrupt ; 
it is second rate as all Parliaments are second rate. But if you 
will read the actual text of the constitution imposed upon the 
French as an experiment by a small clique after their great defeat 
of a generation ago. you will find that it contains elements of 
central power even stronger than tiiosc which are the 
flywheel and guarantee of tlie American constitution. 
Von will find the safeguards for a full representative 
character in the French Chamber far stronger in theory 
and in practice than tiiose which apply to the British House 
of Commons ; you will c\en find checks for the curbing 
of the caucus and the professional politicians, such as are 
wholly lacking in this country and in America hardly to be 
discovered save in the institution of the Supreme Court. 
Why, then, do you find in l'"rance tlie Parliament regarded 
as it is, its membership a subject of contempt, and the whole 
popular feeling towards it that which one might liavc towards 
a disease ? I l>elicve that the origin of this misfortune lies in. 
tile fact that it arose in defeat. 
I'-ven of institutions that do not arise in defeat it is true 
that when tliey have suffered defeat they lose moral authority. 
" A failure in foreign policy " (and there is no such failure like 
a failure in war) " is the root of all dynastic change." That 
is a true saying. 
This country has been happiK- ignorant of any such blow* 
deli\'ered to its fundamental institutions for many generations. 
It cannot yet conceive of what would follow upon the loss of 
authority consequent to defeat. But it instinctively feels 
that a military failure would imjl)eril the domestic life of the 
nation. And it is riglit. 
There remains beyond these perhaps too general though 
true conceptions, this highly practical and immediate one : 
Unless we achieve success in the field nothing of our task can 
be done. The remainder of what we have to consider, restitu- 
tion, reparation and guarantees, future securities, all these 
remain pure vanities and academic talk unless victory be 
there to impose them. If victory be not achieved or cannot be 
achieved, it is a futility to discuss how much or' what the 
enemy may in his kindness grant, or through his present 
fatigue temporarily admit. 
An undefeated (iermany is a jictorious Germany. It is a 
Crerniany every institution of wliicli will be tenfold stronger 
tlian it was before the war. It is a Germany which will be 
able to say to the world : " We stood up in arms against a 
universal coalition and defeated it." And to itself : "We 
failed indeed to achieve an easy victory upon the offensive, 
but we achieved a stubborn one upoh the defensive which has 
the more thoroughly welded our strength. We liave ruined 
the Russian Empire which we dreaded ; we have made all the, 
Central limpires our vassals. We have made all the lesser 
nations dread us or depend upun us, and the future is ours." 
In that future (iennan things from the mechanical to the 
cruel, from stupidity to impotence ; from confusion of thought 
to its invariable accom])animent, minuteness of detail, 
would colour tlic West and with tlie West ourselves. Those 
A\lio loved tliem in the past (and they were many) may be 
content at tlie prospect. Those who detested them when 
they knew them (and they were many, many more) may 
dc'^P^i''"- H. Belloc 
Sweden and the War 
By F. Henriksson, Author of England in the World's War (just published in Sweden) 
THE political struggle in Sweden, which has now 
resulted in the formation of a Liberal-Socialist Govern- 
ment, is only a continuation of the political develoj)- 
ment before the war, but it has been greatly influenced 
by the experiences of the war. It could trulv be ^luA that in no 
neutral country are the moral and ethical'forces behind the 
war and the displacement of those forces in tlie course of the 
ternble conflict so strongly reflected in the internal political 
a development as in Sweden. 
Russia's expansive force \ras for more than a hundred years 
the principal external factor influencing Swedish policy. 
It.w;as increasingly so during the present generation when the 
forcible Russification of Finland, which' country was .built 
up. by the Swedes, with Swedish laws and customs, seemed 
immediately to threaten Sweden. The talk of Ru.ssian plans 
for an ice-free Atlantic jwrt, with the possible annexation of 
Northern Sweden and Northern Norway, excited ])ublic 
opinion. All classes considered it a real danger and it was 
particularly used by the Militarists in support of their plans 
for strengthening the country's defences. Revelations of a 
widespread espionage system in Sweden, conducted bv the 
Russian .Military Attache at Stockholm, the attempted "forti- 
fication of the Aland Islands, contrary to the guaiiintee ofthe 
Franco-English Treaty, and other events tended in the years 
immediately before the war to convince Sweden of an immediate 
menace from the east. 
Germany was increasingly looked upon as the only effective 
barrier against the feared Slav expansion westwards. It 
IS true that Ivngland had supported Sweden against tiie attempt 
to build what was called a " (iibraltar of the North " on the 
Aland Islands, whicii would have teen able to eonnnaiid the 
Swedish cai)ital witli its guns. lUit it was C(jnsidered tliat 
against a military Russian expansion westwards onlyCermany 
would be able to give effective militarv sujjport. Germany 
had a vital interest, not only to stem tiie Slav pressure on her 
own frontier but also to prevent the Scandinavian |)eninsula 
from being overpowered by that pressure that was the trend 
of Swedish argument. 
To this strong ])olitical motive for reliance on (u-rmany were 
added close racial relations, intimate intellectual and personal 
intercourse, increasing commercial connections and admira- 
tion for tlie peaceful qualities re\eal<-d and expressed in the 
development of modern Gcrmanv, the great capacity for 
organisation, the application of "science in all branches of 
industry and commerce, the system of education and so on. 
It seemed even to the superficial observer that a system 
which gave such results must on the face of it be a superior 
one. That system was the German.militaiy system, the rigid 
military and bureaucratic organisation, with the subservience 
of the civilian to the mihtary and the individual to the State. 
Ihat system appeared to be the foundation and strength of 
the Germany after 1871. This palpable fact was of course 
used to the utmost, particularly by the Reactionaries. 
'1 hus the political contest long be^fore the war centred in the 
conflict of those governing ideas, to which President Wilson 
so trenchantly has given expression as standing against one 
another at present. The process in Sweden was the normal 
one for a country emerging from an agricultural to an in- 
dustrial state. The Social Democrats, gradually ripening in 
the school of experience and now corresponding to the Eng- 
lish Radicals, with an Extremist group evoKing out of them 
\yeie in strong ascendency. In the General Election of 
September, 1914, they became the largest party in the Lower 
Chamber. Die Liberals, rooted in the old peasant party 
were reduced in the pressure bfetween the Social Democrats 
and the Conservatives. 
But in spite of the parliamentary strength of the Parties 
ol the Left the Government remained in the hands of the Con- 
servatives as the Crown used its prerogative for that purpose. 
The first Liberal Ministry had at the beginning of that year 
been ousted from power by the Conservatives, using" the 
trown. evidently willingly, in a forced conflict on the question 
of increased armaments. The parties of the Left were povver- 
r'L?- ' «f.t'"l.".««-^ "f «^« prerogative, as the extended 
W ^^i,''T '"«5i"'-'"t to ensure against their dominating 
oice in the Lower Chamber being overridden by the Conserva- 
tive majority in the Upper Chamber 
Till' re!nvnv"f ''r f ^Y ^''''- "'''^'"^ ^ P'-''^"liar atmosphere, 
i teri n t: "' ^°' 'r?^' ^""'^ assiduously cultivated their 
rke ^n^^ /^ >?' ^^^"-'ly ^"^pected that they 
\Noiked hand n hand with certain Swedish military pro- 
pagandists and. nursed Sw.'den's fear of Russia German 
S SiS; ";>i'' "^' ''T''' "*'^-^"- P-^-^ed t^etl 
for the Su .,.',> '''^' *''" P'"^"'"^' ^"""-^^ °f information 
lor the Sued ish Press on foreign affairs. " Wolff's Tele- 
iLd ttf"n!;;.;'rt'""r7'^"^"°f ^'- g^'->-" -'thoritS, 
had tlie monopoly of foreign news for Scandinavia 
lln. was deliberately .selected and doctored in Berlhi before 
«XSnce:\f" ''" Scandinavian press, ancl there we, 
a ^■^eribkl™t of'n':''"/'';°^^'= ""' '^'''^ ^urst upon Sweden 
n.tiof^r=r;;f-S[r^-— ^-J 
