November 15, 191 7 
LAND & WATER 
H 
they meant, you would find that they meant a gicat number 
of different and often contradictory things, such as the total 
of economic wealth without regard to its distribution ; its 
good distribution without regard to its total ; the presence of 
ample stocks of necessities ; the presence of luxuries for a few 
though there be insufficiency of necessities ; the growth of 
capitalism and of its attendant proletariat ; excellence of com- 
munications, many trains and many and good roads ; an 
orderly appearance in externals, especially in the estates and 
houses of the rich — plenty of varnish on woodwork and a high 
polish on metal work ; an increase in the number of news- 
papers and in the statistics of the post office ; tlie introduction 
of speculation ; the gradual weakening of the family to the 
advantage of industrialism ; scepticism in philosophy and 
50 forth. All these things come^in to the objective of " effi- 
ciency" as against free Government, and there is no common 
philosophy that really binds them together except the desire 
to look oneself in the glass and to mirror one's habits in 
others. The spirit of which I speak, and which we are com- 
bating in this war, has for its test, if we examine it closely, 
nothing more than the expansion over the subject territory, 
especially in externals, of whatever characterises the con- 
queror. The conqueror calls it by every sort of good name, the 
chief of which is that same word " efficiency," but what he 
means in practice is " an aspect like my own" He has, for 
instance, at home good roads and a ruined peasantry. He 
comes to a country with a flourishing peasantry and bad 
roads. He is quite sure that he has done something 
" efficient " if, after fifty years he has ruined that peasantry 
but created a number of good roads, li his philosophy is for 
the moment sceptical, the brrakdown of religion is part of his 
idea of efficiency. If it happened to be a highly organised 
religion his idea of efficiency would be the imposition of that 
religion upon the conquered. The spread of his language again 
is " efficiency." The maintenance of the native language is 
the opposite. 
Now the victory of the Allies means the weakening of those 
two principles, general and particular, and conversely the 
retention of such territories by Prussia and her dependents 
after the war would mean the defeat of the main Allied object. 
It would mean the defeat of a free Europe and the establish- 
ment for good of those principles which permit the sub- 
jugation of European nations by their fellows. No amount 
i't promises not to do it again or not to extend what has 
already been done are of the least value here. Either the 
territories formerly annexed by force and partially colonised 
by force will be recovered or they will not. If they arc not 
recovered we have lost. 
Reparation 
Reparation is in another category. It is a claim subject 
:o modification from two causes. First : That a great and 
indeterminate part of the damage done is inevitable even to 
legitimate war, and secondly that the damage already 
illegitimately done, the wholesale burnings and lootings of 
which the enemy has been guilty probably exceed his power 
of economic reparation, however severe the terms we might be 
able to impose. But the principle is none the less clear. If 
European civilisation wins, those who set out to subjugate it 
iiaving deliberately made terror their instrument must, to 
their own impoverishment, be compelled to restore as much 
as is materially possible. 
The matter might be put thus : Supposing a peace to be 
concluded in which it is agreed that the various belligerents 
shall subscribe in proportion to their means for the restoration 
of things destroyed in the war. Then We.stern civilisation 
is humiliated and has accepted the moral principle which it 
went out to fight. If has accepted the methods of terror as 
normal to war, and it has established them. Nay, it has made 
itself a party to them. 
It has admitted that the burning of Louvain, for instaiici', 
is something for which we are all equally responsible, because 
we are all equally belligerents, and in doing so it has admitted 
that the Germans were committing a normal act of war in 
burning Louvain. 
In this connection English readers will do well to note a point 
which has been somewhat missed in this country because its 
territory has been spared invasion. The enemy carefully 
-uses historical monuments and great tcwns as part of liis 
.scheme of defence in the West. He challenges his opponent 
to destroy these places or alternatively, if he is compelled to 
retire, to sec them destroyed by himself. He did all he could 
to include Arras in his line, and when he drew a new one he 
exactly included St. Quentin (a better line in mere ground 
would have lain further from St. Ouentin.) He is playing 
exactly the same trick with I-aon. for Tie is preparing a new 
line- apparently just in front of that town : Too close 
for the town and its junction to be of any use to him, but 
so close that any attack upon him there m\ olves tne ruin 
of the town. 
\\'hen we come to Guarantees, the very first principle to 
seize is that the guarantees must be material, or they are 
worthless. You mu^t occupy territory and hold persons as 
hostages or you have no guarantee at all. People are at once 
less inclined to discuss this essential matter and too rfiuch, 
tempted to misunderstand it because at this moment, and 
indeed ever since the collapse of Russia, all the guarantees in 
this sense are in the enemy's hands, with the exception of the 
German Colonies. Since the Italdan disaster he holds in , 
prisoners more men than the Western Allies hold of his — far 
more. All the occupied territory in now Allied territory held 
by him in the West. Artd the West in the sense of "Italy, 
France and Belgium is, of course, tfie decisive field. Further, 
of the territory so held, one portion, the industrial northern 
belt of France and the whole of Belgium is of vital economic 
importance. 
Lastly, there is the essential porint that he has his shipping 
intact in his harbours, while he has been sinking at a pro- 
digious rate the shipping Af all neutrals and Allies, and 
especially that of Great Britain. 
But that existing state of affairs has, like every other 
adverse circumstance, no bearing upon our thesis. If the 
enemy ends the war still holding these guarantees, he has won. 
It is he who has the hostages, and he who can impose his will. 
The fact that he is in that position in no way modifies the truth 
that we shall not be the victors nor our object even partially 
attained until we are in a similar position with regard to hiin. 
Mutual Disarmament 
Put a concrete case and sec how it stands. Put the case of 
disarmament. 
A peace is concluded. The enemy consents to evacuate the 
territories he now holds, and puts his name to a piece of paper 
promising that he will reduce his armament to such and such 
insignificant number in ships and men and material on con- 
dition that we do the same. We have no power to coerce 
him. We hold nothing of his which he will lose if he breaks 
his word. Let us suppose the process to begin and the Great 
Powers to disband, step by step and closely watching each 
other, their great forces. 
No matter to what theoretical minimum this process may 
tend you cannot prevent a virtual escape from it either by 
people like the French and the English, who are determined 
not to suffer another surprise, or by people like the Germans 
who know that the English, especially, are vulnerable to attack 
at a comparatively small cost. 
Prussia defeated and thoroughly broken, with hostages 
held while she repaired within the limits of the possible the 
damage she had done ; her military machine smashed, and the 
lesson thoroughly taught, her energies occupied under the 
action of these guarantees in restoring what she had destroyed, 
would be no menace. There would be no temptation for the 
French and English to prepare a defence ; there would l)e 
certainly no appetite upon the part of the beaten Gerrnans to 
prepare a further aggression. But how on earth can voti 
prevent an undefeated Prussia from having ready the materials 
at least for submarines or for aircraft ? How can you prevent 
an undefeated Prussia against which you have no lever froin 
using, in the air and under sea, forces, small at first, but a 
surprise by which would in the first few hours of another 
war, give her the upper hand, especially over an island com- 
nmpity, and one densely packed with large industrial towns ? 
And is it not obvious under those circumstances that Britain 
and France would be compelled of sheer necessity to establish 
a defensive scheme ? 
Every argument leads round to the same conclusion. 
It is an inevitable conclusion. Either there is a decisive 
l)cace resulting from the decisive destruction of the Prussian 
military machine, in which case you can break the will of its 
inasters and establish permanent security in luirope, or there 
is an inconclusive peace, which is for the moment a defeat of 
the Western Alliance and in its ultimate effect an armed 
truce, probably of short duration 
There is only one alternative to such a conclusion, and 
that is the de'cay of the national idea ; the growth of a state of 
mind in which people no longer cared for the ideal of an 
organised nation, and in whicli patriotism had ceased to be a 
motive. If this sort of political decay covered all liuropc 
equally and affected the German Empire as mucli as other 
countries, then and then only would an inconclusive peace 
result in the cessation of these great international wars. They 
would Iw replaced by local wars and by class wars. It is "a 
purely theoretical conception, for nothing of the kind can 
possibly happen. National organisms are too strong and their 
traditions too vital, in the ancient nations especially, for any 
such revolution to take place, and it is often remarked with 
amusement that tliose who in each nation most boast this 
