8 
LAND & WATER 
November 8, 1917 
framers, it has been essentially the prestige of victory which 
has caused them to flourish. Conversely, it you ask why 
this or that constitution works ill or is unpopular, why author- 
ritv 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-dav is. I think, the French Parliament 
True, the system was hot chosen by the French and being an 
oligarchic "system, is very ill suited to their democratic 
temperameht. It is corrupt as all Parliaments arc 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 
Frenchasanexperimentbv a small clique after their great defeat 
of a generation ago, you will find that it contains elements ot 
central power even stronger than those which are the 
flywheel and guarantee of the American constitution. 
You will find the safeguards for a full representative 
character in the French Chamber far stronger in tJ^eory 
and in practice than those which apply to the British House 
of Commons ; ycni will even find checks for the curbing 
of the caucus and the professional politicians, such as are 
whdly lacking in this country and in America hardly to be 
discovered save in the institution of the Supreme Court. 
Why, then, do vou find in France the Parliament regarded 
as it is its membership a subject of contempt, and the whole 
popular feeling towards it that wh'ch one might have towards 
a disease ? I believe that the origin of this misfortune lies in 
the, fact that it arose in defeat. 
Even of institutions that do not arise in defeat it is true 
that when they 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." 'ihat 
is a true saying. 
This country has been happily i^aiorant of any such blow 
delivered 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 instinctiyely feels 
that a military failure would imperil the domestic life of the 
nation. And it is right. 
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 Germany is a victorious Germany. It is a 
Germany every institution of which will be tenfold stronger 
than it was before the war. It is a (iermany 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 upon the defensive which has 
the more thoroughly welded our strength. We ha\'e ruined 
the Russian Empire which we dreaded ; we have made all the 
Central Emijires our vassals. We have made all the lesser 
nations dread us or depend upon us, and the future is ours." 
In that future German things from the mechanical to the 
cruel, from stupidity to impotence : from confusion of thought 
to its invariable accompaniment, minuteness of detail, 
would colour the West and with the West ourselves. Those 
who loved them in the past (and they were many) may be 
content at the prospect. Those who. detested them- when 
tliev knew them (and they were many, many more) may 
despair. H. Belloc 
Sweden and the War 
By F. Henriksson, Author of England in the World's War (just published in Sweden) 
THE pohtical struggle in Sweden, which has now 
resulted in the formation of a Liberal-Socialist Govern- 
ment, is only a continuation of the political develop- 
ment before the war, but it has been greatly influenced 
by the experiences of the war. It could truly be said that in no 
neutral country are the moral and ethical forces behind the 
war and the displacement of those forces in the course of the 
terrible conflict so strongly reflected in the internal political 
development as in Sweden. 
Russia's expansive force was for more than a hundred years 
the principal external factor influencing Swedish policy. 
It was increasingly so during the present generation when the 
forcible Russihcation 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 port, with the possible annexation of 
Northern Sweden and Northern Norway, excited public 
opinion. AH fclasses 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 by the 
Russian Military Attache at Stockholm, the attempted forti- 
fication of the Aland Islands, contrary to the guarantee of the 
F'ranco-English Treaty, and other e\eiits tended in the years 
immediately before the war to con\ince 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 England had supported Sweden against the attempt 
to build what was called a " (jibraltar of the North" on the 
Aland Islands, which would have been able to command the 
Swedish capital with its guns. But it was considered that 
against a military Russiancxpan.sion westwards only Germany 
would be able to give effective military support. Germany 
liad a vital interest, not only to stem the Slav pressure on her 
own frontier but also to prevent the Scandinavian i)eninsula 
from being over{X)wered by tliat pressure — that was the trend 
of Swedish argument. 
To this strong political motive for reliance (jn Germany were 
added close racial relations, intimate intellectual and personal 
intercourse, increasing conmiercial c(Jimections and admira- 
tion for the peaceful qualities revealed and expressed in the 
development of modern Gqjinany, the great capacity for 
organisation, the apphcation 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 military system, the rigid 
military and bureaucratic organisation, with the subservience 
of the civilian to the military and the individual to the State. 
That system aispeared 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. 
Thus the political contest long before 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 norrnal 
one for a country emerging from an agricultural to an in- 
dustrial sfiite. The Social Democrats, gradually ripening in 
the school of experience and now corresponding to thq Eng- 
lish Radicals, with an Extremist group evolving out of them, 
were in strong ascendency. In the General Election of 
September, if)i4, they became the largest party in the Lower 
Chamber. The Liberals, rooted in the old peasant party, 
were reduced in the pressure between the Social Democrats 
and the Conservatives. 
But in spite of the parliamentary strength of the Parties 
of 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 
Crown, evidently willingly, in a forced conflict on the question 
of increased armaments. The parties of the Left were power- 
less in face of this use of the i)rerogative, as the extended 
franchise was insufficient to ensure against their dominating 
force in the Lower Chamber being o\erridden by tlie Conserva- 
tive majority in the Upper Chamber. 
The first months of the war created a peculiar atmosphere. 
The Germans had for long time assiduously cultivated their 
interests in Sweden. It was strongly suspecte'd that the}' 
worked hand in hand with certain Swedish military pro- 
pagandists and nursed Sweden's fear of Russia. German 
political, technical and scientific litcjiature jJenetrated Sweden. 
'J'he German Press was the general source of ^ information 
for the Swedish Press on foreign affairs. " Wolff's Tele- 
graph Agency," under supervision of the German authorities, 
had the monopoly of foreign news for Scandinavia. 
This was deliberately selected and doctored in Berlin before 
it was passed on to the Scandinavian press, and there were 
glaring instances of suppressing or editing British intelligence 
to suit German interests. 
And then when the war broke out there burst upon Sweden 
a veritable torrent of printed, written and spoken propaganda. 
It came with the same suddenness as the war ; it created the 
inevitable impression of well-prepared machinery, set in 
motion by the pressure of a button. At that moment the 
