THE FOLLY OF PATRIOTISM.* WE reviewed a few weeks back
a book which aimed at demonstrating the wickedness of patriotism. The French writer has his counterpart among ourselves in the author of Europe's Optical Illusion. In crossing the Channel the propaganda has, it is true, assumed a milder type. The enlightened Frenchman holds patriotism to be a crime against society, or, rather, against the only part of society worthy of the name, the proletariat. The equally enlightened but more practical Englishman is content with calling patriotism an illusion. Mr. Angell's main point is that the advantages customarily associated with national independence and security have no existence outside the popular imagination. The habit of unnumbered centuries has made nations believe that it is a good thing to be their own masters, and to reckon subjection to foreigners the worst evil that can befall them. But why should it be an evil ? What real harm would it do them to belong to some other Power ? In the ancient world, indeed, conquest brought with it real misfortunes. "It not infrequently meant the enslavement of the conquered people and the acquisition of wealth in the form of slaves." Even in the Middle Ages it " meant at least immediate tangible booty in the shape of movable property." But now conquest leaves everything worth talking about where it found it. Mr.
Angell boldly puts the case which he wants to demolish in the form most likely to come home to his readers. He imagines a German army looting the cellars of the Bank of England. The immediate effect of such an incident would, he admits, be inconvenient. " There would be a run on every- bank in England, and all would suspend payment." But the complexity of modern finance has made the money markets of the world so dependent on one another that the breakdown of one means the breakdown of all. Mr. Angell then describes the effect that this fact would exert upon the conqueror in possession :—
" Tho German generalissimo in London might be no more civilised than Attila himself, but he would soon find the difference between himself and Attila. httila, luckily for him, did not have to worry about a bank rate and such like complications ; but the German general, while trying to sack the Bank of England, would find that his own balance (did he possess one) in the Bank of Berlin would have vanished into thin air, and the value of even the best of his investments dwindled as though by a miracle German finance would only be saved from utter collapse by the undertaking on the part of the German Government scrupulously to respect private property, and especially bank reserves."
Mr. Angell is equally at ease as to the effects of invasion on our trade. If Germany wishes to destroy that, she must first destroy our population, and of this there is no fear. Even if it be granted that a successful invasion would give her the power to do so, we need be under no alarm as to her using it. She will not gratify her hostility at the cost of destroying her most valuable customers. The payment of an indemnity may seem a more likely form of disaster than a successful invasion; but Mr. Angell will not allow that such a demand will ever be made. The world has grown wiser since
* Europe's Optical Illusion. By Norman Angell. London : Sunkk41.35-334. and Co. {26. 6d.] ' the Franco-German War. To prove this he imagines patriotic Germans reduced to finding the money necessary to put an end to the occupation of their country by English soldiers. In what form is the indemnity to be paid ? Paper would be too unstable a medium, and to drain Germany of five hundred millions in gold would send up the Bank-rate all over Europe 7 or 8 per cent. This would mean financial rain to Great Britain as well as to Germany, and the leaders of finance in London would atti once insist on the indemnity being waived. But why did not this result follow the payment of the French indemnity after the war of 1870? Though forty years ago Berlin was not the " financial centre of the universe " in the sense and to the extent that London is now, it was even then a power in the money market. Yet the German bankers made no effort to stop the flow of wealth into their country. They contentedly ran the risk, and stilled their anxieties by the recollection that if the indemnity had inconvenient consequences for Germany, it had far worse for France.
It is fair to say, however, that Mr. Angell is more merciful than he at first appears to be. He does not propose at once to leave us with no better security against invasion than the dislike of European financiers to dear money. He does not suggest immediate disarmament. On the contrary, "so long as the current philosophy in Europe remains what it is," he does not wish to see our war budget " reduced by a single sovereign." The conversion of England to the doctrine that victory brings no gain, and defeat only temporary loss, must go hand-in-hand with the conversion of other nations. We do not share Mr. Angell's conviction that the ground is all prepared for this consummation, but our scepticism is possibly due to ouu• low opinion of the means by which he hopes to see it brought about. It is to be achieved, we read, by the foundation of an International Disarmament League, the essential feature of which would be "that, for every member enrolled in England, a corresponding league should enrol a German in Germany. The same principle would be applied to Parliamentary parties," and in the end " extended to the clergy, University professors, students, trades unions, and so on." If disarmament is to be postponed until this snow- ball process has reached its goal, we shall go on building ' Dreadnoughts' for some years to come.
In this way Mr. Angell professes to have disposed of the foolish dread of foreign aggression upon our own country. There remains, however, the equally idle phantom of aggression upon our Colonies, and this he proceeds to lay to rest in a single trenchant paragraph. In the first place, no nation could gain any advantage by conquering them. In the second place, Great Britain would suffer no material damage by losing them. Here Mr. Angell is on somewhat firmer ground. He confines himself to purely material con- siderations, and where Colonies are concerned the material side is the least important element in the case. But when he says that "the British Colonies are in fact independent nations in alliance with the Mother-country, to whom they are no source of tribute or economic profit, their economic relations being settled not by the Mother-country but by the Colonies," the controversy is not as completely settled as be seems to think. Let us grant that England derives from her Colonies neither tribute nor trade advantages, is it no gain to her that the stream of emigration flows to them rather than to foreign countries ? The Irish element in Australia may not always have been very friendly to England, but compare it with the Irish element in the United States. It may be only sentiment that leads a Colonist to buy English rather than French or German goods, but a sentimental customer is still a customer, and in that character is a con- tributor to that " material well-being " which Mr. Angell regards as the highest aim of the politician. It is true, indeed, that on some points England is more able to enforce her own point of view upon foreign nations than upon her own Colonies. The Indian subjects of the Crown have had no cause to welcome the incorporation of the Boer Republics into a British South Africa. But this is a necessary incident of a federal system. Where the real or supposed interests of the whole and the part come in conflict, the Colonist will put his own particular State before the Empire. But long before federa- tion was thought of the greatest English statesmen had pro- claimed that Colonies must be administered on the lines which they thought good for themselves rather than on those which England thought good for herself. On any other theory the normal relation between the Mother- country and her dependent 'communities would be that which we maintained with our American Colonies between 1776 and 1783. But when this has been admitted, the question, Is a Canadian or an Australian no nearer to us than a citizen of the United States P remains to be answered. •
Mr. Angell, as we have seen, holds that Englishmen would be equally happy if they were under German rule, and that Germans would be equally happy if they were under English rule. It is irrational, therefore, to take any measures for perpetuating the existing European order, since only a sentimentalist can set any value on its maintenance. Mr. Angell is a philosopher in these matters, and so, we are sure, is not a stickler for trifles. He would still allow Englishmen to stand up at the first note of " God Save the King." It is only when it comes to spending money on armaments and attaching an absurd value to the flag that the fire kindles, and he sets to work to expose the folly of self- defence in nations. Probably in private life Mr. Angell is less consistent and less inclined to preach the burglar's gospel that to the wise man meum and ham are but two names for the same thing. If be is anxious to make converts, he will do well to apply his reasoning to subjects that come nearer home, and convince the average man that marriage and private property are as much illusions as patriotism. If sentiment is to be banished from politics, it cannot reasonably be retained in morals.
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