The League of Nations

" The Things of Martha and the Things of Mary "

ONE of the few generalizations which may safely be applied to all thinking men and women to-day is that the compass of their minds is set to the future rather than to the past. In itself this is a token of health, and in so far as it implies a weakening of bad old traditions of militant nationalism and a victory over historical prejudices it is an all-important earnest of peace. Those cardboard screens of patriotism—penny plain and twopence coloured—which were put up every- where in the nineteenth century in order to ensure that emotion should triumph over reason and common sense are now as definitely vie= jeu as the growing consciousness of humanity's common interests is eloquent of the new age. Yet at the present stage of our civilization to ignore the powerful impulse of national feeling—still worse to try to repress it in the name of abstract principles inherited from the French Revolution (the examples of Alsace, South Tyrol, &c., suggest themselves at once)—is to swim hopelessly against the tide and to get nowhere. In a lecture delivered in Berlin, on April 15th, on " The Common Sense of World Peace," Mr. H. G. Wells committed himself to certain sweeping assertions, which are, as it happens, an offence to some of our deepest feelings and therefore opposed both to peace and common sense. He said : " Nationalism must be excised from the world," and again : " Patriotism is opposed to human federation, dividing man from man implacably throughout the world." This is all very well in the abstract, but Mr. Wells, as is the way with men of science, appears to ignore the human aspect of our civilization—namely, that it is composed not of standard pieces of mechanism but of human beings, compact of reason and emotion. Nations cannot be made to a pattern any more than men and women ; they can, however, no less than individuals, be induced to co- operate in the interests of each and all within the framework of an organized society. And the only alternative is a return to the law of the jungle which obtained before the establish- ment of the League. It is indeed a strange irony that the thinker who claims to show us the way the world is going should be as bemused by current confusions of thought and terminology as any of those whom he rightly rebukes for their blind faith in the dogma—or superstition, for that is all it is now—of the " sovereign independence of States."

What Mr. Wells calls the " internationalist " school of pacifist thought—as opposed to the cosmopolitan—has no more persuasive exponent than Prof. Alfred Zinunem, who has recently published a sequel to his Nationality and Govern- ment (1918). We write to-day to endorse his opinion that the belief that Nationalism and Internationalism are incom- patibles is acting as a serious ,hindrance to the advancement of real understanding between nations.

First of all, he urges us to clear our minds of cant such as, alas is still the token-money of our peace-loving statesmen (the Kellogg Pact itself—for all its moral and psychological value—is the supreme example) :-

" The League of Nations, we are often told, does not make any infringement on national sovereignty. No, it merely registers the fact that, in the large-scale world of to-day, national sovereignty has already been infringed in innumerable directions . . . and attempts to control in the interests of mankind as a whole the powerful forces which override such sovereignty."

This truth we commend particularly to the Committee of Three now meeting in London to see what can be done for the Minorities in the face of a concerted attack by the States bound by Minority treaties in the name of their sovereign independence. The " nation-State " is a fictitious phenome- non which has never existed outside the classroom. Professor Zimmern shows that there is an essential 'distinction between State and nation, between the material of politics " rooted in the common" life of man in society " and the sentiment of nationality, subjective, idealistic, " rooted in the inner life of the human soul." It is precisely the human soul— the one element that imparts life to the political and social machinery of this world—which the champions of scientific organization and efficiency leave out of account, so intent are they on the external fact of world unity.

Now, Open Conspirators assume that Christianity is dis-

credited because of its acquiescence in " the brag, blare and bluster of our competing sovereignties." But this criticism can apply only to the Churches, to the institutional failings of our religion. The spiritual element within us is far too precious, far too intimate, far too intense to be dismissed in this cavalier fashion. If we would be fair to ourselves, we should have to admit that this religious sentiment is closely akin to the spirit of nationality, to that feeling which many of us tried to express on St. George's Day last week. So far from Christianity being opposed to the progress that we all desire—the elimination of war and the organization of peace—it was Christ himself who set forth the proper con- ception of the relation between personality (which in the world of States means nationality) and political obligation. " Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's . ." or, as He put it in more homely fashion, when living with the family at Bethany, there are the things of Martha and the things of Mary.

This phrase is the title of one of the most stimulating essays in The Prospects of Democracy (Chatto and Windt's), a brilliant commentary on the League which, together with Sir Arthur Salter's Allied Shipping Control—also, it should be noted, making no mention of the League in its title—helps us more than any other book to understand the world as it is to-day. How many of the political problems with which the modern world is concerned arise from the overlapping of the two realms of Martha and Mary ? There will always be serious minority problems as long as States persist in the illusion that good citizens can be made by forcible denationalization. And the confusion shows itself in the title of the League itself owing to the lawyers' misuse of the word " national" for subject or citizen. " Internationalism, in the political sense . . ." as Prof. Zimmern says, " is concerned with promoting the co-operation of States, not with controlling or even canalizing

the undue self-expression of nations." Since politics— of the city, the State or the community of States—when drained of the bitter waters of nationalist sentiment—are seen to be simply problems of applied science, and as such suitable for solution by the best experts the world can

show, we must evidently address ourselves to the task of de-politicizing nationality and de-emotionalizing politics. If

we would consider for a moment how many fiatkffiarttles are included within every modern State—In our own land Wales

and Scotland, in all C'011iiiries- the Jews—or in how many different- motes persons of the same nationality live and hove and have their being, we must see that the real trouble, in fact, is not nationalism, but bad government or simply selfishness. " The work before the coming age is not to super- sede the existing States, but to moralize them." Therefore, however excellent may be the machinery set up by the League organizations, however admirable the technique of inter- national co-operation—and Prof. Zimmern gives full credit for

what has already been done at Geneva, especially in the economic sphere—we come back to the individual—" better States presuppose better citizens "—to the education of each one of us in the true patriotism which is " public spirit," service, not simply of King and country, but as citizens of the world.

Self-determination is with us—for better or for worse— and it is by no means confined to political groups ; which is only another way of saying that the characteristics of our century can be traced to one common principle—self- expression. Prof. Zimmem's conclusion is that democracy —a form of society—is only now finding its appropriate institutions. In the world of the twentieth century they must be

(a) able to operate effectively in the international as well as in the national domain.

(b) Responsive to the control of local centres of power.

(c) Capable of rapid adjustment to changing circumstances. Of such are the political systems both of the British Commonwealth and of the League of Nations. Therefore in the realm of Martha we need look no further. Time alone

—and the education which teaches us to open the windows of our minds—Can ensure parallel progress in the realm of