THE ANGLO-GERMAN TENSION AND A SOLUTION

An English writer in the Nineteenth Century and After, for April last, after naming twelve wars since 1850, great in political effect and, with two exceptions, great also in bloodshed, says:

If all these wars, and others which I have not stopped to name, were insufficient to convince our Radicals that their whole theory of international affairs was false, then the events that next followed might at last have brought the proof. In the South African war Britain had over two hundred and fifty thousand troops in the field, while the British Navy alone stood between our otherwise unguarded shores and a Europe burning to intervene a feat which, in like circumstances, it is now no longer adequate to perform. Meantime, in a silence inspired with a terrible energy, had proceeded the renaissance of the Japanese - a renaissance not of letters, but of arms, until, in 1904-5, by sea and by land she showed to mankind a new portent, the victory of an Asiatic race over one of the mightiest empires of the West. Later still than all this, even within the last few months, a vast upheaval, fraught with infinite meaning for the whole world, has occurred in China; while even at the present time a war is proceeding between Italy and Turkey, and rumours of possible co-operation with the former Power on the part of Russia are rife in the world.

As if all this were not enough evidence of the impermanence of all political conditions, Western mankind is also threatened with an earthquake from beneath in comparison with which the fury of the French Revolution itself might pale its ineffectual fires. The "Red Peril" already throws its lurid glare across the page of coming history, and intestine struggles on a scale unprecedented in human annals are already looming on the horizon of nearly all civilized peoples.

Yet in face of these tremendous and appalling probabilities of the near future, in sight of the storm-signs of an era of almost universal war, there are yet to be found, mainly in the realms of the English-speaking race, great numbers of politicians, of speakers, and of writers who either believe or pretend to believe that war is an anachronism for which arbitration can be substituted. With this belief every act of our Liberal Government has been coloured from the date of its assumption of office in 1906 until the present day. They can see the boundaries of nations but as fixed quantities, although in fact the territories of every Great

1 H. F. Wyatt.

Power have been in a state of flux for sixty years, and are in a state of flux now. With a fatuity probably unparalleled in the records of the past, they continue to appeal to Germany to curb the pace of her naval construction, without reflecting that this request amounts to an adjuration to our greatest rival to abandon her national ambition and to cease her national growth. The truth is that for a growing people armaments are the instruments by which expansion is achieved. Only for a people which has ceased to grow are they weapons merely of defence.

Again, our English Radicals prate constantly of "rights." When they use that term in relation to a nation they are the slaves of a sound, and of a gross confusion of ideas. What is a "right" on the part of a people? An independent State has no "right" as against other States, save that of the sword alone. The right of the individual exists only so long as the Government of the country of which he is the son guarantees that right with the armed force of that country. With the withdrawal of that guarantee passes also that right.

These views, quoted somewhat at length, present undoubtedly the views of a large school of thoughtful men. In any case it would seem that while discussing means of keeping the peace, which every thoughtful man desires, an indispensable preliminary is to know as clearly as possible the conditions we now face. We want the basic facts of the problem which, as I see it, has not for many years presented a more serious aspect. I have thus tried to present a short study of the more important elements of the situation of the moment, along with the facts which have led to this situation. The whole are matters of history and thus open for our discussion and comment. I begin with the comment of a distinguished English publicist. Mr. Sidney Low in an article, "The Most Christian Powers," in the British Fortnightly Review for March, says:

Lord William Cecil and various other earnest persons have been suggesting that the present would be a favorable season to impress upon the inhabitants of China and indeed of Asia in general, the advantage of subscribing to the tenets of the Christian religion. Since a disciple of Buddha or Confucius, or Mohammed can hardly be expected to accept Christianity as the result of a divine revelation, it must be presumed that he is to be converted by being convinced of the superior morality of the religion which is professed and, to some small extent, practiced by the peoples of Western Europe. He is to become a Christian by learning. . . that the Christian nations are imbued by a more austere morality, a deeper sense of law, a larger idea of justice and

mercy, and a greater reluctance to employ force in order to overpower the weak, and oppress the helpless.

After expanding this thought a bit, he proceeds to say how far otherwise has been the reality. He says:

The conduct of the Most Christian powers during the past few years has borne a striking resemblance to that of robber-bands descending upon an unarmed and helpless population of peasants. So far from respecting the rights of other nations, they have exhibited the most complete and cynical disregard for them. They have in fact, asserted the claim of the strong to prey upon the weak, and the utter impotence of all ethical considerations in the face of armed force, with a crude nakedness which few eastern military conquerors could well have surpassed.

It would be difficult to present a more severe indictment. It comes from a close student of international affairs and one of international reputation. Being himself English, his remarks must be taken as representing one phase at least of British opinion regarding his country's diplomacy of late years.

The vista of world conditions to-day is certainly much like an outlook over an angry sea under a gathering tempest. Four hundred millions of Chinese are in the throes of social reconstruction, Mongolia and Manchuria are practically torn from the control of the ancient empire to which they have so long been attached, Chinese suzerainty is practically ignored by the two great military Powers which were so lately fighting their battles in Manchurian territory, but which have now amicably come together to determine between them Manchuria's new status. In India, a large portion of her 300,000,000 are clamoring for Indian rule as against what has been the really beneficent administration of the British. Going westward, into the Mediterranean, we have Egypt under foreign control, North Africa partitioned off and in European hands and the whole of Africa, most of which was but a few years since a terra incognita, now divided between Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Portugal, a division made by right of might, much as we possessed ourselves of the lands of the North American Indian.

Nor is our own continent free of difficulties. Our neighbor Mexico has been and is in the midst of revolutionary disturbances and we are

anxiously watching developments, hoping almost against hope that nothing will happen to cause an armed intervention.

Only last summer Great Britain was on the very brink of action which would have thrown practically the whole of Europe into the vortex of war, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea. And for what? The story is a startling and impressive one and shows how weak still is the leash which holds the dogs of war. How did such a situation arise?

To find the reason we must go back eight years, when in 1904 there was made public an agreement which had been secretly reached between England and France, by which in return for the withdrawal by France from her right to exercise partial control over Egyptian finances and from her long troublesome fish-drying rights on the Newfoundland shore, and some minor yieldings, England, so far as she was concerned, gave France practically a free foot in Morocco. Says Mr. E. D. Morel, a high authority in African affairs,2 in the Ninteenth Century and After, for February last: "It was to Le Matin [of Paris] that the British people were indebted for their knowledge that France had, seven years ago, with the concurrence of the [British] Foreign Office, arranged for a partition of Morocco with Spain at the very time that M. Delcassé was solemnly assuring Europe and the Sultan [of Morocco] of French disinterestedness." I. e., these three countries, England, France and Spain, made a trade in which an independent country, larger than France, with perhaps 10,000,000 of population, was the subject of the barter. It was the Pandora's box which contained all the woes of which the present European situation is the result. So clear did this appear to me at the time that I wrote early in 1905 to a prominent English friend that this must be the effect.

Germany, which had been ignored, was incensed. The Emperor visited Tangier and said things which resulted in the Algeciras Conference. The declarations of this conference, signed April 7, 1906, began with a statement from the several Powers concerned that:

Inspired with the interest attaching itself to the reign of order, peace and prosperity in Morocco, and recognizing that the attainment thereof can only be effected by means of the introduction of reforms based upon

2 For a detailed study of the Morocco question, see E. D. Morel, Morocco in Diplomacy, Smith Elder & Co., just published.

the triple principle of the sovereignty of His Majesty the Sultan, the integrity of his domains, and economic liberty without any inequality, [they] have resolved, upon the invitation of His Shereefian Majesty, to call together a conference at Algeciras for the purpose of arriving at an understanding upon the said reforms, as well as examining the means for obtaining the resources3 necessary for their application.

In accordance with the foregoing the conference adopted:

I. A declaration relative to the organization of the police.
II. A regulation concerning the contraband of arms.

III. A concession for a Moroccan state bank.

IV. A declaration concerning taxes and new revenues.

V. A regulation concerning the customs of the empire and the repression of fraud and smuggling.

VI. A declaration relative to public services and public works.

The police ("not more than 2,500 or less than 2,000") were to be recruited from Moorish Mohammedans and were to "be under the sovereign authority" of the Sultan. Between 16 and 20 Spanish and French officers and between 30 and 40 non-commissioned officers as instructors were to be placed at the disposal of the Sultan, their designation to be first approved by him. They were to have double their usual pay, living expenses, horses, and fodder for the horses. The position of these officers was to extend to the Moorish authorities their technical aid in the exercise of command. They did not command. There was also to be a Swiss inspector-general, with residence at Tangier.

The declarations of main importance were those concerning public services and public works. The jealousy of the Powers had been the main cause of Moorish backwardness in the improvement of ports and roads. The convention declared that the signatory Powers reserved "to themselves the right to see to it that the authority of the state over these great enterprises of general interest remains entire"; that the validity of the concessions "shall throughout the Shereefian Empire be subordinated to the principle of public awards on proposals, without preference to nationality, whenever applicable under the rules followed in foreign laws." The diplomatic body in Morocco was to be informed. of proposals for new works "to enable the nationals of all the signatory Powers to form a clear idea of the contemplated works and compete 3 The American Journal of International Law, Supplement, Vol. I (1907), 47 et seq.