"Either Alliance or War!" It sounds at first hearing a fantastic exaggeration. Yet the words have been spoken by sober-minded people, and it is worth while trying to think them out. It is easy for an Englishman to find in America confirmation of whatever opinions he happens to hold, and terribly easy for him to get the proportional importance of such opinions completely wrong. Indignation with Germany and horror at her cruelties; emotion about the Irish rebellion and its suppression; irritation at the Black List; angry alarm at the Paris Resolutions; a general desire for kindness to everybody, and especially for a quick and generous peace—all these waves of sentiment, and many others, are to be found in America, and possess their own importance and influence. But it seems to me that there are two currents of feeling that have swept the whole continent, and are likely, whatever party is in power, to shape the effective policy of the United States.
The first reaction produced by the war and the determination not to participate in it has been the movement for "Preparedness." It is first a preparedness for war. England, according to popular opinion, had been unprepared, and France not much better. America, had she tried to enter the war, would have been more utterly unprepared than either. Suppose the German attack had fallen on her?
The direction of this first movement has gradually changed with the course of events. The campaign of "Preparedness" presupposes some possible or probable aggressor, and it has gradually become clear that that aggressor will not, for many years to come, be Germany. The prospect of a really victorious Germany would shake America to her foundations and probably change completely the national policy; but there is now no such prospect. The danger, if there is any, will come from a victorious Great Britain, allied, as America always remembers, with a victorious and unexhausted Japan. Other neutral nations in this war may be waiting to side with the conqueror; but America is built on too large a scale for that. She will arm against the conqueror, and be prodigal of help to the vanquished.
The Preparedness campaign is still in its early stages and has not assumed its definite form. But it started as a spontaneous non-party movement; it was taken up by the Republican opposition; it was eagerly supported by President Wilson and his Government; it has been clearly thought out and firmly developed by Mr. Hughes. Army, Navy, and mercantile marine are all to be increased and developed; but it is noteworthy that more stress is laid on the Navy than on the Army, and politicians have already uttered the ominous phrase, "a fleet that shall not be at the mercy of the British fleet!" More important still must be the preparation for a great mercantile rivalry. Vast sums have already been appropriated for shipbuilding, and other steps, too, are to be taken to secure for America her proper position in shipping and in foreign trade. No more dependence upon English bottoms! Competition will be very severe. At the end of the war, Mr. Hughes warned the audience in his Notification Speech, "the energies of each of the new belligerent nations, highly trained, will be turned to production. These are days of terrible discipline for the nations at war. . . . Each is developing a national solidarity, a knowledge of method, a realisation of capacity hitherto unapproached." Mr. Hughes is too wise and broad-minded to put his thought in a threatening shape. But most of his hearers throughout that vast hall thought of the Resolutions of Paris, and felt that if the Allies chose to pursue war-methods in their commercial action America must be ready to respond.
One's heart sinks at the prospect opened out by this policy. Trade rivalry; severe protection; the State deliberately entering into the commercial contest with subsidies and penalties; competitive shipbuilding; the desire for a strong Navy behind the merchant fleet; and at the end of a vista that prize which has dazzled so many nations, some of them perhaps not much less peace-loving and level-headed than the United States, the position of recognised centrality and supremacy among the great nations of the world.
Is there no prospect of escape?
Yes, there is. The above is the first great current of feeling that, in my judgment, has swept the whole people of the United States; the second is the antidote to it, and is almost, if not quite, equally strong. It is the determination that, if America can help it, a colossal iniquity like the present war shall not be allowed to occur again. The feeling needs no explanation. It is that of every Englishman of moderately liberal feelings, and is deeply ingrained in the nature of the ordinary American. It has swept through all political parties and most other sections of the community, except a few extreme pacifists and those pro-Germans who are working for an inconclusive peace and a second war.
It was first formulated by Mr. Taft, as president of the League to Enforce Peace. Mr. Taft's series of arbitration treaties, following on those initiated by John Hay, made him the natural champion of this further effort to organise the prevention of future wars. The general idea is quite simple and well known: a League of Powers, bound to settle their differences by conference or arbitration, and equally bound to make joint war on any Power which, in a dispute with one of them, refuses arbitration and insists on war.
The plan was immediately welcomed by public opinion in the States. It spread everywhere. President Wilson committed himself to it last May in an emphatic speech, which was perhaps a little too tenderly tactful towards the Germans to be wholeheartedly acceptable in England. But in point of fact most of the leaders of English thought had already expressed approval of the principle. It is no less significant that the federated Chamber of Commerce of the United States, a powerful and extremely cautious body, has voted by large majorities in favour of the policy of the League, and by overwhelming majorities for all the proposals but one. (Just over a third of the delegates shrank from committing themselves to actual war for the sake of peace, though they were ready to agree to an absolute boycott of the peace-breaker.) And, finally, Mr. Hughes, in his Notification Address, has thrown the whole strength of the Republican Party into the scheme. His words are well thought out:
"We are deeply interested in what I may term the organisation of peace. We cherish no illusions. We know that the recurrence of war is not to be prevented by pious wishes. If the conflict of national interests is not to be brought to the final test of force there must be a development of international organisation in order to provide international justice and to safeguard as far as practicable the peace of the world." In addition to the International Tribunal and the sanction of armed force behind it, "there are also legislative needs. We need conferences of the nations to formulate international rules, to establish principles, to modify and extend international law so as to adapt it to new conditions and remove causes of international difference."
This is obviously no fantastic scheme. It is accepted by the leaders of both parties, and by the enormous preponderance of American opinion, both progressive and conservative, both educated and uneducated. It is only rejected by the open enemies of England and by some of the extreme pacifists.
It is hard at present for the leaders of a belligerent nation to come prominently forward in favour of such a scheme as this. For one thing they cannot act without their Allies; for another, they must not lay themselves open to the charge that they are spending their time and thought on any object but the winning of the war. Still, there is little doubt about the general attitude of the leaders of public opinion in England towards a scheme of this kind. Mr. Asquith, Mr. Balfour, and Viscount Grey, among others, have spoken pretty clearly.
"Long before this war," said the last named, on May 15, 1916, "I hoped for a league of nations that would be united, quick, and instant to prevent, and, if need be, to punish the violation of international treaties, of public right, of national independence, and would say to nations that came forward with grievances and claims: 'Put them before an impartial tribunal. If you can win at this bar you will get what you want. If you cannot you shall not have what you want. And if instead you attempt to start a war, we shall adjudge you the common enemy of humanity and treat you accordingly.' Unless mankind learns from this war to avoid war the struggle will have been in vain."
Almost all opinion in England agrees; so, as far as my information goes, does opinion in France. But in America the course of events has brought the movement more sharply to the front and faced it with a far more emphatic alternative. If we and our Allies respond to this movement there is good hope for the world; the enemy may respond or not, as he prefers. If we reject it there is before us not merely the possibility of some unknown future war, such as there was before the present shaping of the nations; there is a peril clearer and more precise. There are definite seeds of international rivalry already sown and growing; there are on both sides of the Atlantic the deliberate beginnings of a movement which, however justifiable at present, needs but a little development to become dangerous; there is the certain prospect of those thousand disputes which are bound to arise between two great commercial nations competing hard for the same markets.
American preparedness will soon be an accomplished fact; American readiness for a League to Enforce Peace after the war is probably a fact already. We must not, of course, be precipitate; we must not forget that our actual Allies have obviously the first claim on us. We must not make any claim as of right on American sympathy, or ask her for a jot more than she is prepared to offer. But in the end it will rest largely, though not entirely, with us in Great Britain to decide whether that preparedness shall be merely an instrument for the promotion of American interests against those of her rivals, or a great force to work in conjunction with us and our friends for organising the peace of the world. On those lines Alliance will be possible after all.