Y Brython

RHYfEl FWYA'R OESOEDD I I < Llith Saesnjrg. The Issues. I rBy Mr. W. GARMON JONES, M.A. Liverpool University.] IT may perhaps seem idle at this stage of the war to dwell upon its magnitude. Most of us have realized to some extent the meaning of that six hundred miles of humanity at death's grip in the west and oast of Europe we have some con- ception of the ruin and desolation that stalks through the fairest regions of the earth, though I doubt if we can know a tithe of the human misery and suffering involved. Perhaps it is as well for not mind could stand the strain of such knowledge. The causes of this war are so profound, its issues so vital that the imagination reels before them. Britain is involved in a struggle for life with an enemy greater than the Spain which launched the Armada against her shore, greater than Louis XIV, greater even than Napoleon himself—greater in re- sources both material and moral. The issues are vaster than any in human history. All Europe and the fate of great communities and peoples in Asia and Africa are in the melting pot. Nothing, aftetr this', can ever be the same again. "Our world has passed away, In wantoness o'erthrown, There is nothing left to-day But steel and fire and stone." My purpose, in these few remarks, is I imply to dwell on two issues I believe to be at stake—the survival of democratic institutions and the emergence from this struggle of a new Europe, with a new con- ception of nationality at its basis. Im the French Yellow Book, perhaps the most illuminating document of the war-there appears a speech delivered by M. Rene Viviani, President of the Council, to the French Chamber of Deputies on the day after the declaratiou of war by Germany against France. The whole speech is a splendid vindication of France, but one passage deserves our special attention here. [I quote from the translation published by the English Government. ] The object of attack is the liberties of Europe, which France and her allies are proud to defend A free and vacant people that sustains an eternal q ideal, a democracy which knows how to discipline its military strength, a nation armed, struggling for '4 its own life and for the independence of Europe, here is a sight which te we are proud to offer to the on- 44 lookers in this desperate struggle. We are without reproach. We shall be without fear." The great issue is here defined with the exquisite clarity of the French intellect. Free representative institutions in Europe are attacked, they stand or fall as the result of this struggle. It is the happiest of auguries that France and Britain are allied in this cause, for they, of all the nations, have contributed most to the ideals of personal liberty and representa- tive government. France, in the Revolu- tion of 1789, first proclaimed to a despot- ridden Europe the principles of liberty •he came then to the nations as a saviour and a liberator, and although the Revolu- tion by its very fervour ran to the excesses that culminated in the despotism of Napoleon, the eternal principles enunciated by France lived on. For the French are eminently a free and enlight- ened people who have always led Europe. It was because the French peasantry in the 18th century were the most intelligent in Europe and because they enjoyed a greater degree of freedom than the other eontinental peoples they were the first to realize their servitude and to revolt. The idea that the Revolution began in France because the oppression was greater there than elsewhere is entirely erroneous the very opposite is the truth. And France, true to the heritage of her past history, stands now for the dignity and freedom of the individual, for the right of the subject to participate in his government; she consecrates again her noblest blood for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Britain, too, is true to her past. Her great contribution to civilization has been the gradual evolution of a system of orderly self-government—a system which, whilst ensuring the order and stability of the state, secures the liberty of every subject. Our clap-trap phrases, Britons never shall be slaves," An Englishman's house is his castle," A free-born Englishman," are, I know, an offence to the delicate ear and savour to many of vulgar jingoism, but they are a popular expression of a very vital truth-a Briton is free, he is self-governing, his liberty is a sacred possession. These free institutions Britain has given to great nations overseas and her reward is rich. For in her hour of need, when the enemy is at the gate, the astonished world (has seen these daughter- nations hastening to her aid. In the day of Armageddon the pillars of her house stand fast, for the foundations thereof are liberty and the love of free peoples. What of Germany ? Her contributions to civilization have been great-in scholarship, in science, in the application of science to industry in music her achievements are so dazzling that her supremacy in this art is as unquestionable as that of Greece in sculpture. To attempt to deny or belittle all this, as some are now doing, is mere hysterical foolishness. Yet with all her learning Germany has never given to the world a single practical political idea. She has had learned commentators, such as Gierke, on political theory, a host of great historians, Ranke, Niebuhr, Wilamo .vitz, Mommsen and the rest, who have con- tributed vastly to our knowledge of states and constitutions both ancient and modern,, but never have her people shown any political aptitude or capacity for self- government. Think of Germany in the 16th century—when all the peoples of Europe were consolidating themselves into strong compact nations-a locse, disorderly and impotent federation of no less than three hundred and sixty states. Think of the debacle of the Napoleonic war or of the tragic failure of liberal ideas in 1848. The destinies of Germany, in the terrible words of Bismarck, were decided not by speeches and ballot boxes, but by blood and iron." Prussia, in the white heat of war, forged Germany into a nation, but at a fearful cost. For the iron of Prussia had entered into the soul of the German people—they were united, they became a nation, but they never became a free people. Prince von Biilow, a former Imperial Chancellor, has recog- nized this lack of political ability. Political talent has been denied us. No people has found it so difficult to attain solid political institutions We are not a political people there is too often a lack of that political discernment which can grasp the bearing of acquired knowledge on the life of a community How can you wonder that we are political asses ? How true in the light of history There is plenty of acquired knowledge, but it never fructifies in permanent institutions. Now this political ineptitude is deeply significant. It explains why the Germans, the best educated people in Europe, are content today with a constitution which is but a grotesque parody of a representative system—a Reichstag elected on a demo- cratic franchise but powerless, a Bundes- rat with no freedom of debate or vote, a standing army—that sinister menace to popular liberties-absolutely at the Em- peror's command, Imperial ministers independent of the Parliament, and a Socialist party which, though it numbers one-third of the voters, is but the impotent tool of the Government. Yet this is the natiori-that aspires to the hegemony of Europe, and has concentrated all its vast energies and resources for forty years for this end, that has in the past crushed the liberties of proud races in Alsace and Poland, that has now Belgium in its clutch and is stifling the life-breath of a free and valiant people Can we doubt what will be the fate of free institutions if Germany hacks her way through ? Can we doubt that we are fighting for "all we have and are, for all our children's fate," for life and for things dearer than life itself-the dignity of liberty and an honourable freedom ? But this war is not only a struggle for the very survival of democratic forms of government; it is a stern and searching test of them. It has already done one great service-it has purged Great Britain of those elements of faction and disruption which gravely imperilled the stability of the state. Thucydides, the great his- torian of the most perfect democracy the world has seen, has analysed with incomparable insight the great evil which threatens democracies-an evil he calls stasis. By stasis he means internal feud, partisan faction, party spirit, hatred between classes-to all these evils a democracy is prone,and if they are allowed to come to a. head they will ruin the state. This acute diagnosis of the great Athenian has an enduring lesson for our own democracy. For stasis surely threatened our country before the war we saw an increasing disregard for the law, an unholy strife of faction and party, a dangerous hostility between the classes, a sullen and j ominous unrest among the workers in our own land of Wales a discreditable religious controversy which embittered the national life, across the Channel a whole nation arming for civil war-all this was symptomatic of a grave peril. The war has swept away these disruptive elements and, if we are wise, they will never re-appear. One remark further I would make The inherent weakness of all democracies in the past has been in two spheres— foreign policy and the conduct of a war. Athens, the perfection of democracy, failed here; Republican Rome, too, could not adapt her governmental machin-, ] ery to the needs of her empire and its relations with external powers. The reasons are obvious foreign policy and the successful conduct of a great war require the expert, knowledge of the few, secrecy, and an independence of action j unfettered by parties or groups. The present crisis has again discovered the weak spot. It is clear from the documents that, since 1911 if not earlier, the diplo- j matic circles of Europe were well aware that Germany intended aggressive action in the immediate future. Yet the war found England and France in a large measure unprepared, because in," both countries the government relied on the support of pacifist groups which had to be conciliated. Again, France was placed in a cruel position for three days because Sir Edward Grey was quite unable to commit England without first obtaining the sanction of the various groups which compose his party. In domestic matters this is as it should be, for it ensures the responsibility of ministers to Parliament, but one cannot help feeling it has its dangers. One problem will have to be solved after the war. How can the efficient conduct of foreign policy be carried on by a democratic government ? We hear a good deal now of the necessity of democratizing foreign policy, but much of this talk seems to me mischievous in the extreme. The spectacle of the intelligent British elector settling foreign policy over his bacon and eggs and registering his decrees in a ballot box is too burlesque for serious consideration. Yet here is a problem of serious difficulty for democracy. It can only be solved by the patience and faith in popular government that has been the characteristic of the English and French democracy in the past. I must leave the consideration of nationality-for I fear I have already exhausted my friend the Editor's space. Yet the principle of nationality-a prin- ciple of the deepest concern to us Welshmen, is at stake, and its fate, too, is involved in the struggle for freedom. For from whatever aspect we view this war it is freedom that is the issue. And surely no war could be consecrated by so glorious an issue "These have we, these are ours, That no priest give nor kings The honey of all these flowers, The heart of all these springs Ours, for where freedom lives not, there live no good things. o