Present status and prospects of the Peace Movement

PRESENT STATUS AND PROSPECTS OF THE PEACE MOVEMENT.

BY BARONESS BERTHA VON SÜTTNER.

Letters of condolence and of cynicism come to my desk in these latter days in increasing number. There is a note of triumph and of mockery in one group: “What has become of the famous Peace idea? The South African war, following immediately upon the close of the Peace Conference at The Hague, has not yet reached its end, and already the horizon in Eastern Asia is lurid with the glare of a world-war. Are you convinced now of the absurdity of your claims, ye dreamers of peace?” Through the second group runs an undertone of commiseration: “What suffering must have come to you, honored madame, and to your friends, in seeing your beautiful illusion shattered. Sad, sad; but thus it is. War is an historic law, and your ideals are simply—ideals. You will have to reef your sails in the face of such a storm of facts.”

It is true that a feebly manned boat cannot battle against storm and surf. But the simile ill fits the effort to establish peace. That is no boat; it is a rock. The waves may top it with their wrathful spume, but naught can affect its granite permanence.

Let me set aside metaphor and reply to my correspondents. Let me endeavor to show them the point of view from which the advocates of peace regard the present condition of the world, and the nature of the duties and prospects, the hopes and self-denials to be descried therefrom.

In the first place, we admit candidly that we have been mistaken; not, however, in the principles we have enunciated, but in our estimate of present culture. We had regarded public conscience as being permeated by a longing for international right and by an abhorrence of despotism to a greater degree than the facts of the case warrant.

The warlike events that surge about us and threaten us furnish no proof against the principles of the peace movement. They merely prove that these principles have not yet entered fully into the conscience of nations and of their leaders; that the movement is not yet sufficiently advanced in its spread, its organization, its methods of action, to verify the hopes fostered by the conference at The Hague for an early eradication of old, deeply-rooted institutions of brute force. In other words, we have been mistaken, not in the fundamental statements we have made, but in the conception that they were more widely accepted than they have proved to be.

These truths remain: (1.) Culture is synonymous with the repression of brute force; (2.) Nations are oppressed by their brazen breast-plate, and, if its weight increases, they will be crushed by it; (3.) Right relations are as possible between nations as they have gradually been proven to be between individuals, tribes, boroughs, cities and provinces; (4.) The abolition of war as a legal institution of human society, when such abolition is made a matter of principle, will result in undreamed-of increase of material wealth and moral elevation. All these truths, and many theories begotten of them, have not lost an iota of their logical content and of their blessed potentiality from the fact that foolish humanity, through its most powerful agents, government, church and press, still emphasizes dogmas opposed to them.

The advocates of peace maintain their principles. Not only so; they do not rest from their labors; they will not allow the results thus far obtained to slip from their grasp. The institutions created at The Hague, despite the resistance of bellicose Powers, are faithfully guarded by those who helped to create them. The Interparliamentary Union, now in session at Paris, has assumed the task of popularizing, developing and executing the Articles of The Hague. Their co-operators in England continue to protest against the South African war and the subjugation of the Boers, in spite of the supercilious jingoism of government and of the hypnosis of the masses. The Social Democrats, the Ethicists—men of independent tendencies, all of them—lift up warning voices against the fever of Imperialism in general, and specifically against the reckless love of adventure which first scents loot and then seeks revenge in expeditions against a country with four hundred million peace-loving inhabitants.

To save, to save, to avert universal war—that is the purpose for which the enemies of war will strive untiringly until the very last moment. If their strength be insufficient, where shall we place the blame? The fault is not theirs. It rests with the millions of their contemporaries, who, though at heart they desire the same result, yet turn away in contempt or apathy from those who are laboring for it, instead of aiding these labors by the weight that lies in the consensus of the masses. With those who ignore, suspect and belittle the work of peace—even in cases where that work has brought about positive results, where it has matured practical propositions—instead of co-operating with sincere workers in their elaborations of these propositions and enforcing them with opponents—with those must the fault lie.

Great changes come to pass slowly, but in times like the present, when upheavals are fierce and dangers lie near, it might be hoped that swifter advances should be made in the conflict between the new and the old. Just as, immediately before the vote was taken on the Heinze law, a group of devoted men was formed to oppose that measure, which succeeded in defeating it, so, in the face of the present conspicuous and overwhelming manifestation of the principle of brute force, the friends of right might resolutely band themselves together, and, with shields upraised, declare a crusade for the liberation of politics from the thraldom of that immoral tradition.

Possibly the hope that such a step could be taken might again involve an over-estimate of our contemporaries. What matters it? Kant said: “Man cannot think too highly of man,” and it is better to have erred in this direction than, by lukewarm doubt, to have condoned the fault of those here criticised.

What we see happening to-day furnishes proof, furnishes wonderfully objective illustrations and experimental demonstrations, not against, but in favor of our doctrines.

In the first place, let us consider the war in the Transvaal. True, it broke out immediately after the conference at The Hague, and in despite of the principles of arbitration and of mediation there announced, and subscribed to even by England herself. Yet it was no triumph for the dogma of the necessity of war; it was rather a triumph for the advocates of war. For our opponents, in giving voice to the slogan, “The South African war and the Chinese horrors were the direct result of the conference,” commit—purposely, without a doubt—the blunder of confusing sequence in time with sequence of cause and effect. It is the familiar, senseless, exploded, “_Post hoc, ergo propter hoc_.”

Seeds which lay slumbering in the world’s soil long before the conference at The Hague sprouted in these two instances. For all that the conference itself could achieve was not in the nature of a harvest, but merely a sowing of seed.

The newly created institutions are not yet in operation, their spirit has not yet become incarnate in the flesh and blood of the nations, of potentates, of the press. And Mr. Chamberlain was able to accomplish his purpose, in spite of the pleading of Krüger for arbitration, even unto the last minute. Every intermediation was refused, and none was honestly and earnestly considered.

Several European rulers, who, as their panegyrists maintain, are soldiers, body and soul, had no desire to restrain the arm of England; they wished Queen Victoria success and noted the progress of the war with semi-joyous interest. But with the people of non-English countries there was pronounced opposition to this war; there was a manifestation of the very thing whereof we dream as a foundation of an alliance of European States, namely, a European conscience. This conscience rose in rebellion against the fact that a war of conquest should be waged in this our day; that a great country should seek to subjugate small, free republics. From every side came protests, petitions, actions of various sorts, to move the English to call a halt in this war. In England itself the peace party untiringly made remonstrances in this direction. The deeply rooted sentiment, “My country, right or wrong,” had to give way to a sense of justice deeper still, and, as boldly as Zola and Picquart entered the lists against the General Staff, even so boldly did noted Englishmen battle against the imperialistic ministry of their native land. Ten years ago these things would not have happened. Neither Europe nor America would have opposed this war so determinedly; still less possibility would there have been of so powerful a counter-current as arose in England itself. All these things are symptoms of the new spirit.

But, in spite of the sentiment of the nations, the various governments have refrained from any peace-making intervention; and in London this attitude has been regarded as the correct one. But it was correct according to ancient standards only; it was in direct contravention to the new lines officially marked out at The Hague.

The progress of the war in the Transvaal has shown, forcibly and terribly, what a false relation the possible advantages of war bear to its positive disadvantages. Fifty thousand of her youth, healthy and vigorous youth, has England lost in the past ten months; sixty-one million pounds sterling of her national wealth have been wasted; the respect and sympathy of the world have been recklessly sacrificed; the character of the nation has been brutalized by the passions aroused, and freedom, the pride of the British people, freedom of speech, as well as freedom of the individual, has been imperilled, for even now the spectre of conscription is raising its head. The fruits of half a century of national education have been destroyed in this one attack of war-fever. And in place of the great, submarine Channel-tunnel already planned, the fortification of Dover has been begun. India is devastated by a famine, and the money wasted in South Africa for the destruction of human life might have saved the famished ones.

And the end, the “bitter end,” of this campaign is not yet. There are no more decisive battles fought nowadays, even where one side has overwhelming force. There is nothing now save mutual extermination of the troops in the field, devastation of the land in which the combat takes place, cessation of commerce, danger of further complications and the carrying of infectious diseases into other lands.

The reports of Mr. Burdett-Coutts in the House of Commons in reference to the horrible condition of the sick and wounded in South Africa are a confirmation of what the advocates of peace have constantly voiced, namely, that, with our present means of destruction and our present methods of warfare, sanitation is an illusion.

And then came the news of the insurrection of the Boxers and the massacres of the missionaries in China. This, too, is the harvest of seed sown in Europe in these latter years. Apart from the fact that hatred of strangers is a barbarism, concerning which we lack the right to grow indignant so long as the story of anti-Semitic riots and expulsion of foreigners has a place upon European annals, everything was done by Europeans in China to arouse a righteous hatred of foreigners there. Dogmas and wares have been thrust upon the Chinese; there has been contemptuous treatment, appropriation of territory, open declarations as to the partition of China, backed by plans for the building of fleets. And running side by side with these things, in constant confirmation of mercenary greed and of militarism, with an inherent, blind tendency to expansion, the peaceable, non-military Empire was supplied with guns and cannons from our own factories and with instructors from our barracks.