Pax Britannica (Paperback) | Released: 19 Oct 2018

Excerpt from Pax Britannica: A Study of the History of British Pacification

Green wrote the preface of his famous Short History of the English People over thirty years ago, drum and trumpet histories have at least become discredited, if they have not entirely ceased to appear. Closer attention has been given both to the moral and intellectual development of the people, and to their economic history; and the result has been a picture infinitely more truthful and inform ing than the old-time records of courts and camps. One may look in vain, however - so far as I am aware - for any connected account of what has become a subject of paramount importance to the present generation, namely, the progress of our civilisation towards Peace. So great has become the burden of armaments - and still more heavy the burden of the fears, suspicions, and rivalries of the competing owners of these costly instruments - that the cry for Peace rises, like'a mighty diapason, from the lips of kings and presidents and premiers, from chambers of trade and commerce, from the congresses of the toilers, and from the columns of the press. If a miners' strike or cotton-war be threatened, there is an instant demand for the healing treatment of concilia tion and arbitration; not because the fighting instinct has gone out of human nature, but because the complex mechanism of modern society involves so wide a range of people in the couse quences of an industrial struggle that self-interest compels a resort to the quicker and quieter methods of settling disputes, and experience has proved the efficiency of the instruments of pacification.

On the larger stage of international relations similar influences have been at work. The genius of Count Tolstoy marshalled the moral argument against war with a passion that has stirred men's consciences, a searching dialectic that leaves no motive veiled, and a style that charms even the deaf into hearing. A multitude of lesser writers has made known war's waste and futility. The miracles of modern science have eliminated the distances that used to separate mankind, and brought to every breakfast-table the facts upon which may be based a real understanding of war's origins, incidents, and fruits. Hence, in the phrase of Jean de Bloch, the soldier is going down and the economist is going up. Along with the higher motives has been combined an appeal to the common sense and business instincts of a commercial age, and it has been asked, do modern wars ever really pay, even if success be achieved? Does conquest bring gain to the conqueror, in these days of a sensi tive credit economy, and of reacting bourses Can the invader ever hope to recoup himself for his expenses, far less to carry off for his own enrichment the spoil of his rival's wealth Has not the inter dependence of modern life and commerce so revolu tionised the conditions, that the doctrines upon which military expansionism and competition were formerly based have now become a great illusion.

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