Outspoken Essays | Page 2

capitalism is no
accretion upon the body politic; it is the creator of the modern world
and an essential part of a living organism. The Germans unquestionably
made a deep-laid plot to capture all markets and cripple or ruin all
competitors. Their aims and methods were very like those of the
Standard Oil Trust on a still larger scale. The other nations had not
followed the logic of competition in the same ruthless manner; there
were several things which they were not willing to do. But war to the
knife cannot be confined to one of the combatants; the alternative,
Weltmacht oder Niedergang, was thrust by Germany upon the Allies
when she chose that motto for herself. If the modern man were as much
dominated by economic motives as is sometimes supposed, the suicidal
results of such a conflict would have been apparent to all; but the
poetry and idealism of human nature, no longer centred, as formerly, in
religion, had gathered round a romantic patriotism, for which the
belligerents were willing to sacrifice their all without counting the cost.
Like other idealisms, patriotism varies from a noble devotion to a moral
lunacy.
But there was another cause which led to the war. Germany was a
curious combination of seventeenth century theory and very modern
practice. An Emperor ruling by divine right was the head of the most
scientific state that the world has seen. In many ways Germany, with an
intelligent, economical, and uncorrupt Government, was a model to the
rest of the world. But the whole structure was menaced by that form of
individualistic materialism which calls itself social democracy, and
which in practice is at once the copy of organic materialism and the
reaction against it. The motives for drilling a whole nation in the
pursuit of purely national and purely materialistic aims are not strong
enough to prevent disintegration. The German Kriegsstaat was falling

to pieces through internal fissures. A successful war might give the
empire a new lease of life; otherwise, the rising tide of revolution was
certain to sweep it away. As Sir Charles Walston has shown, it was for
some years doubtful whether the democratic movement would obtain
control before the bureaucracy and army chiefs succeeded in
precipitating a war. There was a kind of race between the two forces.
This was the situation which Lord Haldane found still existing in his
famous visit to Germany. In the event, the conservative powers were
able to strike and to rush public opinion. Perhaps the bureaucracy was
carried along by its own momentum. Two or three years before the war
a German publicist, replying to an eminent Englishman, who asked him
who really directed the policy of Germany, answered: 'It is a difficult
question. Nominally, of course, the Emperor is responsible; but he is a
man of moods, not a strong man. In reality, the machine runs itself.
Whither it is carrying us we none of us know; I fear towards some great
disaster.' This seems to be the truth of the matter. No doubt, a romantic
imperialism, with dreams of restoring the empire of Charlemagne, was
a factor in the criminal enterprise. No doubt the natural ambitions of
officers, and the greed of contractors and speculators, played their part
in promoting it. But when we consider that Germany held all the
winning cards in a game of peaceful penetration and economic
competition, we should attribute to the Imperial Government a strange
recklessness if we did not conclude that the political condition of
Germany itself, and the automatic working of the machine, were the
main causes why the attack was made. There is, in fact, abundant
evidence that it was so. The scheme failed only because Germany was
foolish enough to threaten England before settling accounts with Russia.
But this, again, was the result of internal pressure. Hamburg, and all the
interests which the name stands for, cared less for expansion in the East
than for the capture of markets overseas. For this important section of
conservative Germany, England was the enemy. So the gauntlet was
thrown down to the whole civilised world at once, and the odds against
Germany were too great.
For the time being, the world has no example of a strong monarchy.
The three great European empires are, at the time of writing, in a state
of septic dissolution. The victors have sprung to the welcome

conclusion that democracy is everywhere triumphant, and that before
long no other type of civilised state will exist. The amazing
provincialism of American political thought accepts this conclusion
without demur; and our public men, some of whom doubtless know
better, have served the needs of the moment by effusions of political
nonsense which almost surpass the orations delivered every year on the
Fourth of July. But no