The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎579r] (48/239)

AUTOCRACY AND WAR.
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on a mere pittance—unless, indeed, some statesman of exceptional
ability and overwhelming prestige succeeds in carrying through an
international understanding for the delimitation of spheres of trade
all over the earth, on the model of the territorial spheres of in
fluence marked in Africa to keep the competitors for the privilege
of improving the nigger (as a buying machine) from flying
prematurely at each other’s throats.
This seems the only expedient at hand for the temporary main
tenance of European peace, with its alliances based on mutual
distrust, the preparedness for w r ar as its ideal, and the fear of
wounds, luckily stronger, so far, than the pinch of hunger, for
its only guarantee. The true peace of the world will be a place of
refuge much less like a beleaguered fortress and more, let us hope,
in the nature of an inviolable temple. It will be built on less
perishable foundations than those of material interests. But it
must be confessed that the architectural aspect of the universal
city remains as yet inconceivable—that the very ground of its
erection has not been cleared of the jungle.
Never before in history has the right of war been more fully
admitted in the rounded periods of public speeches, in books, in
public prints, in all the public works of peace, culminating in the
establishment of the Hague Tribunal—that solemnly official recog
nition of the Earth as a House of Strife. To him whose indignation
is qualified by a measure of hope and affection, the efforts of man
kind to work its own salvation present a sight of disarming comic
ality. After clinging for ages to the steps of the heavenly throne,
they are now, without modifying much their attitude, trying with
touching ingenuity to steal one by one the thunderbolts of their
Jupiter. They have removed war from the list of heaven-sent
visitations that could only be prayed against; they have erased its
name from the supplication against the w r rath of war, pestilence
and famine, as it is found in the litanies of the Roman Church;
they have dragged the scourge down from the skies and have made
it into a calm and regulated institution. At first sight the change
does not seem for the better. Jove’s thunderbolt looks a most dan
gerous plaything in the hands of the people. But a solemnly estab
lished institution begins to grow old at once in the discussion, abuse,
worship, and execration of men. It grows obsolete, odious, and
intolerable ; it stands fatally condemned to an unhonoured old age.
Therein lies the best hope of advanced thought, and the best
wa y to help its prospects is to provide in the fullest, frankest way
for the conditions of the present day. War is one of its con
ditions ; it is its principal condition. It lies at the heart of every
question agitating the fears and hopes of a humanity divided
against itself. The succeeding ages have changed nothing except
VOL. lxxviii. n.s. c