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European federation would likewise meet all difficulties where a risk might be likely to occur of one nation intervening to protect another. As we have said (above, p. 64, note) nations are now-a-days slow to intervene in the interests of humanity: they are in general constrained to do so only by strong motives of self-interest, and when these are not at hand they are said to refrain from respect for another's right of independent action. Actually a state which is actuated by less selfish impulses is apt to lose considerably more than it[p. 94] gains, and the feeling of the people expresses itself strongly against any quixotic or sentimental policy. It is not impossible that the Powers may have yet to intervene to protect Turkey against Russia. Such a step might well be dictated purely by a proper care for the security of Europe; but wars of this kind seem not likely to play an important part in the near future.

We have said that the causes of difference which may be expected to disturb the peace of Europe are now fewer. A modern sovereign no longer spends his leisure time in the excitement of slaying or seeing slain. He could not, if he would. His honour and his vanity are protected by other means: they play no longer an important part in the affairs of nations. The causes of war can no more be either trifling or personal. Some crises there are, which are ever likely to be fatal to peace. There present themselves, in the lives of nations, ideal ends for which everything must be sacrificed: there are rights which must at all cost be defended. The question of civil war we may neglect: liberty and wise government are the only medicine for social discontent, and much may be hoped from that in the future. But now, looking beyond the state to the great family of civilised nations, we may say that the one certain cause of war between them or of rebellion within a future federated union will be a[p. 95] menace to the sovereign rights, the independence and existence of any member of that federation. Other causes of quarrel offer a more hopeful prospect. Some questions have been seen to be specially fitted for the legal procedure of a tribunal of arbitration, others to be such as a federal court would quickly settle. The preservation of the balance of power which Frederick the Great regarded as the talisman of peace in Europe---a judgment surely not borne out by experience---is happily one of the causes of war which are of the past. Wars of colonisation, such as would be an attempt on the part of Russia to conquer India, seem scarcely likely to recur except between higher and lower races. The cost is now-a-days too great. Political wars, wars for national union and unity, of which there were so many during the past century, seem at present not to be near at hand; and the integration of European nations---what may be called the great mission of war---is, for the moment, practically complete; for it is highly improbable that either Alsace-Lorraine or Poland---still less Finland---will be the cause of a war of this kind.

Our hope lies in a federated Europe. Its troops would serve to preserve law and order in the country from which they were drawn and to protect its colonies abroad; but their higher function would[p. 96] be to keep peace in Europe, to protect the weaker members of the Federation and to enforce the decision of the majority, either, if necessary, by actual war, or by the mere threatening demonstrations of fleets, such as have before proved effectual.

We have carefully considered what has been attempted by peace workers, and we have now to take note that all the results of the last fifty years are not to be attributed to their conscientious but often ill-directed labour. The diminution of the causes of war is to be traced less to the efforts of the Peace Society, (except indirectly, in so far as they have influenced the minds of the masses) than to the increasing power of the people themselves. The various classes of society are opposed to violent methods of settlement, not in the main from a conviction as to the wrongfulness of war or from any fanatical enthusiasm for a brotherhood of nations, but from self-interest. War is death to the industrial interests of a nation. It is vain to talk, in the language of past centuries, of trade between civilised countries being advanced and markets opened up or enlarged by this means.[100][p. 97] Kings give up the dream of military glory and accept instead the certainty of peaceful labour and industrial progress, and all this (for we may believe that to some monarchs it is much) from no enthusiastic appreciation of the efforts of Peace Societies, from no careful examination of the New Testament nor inspired interpretation of its teaching. It is self-interest, the prosperity of the country---patriotism, if you will---that seems better than war.

What may be expected from Federation.

Federation and federation alone can help out the programme of the Peace Society. It cannot be pretended that it will do everything. To state the worst at once, it will not prevent war. Even the federations of the states of Germany and America, bound together by ties of blood and language and, in the latter case, of sentiment, were not strong enough within to keep out dissension and disunion.[101] Wars would not cease, but they would become much less frequent. "Why is there no longer war between England and Scotland? Why did Prussian and Hanoverian fight side by side in 1870, though they had fought[p. 98] against each other only four years before?... If we wish to know how war is to cease, we should ask ourselves how it has ceased" (Professor D. G. Ritchie, op. cit., p. 169). Wars between different grades of civilisation are bound to exist as long as civilisation itself exists. The history of culture and of progress has been more or less a history of war. A calm acceptance of this position may mean to certain short-sighted, enthusiastic theorists an impossible sacrifice of the ideal; but, the sacrifice once made, we stand on a better footing with regard to at least one class of arguments against a federation of the world. Such a union will lead, it is said, to an equality in culture, a sameness of interests fatal to progress; all struggle and conflict will be cast out of the state itself; national characteristics and individuality will be obliterated; the lamb and the wolf will lie down together: stagnation will result, intellectual progress will be at an end, politics will be no more, history will stand still. This is a sweeping assertion, an alarming prophecy. But a little thought will assure us that there is small cause for apprehension. There can be no such standstill, no millennium in human affairs. A gradual smoothing down of sharply accentuated national characteristics there might be: this is a result which a freer, more friendly intercourse between nations would be very[p. 99] likely to produce. But conflicting interests, keen rivalry in their pursuit, difference of culture and natural aptitude, and all or much of the individuality which language and literature, historical and religious traditions, even climatic and physical conditions produce are bound to survive until the coming of some more overwhelming and far-spreading revolution than this. It would not be well if it were otherwise, if those "unconscious and invisible peculiarities" in which Fichte sees the hand of God and the guarantee of a nation's future dignity, virtue and merit should be swept away. (Reden an die deutsche Nation,[102] 1807.) Nor is stagnation to be feared. "Strife," said the old philosopher, "is the father of all things." There can be no lasting peace in the processes of nature and existence. It has been in the constant rivalry between classes within themselves, and in the struggle for existence with other races that great nations have reached the highwater mark of their development. A perpetual peace in international relations we may---nay, surely will---one day have, but eternity will not see the end to the feverish unrest within the state and the jealous competition and distrust between individuals, groups and classes of society. Here there must ever be perpetual war.