nity
as a whole is quite unable to control its own baser passions--a
condition which more than any other merits the name of servitude.[83]
Imperialism is a form of political corruption in which a nation is
consoled for its own slavery by the pride of enslaving its neighbours.
The attainment of permanent peace connotes the abandonment of
Imperialism.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 82: "Les Anglais veulent etre conquerants; donc ils ne
tarderont pas d'etre esclaves."--_Political Writings_, C. E. Vaughan, I,
373.]

Sec. 6

Possible Objects of War

If the nations are prepared to abandon the claims of Imperialism there
will be very little else left to fight about. An examination of the
documents connected with any war of the last century shows that the
object of a belligerent in prolonging the agony is usually expressed in
vague language that can be dissolved by a little analysis. Sometimes a
government will propose, in the interests of peace and good government,
to crush the enemy's aggressiveness by a purely defensive aggression, an
excuse for bloodshed which only the most fanatical pacifist could
confuse with Mr. Asquith's blunt watchword of "crushing German
militarism." The logical fallacy of such an excuse which is almost
invariably pleaded by powerful belligerents,[84] a fallacy of which no
one could wish to accuse Mr. Asquith's solid intellect, lies (quite
apart from any question of the priority of aggression) in the fact that
any attempt to crush by force the Will to Conquer inevitably breeds
more militarism. The tag about taking a lesson from the enemy, _fas est
et ab hoste doceri_, is only one half of the unhappy truth that the
fighter is fatally bound to acquire his enemy's worst characteristics.
The object undertaken apparently in the interests of democracy can only
be accomplished by the wholesale suppression of democratic rights, and
involves an organised manufacture of imperialistic emotion which ends by
delegating the authority of the State to a reactionary triumvirate of
bureaucracy, jingoism and vulgarity (or Tory, Landowner and Journalist).
The guarantees of democracy, the rights of free thought and free speech,
every sort of civil liberty and every defence against the servile state,
will all have to be suppressed in the interests of the nation at war. It
is the old story of the conversion of Thais by Paphnutius: the preacher
snatches lovely Thais from the burning, but himself is damned--"si
hideux qu'en