Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations/Preface
PREFACE
In this work an attempt is made to portray diplomacy and the conduct of foreign policy from the standpoint of history, to show how they have been analysed and appraised by representative writers, and to indicate sources from which the knowledge thus acquired may be supplemented. The sources could have been very much expanded. Those that I have indicated are such as have been of use to myself most of them for many years; and I believe that some, at least, of them will be useful to the citizen as well as to the student.
The conduct of foreign policy affects no people more vitally than the British. The nature of their constitutional system and the magnitude and complexity of the interests ultimately entrusted to their determination invest the electorate with special privileges and a special responsibility. The actual conduct of foreign policy must be committed to the hands of a few. But it is now clear to many who had given little thought to the matter before 1914 that there are grave dangers in keeping the bulk of the electorate uninstructed regarding the general character and the imperious demands of our foreign connexions. Sir John Seeley drew attention[1] to the comparative neglect with which British historians of Britain had treated her foreign policy, and in a section of the present work[2] it is pointed out that writers on our constitution and on our political problems have treated very slightly of the manner of conducting the foreign policy of this country, and of the nature of the responsibility incurred. Our political classics may, no doubt, be made to yield in knowledge of general principles and in a general habit of mind in politics what will compensate for the lack of special knowledge regarding the activities and character of any one sphere of government, however important that sphere be. But political classics and the training they provide touch only a small number. To the British citizen of to-day our own political classics cannot seem to bear directly on the political problems that confront him and those who act for him. The citizen of the United States of America is more happily placed. In the wealth of her writings on politics since the sixteenth century—in their number and in their high worth—Britain is not surpassed even by France; and yet there is no work which the British citizen of to-day can read with so much benefit for the understanding of the political system of his country as that which the American citizen derives from the reading of The Federalist as a commentary on the written constitution of the United States at the time of its making, and as an exposition of rights and duties of an active citizenship. More may be said: there is no British work on politics that will better repay perusal and thought by the British citizen of to-day than this American political classic.
The Federalist contains lessons which recent discussions at Westminster that have not yet spent themselves make highly pertinent. The power of making treaties, it said, is plainly neither a legislative nor an executive function. Its objects are contracts with a foreign nation, which have the force of law, but derive that force from the obligation of good faith. We find Jay protesting against the democrat extremists of his time and country who claimed that treaties should be made by the same authority as acts of assembly, and should be subject to repeal at pleasure; and Alexander Hamilton saw in the composition and character of the House of Representatives sufficient grounds for rejecting the claim that it should be admitted to a share with the President and the Senate in the making of treaties. Hamilton did not forecast a smooth path of peace and amity for his country. ‘It ought never to be forgotten’, he wrote in The Federalist of February 22, 1788, ‘that a firm union of this country under an efficient government, will probably be an increasing object of jealousy to more than one nation of Europe; and that enterprises to subvert it will sometimes originate in the intrigues of foreign Powers, and will seldom fail to be patronized and abetted by some of them.’ Even in 'The Farewell Address' of Washington, which came, from the pen of Hamilton, all is not idealism and hopefulness in the sphere of foreign relations. But Hamilton's impressive warning in The Federalist against endowing the House of Representatives with a share in the treaty-making power rests on reasoning and carries significance that are not confined either to his own day or to his own country. ‘Accurate and comprehensive knowledge of foreign politics; a steady and systematic adherence to the same views; a nice and uniform sensibility to national character; decision, secrecy, and dispatch, are incompatible with the genius of a body so variable and so numerous.’
No apology should be needed for the attention given in this book to works on International Law and on the History of International Law. Political Science without History, it has been said, has no root; and History without Political Science has no fruit. The history of international relations has fruit for each age in treaties, which the international lawyer interprets as expressions of movement of thought, and in the developing of conventions and standards that are recognized in the Society of Nations. In the history of International Law is shown a large part of the fruit of the intercourse of nations. The two studies have, of late, been too much severed in this country.
A concluding section of the book, apart from the Appendix, treats of ‘International Morality: Projects of Perpetual Peace: The Society of Nations’. The standpoint throughout this work is historical; and History does not give much encouragement to the promulgators of schemes of Perpetual Peace. But historians and historical students of politics and policy should not too readily submit to the charge that they can provide no principles for guidance; that they are slaves to ‘the event’, and can furnish nothing better than maxims finely qualified to the point of timidity; that, like the Cyclops, they have but one eye, and that it looks behind only, and, according to the poet-moralist's censure of the historian, takes delight in the blazoning of ‘power and energy detached from moral purpose’. Everything, it was said by a recent Continental statesman, may be left in part to the hazards of the unforeseen—everything except the fortunes of nations. The historian of international policy will add all the weight of his knowledge and authority to the school of caution and pre-cautions in statesmanship. But the lessons he draws, or merely permits to disclose themselves, from the past are not sunk in gloom so deep that he may not say with Tocqueville, ‘I will not believe in the darkness merely because I do not clearly see the new day that is to arise’.
The main Appendix consists of two parts. The first gives, within its space and scope, a selection of passages from writers to illustrate phases and features of diplomacy. These extracts were given, according to my first plan, in illustration of the thought and standpoint of each of the authors cited, and were included in the seventh section of ‘The Study of International Relations'. My thanks are due to the publishers' advisers, and especially to Mr. H. W. C. Davis, of Balliol College, for the suggestion that they should be arranged according to subject and printed as an Appendix. In this form they are likely to be of more use. The second part of the Appendix treats, almost wholly in the words of primary authorities, of a number of practical questions bearing on the modern and quite recent and prospective conduct of foreign policy, in illustration of the text and as a supplement to the notes.
At the beginning of 1916 I wrote a very few pages intended to help towards the study of international relations. They were written for The Historical Association of Scotland, and were reprinted for The Historical Association (of England). In the course of this work I have made use of what I then wrote.