most people are not keen party men. The paper is the
jester, the amusing companion of modern life. It is
not the monitor and guide. It influences opinion : but
it does not by any means (even in the case of the financial
press) reflect it, except as a concave mirror does. Repre-
sentative institutions help us no more to ascertain the
views of the democracy. The constituency must elect a
supporter of this or that party ; or, at least, of this or
that heterogeneous programme. The work of creating a
new party is herculean ā and then, one has only a third
bag of mixed sweets to offer. The candidate is elected on
some measure which it pleases party men to regard as
violently controversial, and if his party reaches power,
they regard themselves as having a " mandate " to carry
it into law, although, from the very fact of its being a
" party " measure, it is ex hypolhesi violently hated by
approximately half the electorate. Non-party measures
are generally even worse reflections of the democratic
mind. They are such as approve themselves to per-
manent officials and Cabinet Ministers (who will not as a
rule be affected by them), and the democracy is merely
lectured to about them. Does any one for a moment
suppose that the mass of working-class parents like the
Education Bill of 1870 ? or the Licensing Bill of 1871 ?
or that any one but an official bigot has anything but
contempt for the pallid terrors which prompted the
smoking clauses of the Children Bill of 1908 ? Even
where the Referendum is adopted, it seems more than
likely that the democracy would be engineered into
accepting the party measure wholesale, as now they
accept the party candidate. It is true that in Switzer-
land the Referendum works otherwise. But then, Swit-
zerland is a country of local self-government.
288 FEDERATION [chap, vni
Some thinkers, struck by the fact that the opinion of
the British electorate at a general election is pronounced,
if on anything, on some matter upon which it is certain
to be practically equally divided, have warmly advocated
Proportional Representation. As affording more perfect
representation of the strength of parties, the step is
admirable and even necessary : but it shows that the
ideas of parties and party-leaders, groups and group-
commanders, are all that can be represented by an articu-
late assembly in a country of the size of modern states.
That is the insuperable difficulty.
It is a difficulty which lies deep in the nature of things.
The human mind and the human faculties are limited.
It is not possible for one person to speak for six thousand,
or six hundred, except on one very plain and simple issue.
The result, whether this reasoning is fortunate in com-
mending itself to the reader or not, is that the ordinary
private person is a fly on the wheel of the car of state ;
and that he knows it very well, and would (if permitted)
be happy to sell his vote at the ensuing election for
sixpence, or for five pounds, according to his means.
Ordinary life is emptied of colour and meaning, and
reduced to the enjoyment of such private luxury as can
be recommended : for we do not suppose that the mag-
nanimous exhortations of bishops and deans to plunge
into the maelstrom of municipal politics, and spend one's
energies on gasometers, has very much effect. Lord
Rosebery long ago lamented the decay in England of local
interest. Cities which used to be centres of a vigorous
social life, with a culture and an individuality of their
own, arc now left in a backwater of drab monotony, while
all the elements of vitality are drawn into the " one great
uninteresting pot of London," where they whirl in an
unmeaning, uncomprehending dance of atoms.
The life of localities is decaying before our eyes. Thirty
years ago, in a town of forty thousand people, the High
School was a sufficient school of manners and learning.
chap, vim] POVERTY OF LOCAL LIFE 28q
The Head Master was probably a good classic, or a
wrangler, and few, if any, of the chief inhabitants dreamed
of sending their children anywhere else. Home life and
school life were blended in one settled local atmosphere.
Now, there are periodic juvenile incursions from Upping-
ham and Clifton and the rest of the institutions where
youth is segregated under artificial conditions of hothouse
culture for thirty weeks of the year : but the native town
is only material for contempt ; and as for the native town's
academy, it has become that monument of educational
ineptitude called derisively a Higher Grade School. The
new generation make one another's acquaintance not in
the classroom and playground, but in the billiard-room and
at the hotel bar. The Irish aristocracy, Mr. Birmingham
tells us, unable to join in the local life, try to light a hearth-
fire in the chilly halls of Empire ā " which is the same as
if a man should set himself down in some huge caravanserai
and say that he had found a home." But really the Irish
aristocrat is not singular. The English bourgeois is
imitating him with much fidelity.
We have all heard of the gentleman who, interrogated as
to the final purpose of his strenuous life in the Metropolis,
confessed that his ultimate end was to amass sufficient
money to enable him to " retire to Bootle." As things
go, there will soon be no home-like Bootle to retire to.
It is enough to think of Venice, Sienna, Florence, of
Athens, Syracuse and Thebes, to realize the poverty
of local life in great aggregations of population under a
centralized government. It is partly this that makes the
socialist propaganda attractive. The poor are always
sure of help in a small community where they are known.
It is the driftwood of a huge, unorganized population
that form the hopeless element. It is their terrifying
absorption in this collectively hopeless crowd, undistin-
guishable to the eye of the rest of the world, that the poor
resent. The cessation of vitality in the local centres
means to the self-supporting classes the extinction of
19
290 FEDERATION [chap, viii
emotion and splendour : to the poor it means that they
have no more any friends on earth.
Contrast the leaden monotony of an English or French
manufacturing town, its councillors doing the work
of master-dustmen in the spirit of dustmen ā its petti-
fogging officials riding rough-shod over the weak, in the
panoply of incomprehensible by-laws ā its unmeaning
gaieties and its empty solemnities ā its thousandfold
struggle to obtain through private luxury the delight
which comes naturally from mutual companionship ā
with the full, pulsating life of those bygone cities. It
is the interest which comes from personal participation
in the work of government that lifts individuals out
of the narrowness and pettiness of provincialism, and
renders them indifferent to riches and luxuriousness.
A society is not provincial because it is small, nor because
it is bizarre ; but because it is futile. It is provincial
because it has lost its raison d'etre. It has no reason for
self-respect. It takes its orders from a metropolitical
master. Its members are isolated in their common
insignificance. With autonomy established, provincialism
disappears. It is no longer possible to mask bureaucratic
despotism under the forms of democracy. The dead
machine of government crumbles, when neighbours and
friends are concerned. Government becomes a rational
and human thing. The consequences of evil legislation
are brought home at once to every legislator.
" Local self-government," as we understand it now,
is worse than useless. The local authorities have too
much power to be harmless, too little to be cared for.
But with real freedom, we should sec a vital change come
over localities. The ships of Liverpool might rival in
state, as they surpass in size, the argosies of Sidon ;
the indomitability of Cork might match that of Pisa,
and the spirit of Athene" throne herself not only on the
heights of Attica bul on the crags of Edinburgh.
1 1 is indispensably necessary to have independence
chap, vuil THE NEW PARTICULARISM 2QI
in localities if we wish to restore that interest to provincial
life which circuses and councils alike have failed to
provide. The only real interest in life is self-develop-
ment : and self-development requires freedom. It is
a commonplace to say that town life is more interesting
than country life : but then the cheap delights of town
life are rapidly palling. For a time they amused us,
but now we are asking on all hands the question of the
newspapers ā " What is wrong ? ' What is wrong is
that there is no life in localities : no common sense of
unity and mutual protection. And the mistake of
socialism is to try to bring it about by force, as the
once-celebrated Tommy Merton tried to gain the love
of the pig by catching it by the leg.
Independence is the sovereign remedy for apathetic
indifference. Where a community, not too large for
mutual self-knowledge, is thrown upon its own resources,
and freed from the pressure of external interference, its
doings will at any rate be interesting, and whether they
are just or unjust they will at least be human.
But the attendant danger is frequent war. The gift of
Centralization is universal peace. True, it is the peace
of death. Under the beneficent Empire created by Au-
gustus, art died, literature died, nobility of manners died,
and only two energizing forces lived ā the Alexandrian
philosophy which provided a way of escape into ethereal
regions, where the politics of earth were indifferent,
and the Christian religion which was inspiring Augustine
with the vision of the City of God. Yet the Empire
meant peace, then as under Napoleon III. And if the
New Particularism offers life and splendour, it offers
it at the risk of suffering and storm. The independent
cities and castles of Greece, Italy and Germany were at
constant hand-grips. What is the conciliation of Peace
and Liberty ?
The conciliation is Federation. Peace and Liberty
are not estranged and irreconcilable. How could it be
292 FEDERATION [chap, viii
otherwise than unnatural that sister-divinities could be
antagonists ? At the Congress of Peace in London of 1908,
the eyes of those who entered the hall of meeting were
struck by a cartoon in which was illustrated the text ā
" R ghteousness and Peace have kissed each other."
That Liberty which is the first condition of Rightness
is no less reconcilable with Peace. As the angels of
Rightness and Peace, in the imagination of the Pales-
tinian prophet, intertwined their branches of lily and
olive, so the laurel of victorious independence may fitly
be woven in the wreath. Federation is the ribbon
which unites them all. It ensures Peace, and it ensures
Liberty. The federated nations keep their Independence
in all but a narrow sphere. In that sphere they resign
it ā but with no feeling of resignation, for it is that
section of independence which is not worth preserving.
It is the liberty to oppress their neighbours.
" Sovereignty is partible." A state may resign its
sovereignty entirely, and become absorbed wholly in
another. In that case, it may be admitted to more or
less of Home Rule : the North American States have
a good deal ; the German and Swiss have more : Bo-
hemia and Scotland have very little. 1 Its constitutional
1 In Bohemia the Crown can dissolve or prorogue the Diet at
will. It appoints the President (Landmarschall) who arranges
its business. It can veto its legislation. Its executive is in all
important matters independent of local control (Lowell, Govern-
ments and Parties in Continental Europe, 11. 91). The Diet can
legislate on little beyond local government, agriculture, higher
education, charities, and local public property and rates. By
devolution from the Kcichsi ath, it can legislate 011 primary educa-
tion and church affairs. It is curious to notice that Austria had
the same difficulties with her provinces as London had with
Welsh county councils, in regard to the cairying out, under the
central legislature, of the scheme of primary education adopted
by the latter. 1 1 seems correct to say that the powers of Bohemia
(which, besides, arc no more and no less than those of Carinthia or
Camiola) are little more than those of the Ayrshire county council.
And it seems to be intended that the South African federated states
chap, vin] TEST OF INDEPENDENCE 2Q3
power of retaining its Home Rule, if any, may be great
or small ā but so far as sovereignty is concerned, that
is gone altogether. It is no longer regarded as one of
themselves by the family of nations. Its fate is to
them thenceforward a matter of no concern. Morally,
they may deplore the ill-treatment of its population, or
the withdrawal of its autonomy, particularly if that is
unconstitutionally carried out. But its ill-fortune no
longer excites them as an indirect blow to themselves.
When an independent state is wronged, a quiver passes
through the assemblage of independent states. Not
even the strongest can quite afford to disregard the
thought ā " It may be our turn next." But a province,
autonomous or not, is regarded as fair game for its in-
ternational sovereign. States will not take the trouble
to learn each other's constitutional law. They know one
organ of a foreign country ā its Foreign Office. Anything
that the Foreign Office tells them of the organization of
its own state they must believe, unless palpably absurd.
They know nothing of State Rights. They may surmise,
and even be pretty certain, that such rights have been
infringed : it is not their affair if they have. The con-
stitutional guarantees of individuals may be abolished,
and the foreigner remains unmoved. The constitutional
guarantees of provinces are of no greater concern.
And accordingly, it is a capital test of the existence of
a state as endowed with some scintilla of independence,
that it maintains diplomatic relations with at least
some Foreign Courts. It is not a conclusive test. States
may exist, the relations between which and their pro-
tectors or suzerains are so well known, clearly defined
and scrupulously respected, that it would be as great a
shock to general feeling for the suzerain to infringe
them, as it would for that sovereign to attack an inde-
pendent nation. And e convcrso, a province may main-
shall imitate it in that respect. Their sphere of activity almost
appears to be modelled on the Austrian.
294 FEDERATION [chap, viii
tain agents abroad, just as a joint-stock company might ;
negotiating, for convenience, with foreign governments,
but pretending to no independent authority. Still, the
fact of maintaining a regular foreign department and
permanent legations is in general almost conclusive of
a certain amount of independence.
But between complete independence, tempered only
by contractual engagements, such as is enjoyed by
France, Costa Rica or China, and complete dependence,
such as is the position of Devonshire, Canada, Zanzibar
or Baroda, there is the possibility of a tertium quid.
In the case of Independence, foreign nations do not need
to look at constitutional relations, for there are none :
in the case of Absorption, they are absolved from noticing
such as there are. But, in this third case, they must
notice them. The state which has parted with some
fraction of its sovereignty still retains its international exis-
tence : still remains a nation : still is an object of imme-
diate concern and solicitude to all the nations of the world.
So, in the German Confederation of 1807, there was a
Federal organization with definite (if restricted) powers.
If it had exceeded those powers vis-a-vis any tiny Duchy,
national sovereignty and independence would have
been threatened all over Europe. When the Federal
States of North America stamped on Virginia and the
South, there was some moral disquietude, but no one
felt that the independence of states had received a
shock. Virginia had, for better or worse, managed to
merge herself in the United States in a fashion which
Saxe-Meiningen had not imitated. 1
1 A good illustration of the difference between a grant of con-
stitutional autonomy and a grant <>l more or less limited inde-
pendence is furnished by the Austrian award on the subject of
the Mosquito Indians. 1 Formerly subject to a British pro-
tectorate, they were, in i860, abandoned to Nicaragua, with the
reservation by Great Britain in their favour oi autonomy and of
1 Sec p. 273. hiijna.
chap, vin] INDEPENDENCE PRESUMED 2<J$
So it is necessary to contemplate the cases in which
a little study of constitutional law may be requisite : ā
those, namely, in which a state has parted with some
elements of its sovereignty without ceasing to be an
independent Government, treated and treated with as
such by the other nations. If the cession is made to
another country, then the relation is termed Dependence
ā it may take the form of Protection, Suzerainty, Mi-
souvcraincte. If not ā if the sovereignty which is yielded
up is in abeyance, or if it is placed in the hands of some
common authority formed ad hoc ā then the relation
is termed Federation. And a foreign country may be
puzzled to know whether to believe the foreign minister
of the ceding state or the foreign minister of the Federa-
tion or of the other states associated in it, when the
former complains that its reserved independence has
been violated. Fortunately, there is a guide in such
delicate questions. The Roman law always presumed
in favour of liberty. The law of nations presumes
in favour of independence. If a state cannot clearly
be shown to have resigned its powers, it is presumed
certain political and pecuniary advantages. Nicaragua sub-
sequently chained absolute sovereignty over the Mosquitos,
and the Government of the United States supported her in the
contention that the reserved rights were constitutional rights
merely .dependent for their fulfilment on the goodwill of Nicaragua .
but conferring no rights of interposition on Great Britain. Austria
repelled this contention, 1 though the United States Secretary of
State subsequently brought forward the analogies of Louisiana and
Florida. 2 In those cases, France and Spain hud stipulated for
particular treatment to be accorded to the inhabitants of the
districts in question ā yet they never thought of intervening in
their favour in the domestic arrangements of the United States.
The answer to that argument probably is that there was no
occasion for them to do so. Lord Salisbury was in every way
justified in maintaining that the treaty could not be rendered
nugatory by the admission of such analogies. 3
1 72 S.P. 1212.
* 81 S.P. 746, Bayard to Phelps, 23 Nov. 1888. :) lb. 761.
20,6 FEDERATION [chap, viii
to have retained them. This accords with what one
would have expected. The foreign nation knew the
independent state Atlantis. It still knows the state
Atlantis, and it cannot hold that it has limited its inde-
pendence in the face of its own protests to the contrary
without clear proof. There is a natural inclination on
the part of foreign states to avoid a conclusion which
would involve them in the meshes of constitutional
argument.
One very common source of dispute rests in the possi-
bility that the state has not really ceded or resigned its
powers at all, but has merely contracted not to exercise
them. In that case, there is no real federation ā nothing
but a more or less close alliance, preserving to each party
its complete independence, subject to the complaints
which may be made against countries which fail to
fulfil their engagements. In such cases, it is sometimes
said that it is the intention rather than the form which
is to be looked to, and that an apparent contract may
be interpreted as a conveyance. The very purpose of
such solemn engagements is, however, to make it formally
plain what the intention is. If the parties choose to
clothe their arrangement in the forms of a mere contract
between states which are and remain independent, it
can hardly be argued that their agreement was so far-
reaching, or so important, that it must be held to have
been meant as a cession of sovereignty on the part of
one or both. The conception of the difference between
a promise and a transfer is common to the Roman and
the Anglican law, and through them to all civilized
nations. The idea of interpreting a solemn diplomatic
document, couched in well-known phraseology, by
guesses proceeding on estimates of the extent and im-
portance of the engagements undertaken, is one which
would be dangerous to a degree, if it were ever seriously
entertained. At most, such considerations must be purely
secondary.
chap, vim] ALLIANCE AND FEDERAL UNION 2Q7
A real Federation differs from a Treaty of Alliance,
however close, in this : ā that the federated state not
only enters into an engagement which it would be wrong
to break, but it deprives itself of the power of breaking
it. There is thenceforward no person or body who
can be regarded as exercising the surrendered powers
in the name of the state : no one who, in its name, can
break the compact of union. A state can do wrong :
it can break its solemn compacts, and be blamed or
fought for breaking them. But a federated state does
not break its compacts when it appears to act contrary
to the terms of federation. None of its servants and
ministers can commit it to that act of illegality. It is
simply not its act at all : it is ultra vires. Quoad hoc,
the state has lost its identity. The Federation can set
matters right without its help. In setting matters right,
the Federation does not make war on it ; it merely
exercises its own prerogative. It is a distinction which
is familiar enough to the lawyer, but which the layman
is apt to deride as a subtlety. It is easy, however, to
show its importance. The difference is precisely that
between the horse which your neighbour has promised
you in return for cash down, and the horse of your own
which he has enticed into his own stable. You cannot
help yourself to the promised horse : you have every
right (short of disturbing the general peace) to help
yourself to your own. So, in an alliance, the states
which consider that an allied state has broken the terms
of their compact, can remonstrate, retaliate, fight : but
they cannot forcibly interfere with the recalcitrant in
the calm fulfilment of the normal order of things. Where-
as, in a federation, the federal authority, acting within
its limits, can use forcible means without creating war,
or a pretext for war. 1 Or again, the difference may be
1 The last five words arc added to meet the views of those who
hold that one independent state can coerce another by active
force without being at war with it. These authorities consider
298 FEDERATION [chap, vih
illustrated by the distinction between a marriage and
a promise to marry. It is not legal to break a promise
to marry. But it is a very different thing from mis-
behaviour by a married person.
In many practical respects, a close alliance presents
most of the features of a federation ; and what is said
of the one is generally true of the other. But the essential
difference is, that forcible action to uphold the terms
of the federal compact within the territory of a federated
state is not invasion ā is not even just and laudable
invasion ā but is a simple exercise of ordinary peaceful
right. 1
Just so, if one nation, without abandoning its inde-
pendence, has granted a real servitude to another, in the
shape of a right of way, it is no warlike invasion to
make use of that way by forcibly overcoming the sub-
sequent opposition of the territorial state : whilst, on
the contrary, if all that has been secured is the personal
promise of free passage without interference, the bene-
ficiary can complain of a stoppage, she can threaten
war if the opposition is not removed, she can back her
claim by war ā but without war she cannot force her
way through.-
To think this distinction trivial is to underrate the
elemental forces that lie at the root of all law. It is
not the calculated numbers of ships and bayonets on
one side and the other that influence state action. It
is the lines of least resistance in the brain that determine
conduct. Some actions are out-of-the-way : ā " People
that in sucli a case a lawful occasion of war is always afforded to
the state attacked.
' It is just theoretically possible that in a case where Federal
force was forbidden, universal sentiment would nevertheless be