THE MODERN ISSUE

Evening Post, Issue 149, 20 December 1935, Page 9

THE MODERN ISSUE

POLITICS AND MORALS

MACHIAVELLI TO MUSSOLINI

RULE OF THE STRONGER

j It is an interesting and encouraging commentary on human nature that the word Machiavellian has always had a sinister sound, writes J. L. Hammond in the "Manchester Guardian." The pessimist looking at history in the past or politics in the present may be surprised that the philosopher wno wrote "The Prince" should have gone down to posterity with such infamy to his name." For statesmen and diplomatists have been ready enough to follow his teaching. when circumstances have given them much less excuse than he could, plead. He ljved in a-society that was distracted by war and intrigue. On paper, as Dr. Gooch says in his brilliant lecture "Politics and Morals," "no theoretical distinction between public and private morality was recognised . . ..the noble conception of a Republica Christiana coloured the thought of the Western world." In practice Italy was the _cockpit of petty princes and barbarian invaders who were utterly without scruple, and Machiavelli, looking at the confusion of his age, thought that Italy could only be rescued by a man who was more skilful than the other schemers in this cheating world, and had in addition the resolution and will of a Borgia. Contemporary rulers, paid a: lip service to Christianity, but in their lives they served tfye gods . whom Machiavelli proclaimed. The new philosopher wanted- to make these vices effective for a good end. ' "Virtu, Fortuna, Necessita; here was the new trinity which Machiavelli substituted for the Christian creeds." But he denounced bad rulers, and he regarded himself as a realist who hoped to make k better society by taking men as he found them and trying to give a higher,purpose to their aims. * It is significant that all the great prophets of the _ doctrine of the absolute State have arisen in societies where self-conscious unity was a-late and difficult development. In Germany and Italy, the countries of Hegel, Treitscke. Bismarck, Hitler, Machiaveili,, and Mussolini,, the survival, of the international institutions of the Middle Ages long after they had lost effective' power delayed and embarrassed the creation of the national State. The modern apostles of the doctrine that the State is an end in itself with no higher duty than to maintain itself see in nineteenth-century % liberalism the same kind of disorder that their ancestors found in the debris of the Holy Roman Empire. The first effort towards unity in Germany was a liberal effort, and if it had succeeded the history of the nineteenth century would have ; been. very different. Its failure gave Bismarck his opportunity, and his success gave a .fatal prestige to his methods.and his doctrines. All the thinking that preceded the risorgimento in Italy, was much more liberal and generous, and the course of the risorgimento was much more promising for. liberalism. But the new State at the , beginning of its career suffered a terrible calamity. Of the three men who had made the new Italy two were no longer needed. Garibaldi would have lost none of- his fame if he had died in 1861; Mazzini would have escaped a bitter old age passed in exile. Unhappily,. fate spared them.and removed Cayour, who was still a young man with his work half done.. If. he _ had . survived, it is. possible that the Parliamentary system he created would have endured the immense strain toat thei war and itsconsequences put oh such > systems everywhere, a strain too severe for any but the strongest. .■, "-'.'.V.: ON THEIR, VIEWS. Dr. ; Gooch says justly that the doci trine of Mussolini and his school rest ultimately, on their view of human nature. "The essence of a State," said Treitscke, "is,firstly, power; secondly, power; thirdly, power." Dr. Gooch contrasts with this Burkes description of the State as a partnership in all art, air science, all perfection. It is just because they believe that their view of human nature is truer, that liberals have faith in, the ultimate success of political systems which allow of its free play and exercise. But Dr. Gooch points out that the sphere of conflict is no longer the nation but the world. , For science' has 'thrown mankind into a unity which gives to the relations of States a greater significance than the unity created by the Christian theology of the Middle Ages. ,Or perhaps we may say*that. it has created a world in which civilisation must collapse unless it can bring to life the idea that .underlay the old unity of faith. For a series of national States, each pursuing, its own selfish advantage as its one. exclusive aim,must create in this world just such a confusion and discord as are produced in the State when different classes and different interests so behave. The world just before the war presented in this aspect a spectacle not unlike that which' faced Machiavelli when he looked at Italy four centuries earlier. . From this disorder there are only two methods of escape open to mankind. Machiavelli's remedy would demand a super-Borgia, able to create and control a universal Government, making of the world*.what a successful Borgia might have made of Italy. The alternative is to build up an international order, in which- what we call power-politics are controlled by organised moral force. In the nineteenth century, efforts were made, to substitute some kind of moral power •for the rule of the stronger, by thinkers like Kant and Abbe Saint Pierre, and by statesmen from time of the Tsar Alexander to that of 'Gladstone. The shock of the war gave a new strength to this demand, and the League of Nations, is the result. Its weakness is the inability of many who think themselves sincere in admiring and serving it to grasp all that is implied in it. -Its,main principle is the establishment of-public-law. No more than the law of the States does it demand Christian perfection from all its members. Dr. Gooch has an interesting passage about the difference between public and private morality. "The individual may sacrifice his life; the community must live on. . . . In other words, the action of a Government within cer-, tain limits is determined-by considerations of what we-may call a biological rather than a moral order." But public law must rest ultimately on a general confidence in its justice;, it creates a relationship between those who live under it which is not merely, the relationship between power -on one side and weakness on the other; it implies an active spirit of/ec-operation and sympathy. It may be-doubted whether any statesman today is so ready as Gladstone] was to ask of his nation the sacrifices that such a system- involves. , The most lamentable example of failure is provided by the country whose leader was the most energetic apostle of the ides or tha League and the most active o£ its friends at Paris. For unfortunately neither in America, nor elsewhere had thinkers grasped the full range of the | demand that this evolution was to make\^on human nature, and its sense of property and pride. There, as Dr. Gooch shows, lies the final test for the League.