The Main Illusions of Pacificism A Criticism of Mr. Norman Angell and of the Union of Democratic Control (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Main Illusions of Pacificism: A Criticism of Mr. Norman Angell and of the Union of Democratic Control The object of this present book, therefore, is to awaken the public mind, and especially the Liberal and Labour mind, to the need for a clear policy, in national defence as in diplomacy, without provoca tion, but without weakness. Its aim is to expose that faint-hearted idea which underlies so much of our vague peace-talk, that a democracy can only refrain from aggression by keeping itself powerless. So long as armies are needed at all, no democracy can hold its own, in the long run, unless the main force of the state he in a People's Army. Its con stitution must be settled by the people; meanwhile, however, we can see such armies actually at work in Switzerland and Norway; and such is the ideal also of the continental democracies. The delusion, too widespread in Britain, that French socialists looked upon their campaign against the three years as a step towards the Voluntary System, rests upon ignorance, not only of J aures's book, but of the whole continental outlook.* In the spring of 1914, and again in September 1915, Parisians of every shade of political thought assured me that Frenchmen treated Voluntary Military Service scarcely more seriously than Voluntary Taxation. Here, then, is a clear practical issue, which renders it worth while to expose, not only Mr. Angell's vagueness and want of logic, but also his extraordinary blunders, and the dis ingenuous methods by which he has attempted to conceal them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.