come in, either voluntarily or compulsorily; and more military power will be needed. Dr. Naumann says that in future international affairs Mid Europe will ultimately be referred 'back to its military strength,' and he points out that in the present war the Central Powers have only just been able to hold their ground; there is no guarantee that in a later stage the same trial could be endured again. He looks forward to a universal system of entrenched frontiers and discusses the military arrangements to be made between the component States of Mittel-Europa. But an essential point is that they shall be Germanized. The Czechs and Magyars, he thinks, will not grudge them Deutschland über Alles. We need this. 'It is our life's blood.'

German discipline and organization are the watchwords.

'Happen what will the German spirit has received its baptism of fire; the national genius was and is a reality. . . . Now it is our concern to carry through to its goal this essential German character, proved in the most sinister of wars. This will and must be set on foot directly peace is concluded. . . . The ideal is and will be the organism and not free will, reason and not the blind struggle for existence. . . . By its means we shall enjoy our golden age as other conquering nations in other ages and with other abilities and excellences have done before us. Our epoch dawns when English capitalism has reached and overstepped its highest point, and we have been educated for this epoch by Friedrich II., Kant, Scharnhorst, etc. Our dead have fallen on the field for the sake of this, our Fatherland. Germany, foremost in the world!'

Dr. Renner, as already intimated, looks forward ultimately to a new International; but it is a long way off. And, meanwhile, his analysis of the actual conditions tends to the same position as Dr. Naumann's, with which he has much in common. His theory of the economy area and the need of extension leads direct to the conception of Mittel-Europa, which he sets out as against the Russian, American, French, and British imperial areas; and in the world of to-day it must be furnished with adequate power since there is no other guarantee for security. The way of the proletariate is the way of agreement, he says, not of force; and as soon as they are free to decide by their own laws of being they will choose it and no other. But the others' still hold the power and lay their law, the law of force, upon history. 'We do not

choose it but we must recognize that it is a way of history, 'though sprinkled with blood and tears. And since the pro'letariate cannot absent themselves from history they must 'travel that way too, though with sorrowful hearts yet with 'watchful mind, so as not to miss the crossing where their own 'road begins.' But Mittel-Europa no more fulfils the requirements of his programme than it satisfies Dr. Naumann; and obviously war was not necessary to establish Mittel-Europa. He lays particular stress on two things which are needed to remove economic dependence. One is the sure command of raw materials; and the other free highways by sea and land with sure access to markets and harbours. The latter, he declares, is the one chief ground of the war; and 'no peace , will be more than a truce, no treaty more than a judgment of first instance, until the establishment of international , road and market rights is recognized as the chief object of peace.' He urges internationalization, but it is to be observed that the cases he mentions-the Channel, Straits of Gibraltar, Suez, Panama, the Swiss passes, Antwerp, the mouths of the Rhine and the Scheldt-are those in which internationalization would benefit Germany at some one else's

cost.

He says nothing about the opposite cases-Kiel and the Baltic, the Austrian and Hungarian mountain passes. His reference to Antwerp is quite in keeping with Pan-German claims. Antwerp, he admits, belongs by title of right to Belgium, but the facts of world-commerce begin to attack 'the title.' The development of the Rhineland has 'gradually 'converted Antwerp into a German harbour in Belgian hands.'

After all this, only a brief reference is necessary to peace and the future. General von Freytag thinks lasting peace neither practicable nor desirable, and the main purpose of his book is to draw lessons from the present war in preparation for the next. Dr. Naumann contemplates a steady preparation for coming wars; for,' before the United States of the world can come into existence there will probably be a very long period during which groups of humanity, reaching beyond the dimensions of a nation, will struggle to direct the fates of mankind.' Dr. Renner's views are to much the same effect. He discusses the future organization of the world for peace at great length, and this is one of the most interesting sections of his book; but it belongs properly to another

subject, for it lies far beyond the range of actual affairs in the region of ideas. He is inclined to think it may eventually be realized half by war and half by agreement. The erection of a supreme supernational power is indispensable; and upon this point he makes a noteworthy observation. A supreme Power may be established in two ways-by war and by voluntary agreement. The former must not be excluded. War has been an instrument of historical progress, of union and peace; witness the Roman Imperium. Therefore it ' is not excluded that in the future, too, the world may find 'its order in the selection by arms and that the power which proves itself the strongest organizer shall also be called by 'history to the greatest work of organization and by right become the supreme Power, the judge, administrator, and law-giver of the peoples.'

No one will be at a loss to name the Power indicated for this lofty destiny, and though Dr. Renner does not expressly advocate that realization of the International, his acquiescence in it as a possible solution is illuminating. It may be asked how far he represents the views of German Socialists. He belongs to an intellectual school, which is more and more dominating the bulk of Socialists and trade unionists. It supplies those ideologies so dear to the German mind and needed by the Majority Socialists to vindicate their own position. Nor is Dr. Renner by any means the most extreme exponent of the school. His companion-in-arms-very much in arms-Dr. Paul Lensch, is a writer of altogether inferior calibre, but he makes up for that by throwing off all disguise and restraint. His line of argument is essentially the same, but he boldly describes the economic development that has led to the war as exclusively German, glories in it and in the conduct of the war, and throws overboard all the old ideals. With him Socialism becomes identified with Germanism.

A. SHADWELL.

THE NAVIGATION ACTS

The Relation between Commercial Legislation and National Defence Historically Considered: A Rhodes Lecture delivered at University College, London, on February 25th, 1918. By W. S. HOLDSWORTH, D.C.L.

A

LITTLE history is a dangerous thing. There is, undoubtedly, grave danger in the modern tendency to ignore the teachings of experience; but there is at least equal danger in the citation of historical precedent when such citation is not accompanied by a comparison of the conditions existing in the past and those under which we have to work to-day. It is not sufficient to show that a particular step taken in the past was followed by certain developments. It is necessary to prove that the relation between that step and those developments was not merely chronological, but was definitely one of cause and effect. And when this relation has been proved, it remains no less necessary to show that the existing situation bears a real analogy to that in which the results in question were produced. Where circumstances remain, broadly speaking, unchanged, the experience of the past may be accepted as a valuable, though not an infallible, guide; but it is of primary importance to remember that a measure which was beneficial at one stage of national development may be ineffective or even injurious at a later stage.

A striking example of the danger involved in a superficial appeal to history is presented by the rather frequent references which have recently been made to the old Navigation Laws as a precedent to be followed in the framing of our post-bellum economy. Exactly how far, or in what form, it is proposed to revive these laws is not always made clear, but it is evident that a good many people regard the general policy which they embodied as capable of successful application to-day, and as affording the only hope for the restoration and future progress of the British mercantile marine. Mr. Peto has told us that the merchant service is founded upon the Navigation

'Laws passed in the time of the Commonwealth';* their partial revival has been discussed at some length in the columns of 'Fairplay'; and Dr. Holdsworth, in a Rhodes Lecture, delivered at University College, London, has held them up as an illustration of the economic policy to which our future legislation must conform.

It is to be noted, however, that few of the present-day admirers of the Navigation Acts are at much pains to explain their scope, their effects, or the circumstances in which they were passed. Dr. Holdsworth, as befits an historian of English law, cites as precedents for the policy he proposes a score of Acts from the time of Richard II. downwards; but even Dr. Holdsworth is generally content to state the purpose of the Acts and assume their success in effecting that purpose, and neither he nor any one of the other advocates for their revival has taken the trouble to explain the very peculiar conditions under which the Cromwellian and Stuart laws were put into operation and to compare them with those under which British shipping must now be carried on.

The purpose of the seventeenth century Navigation Acts was threefold: to foster the development of English shipping and shipbuilding by reserving the carriage of a large portion of the foreign trade to vessels built, owned, and manned by English subjects; to secure a lucrative monopoly for English merchants; to inflict the greatest possible injury upon the Dutch. The objects proposed to-day are very similar-the encouragement of British trade and shipping and the restriction of German commerce. It therefore becomes of particular interest to inquire what success the legislation of the seventeenth century had in the attainment of its ends, and, if it was successful, under what conditions that success achieved.

In seeking to promote the prosperity of English shipping the statesmen of the seventeenth century were actuated by considerations of national defence even more than by the hope of commercial prosperity. Armed merchantmen were still taken into the line of battle, privateering played an important part in naval operations, and in the absence of any permanent naval establishment the fighting fleet drew

* 'Hansard,' Vol. XC., No. 9, 21.2.17, col. 1406.