Principle of national solidarity What is a nation? Nation and state CHAPTER IV NATIONALISM 1 A SECOND great principle of politics, which in modern times has been even more important than the first, has been stated as follows: "It is in general a necessary condition of free institutions that the boundaries of governments should coincide in the main with those of nationalities." Any profitable discussion of this proposition, as of most propositions in politics, must begin with the definition of terms. Indeed few words in political terminology have been used more vaguely, and through their indefiniteness have brought more confusion into the modern world, than nation and its derivatives, nationality and nationalism. The international lawyer ordinarily uses the term nation as equivalent to state. It is so used in the Covenant of the League of Nations, though the nations which, in addition to the original members of the League, are eligible for membership are more precisely defined as "fully self-governing states, dominions, or colonies." Lawyers and diplomats alike use the term national as a convenient substitute for the longer and awkward expression, citizen or subject of a state. In common parlance also nation is freely used as a synonym for state, or in the United States to designate the Union of States as a political entity distinct from the States in the Union. The popular American use of the term has, indeed, the sanction of authoritative usage in at least one important 1 J. S. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, Chapter XVI. modern state. The official designation for the Argentine Republic, deliberately employed in the Constitution of that state, is the Argentine Nation. The preamble explicitly affirms that the Constitution was ordained by the representatives of the people of the Argentine Nation. But this use of the term is open to the objection that it wastes a word which is useful and may be conveniently used for designating a different concept from that of the state. race The etymology of the word, nation, indicates an asso- Nation and ciation originally with the idea of birth or race. Doubtless when the word was first used, the members of a nation were supposed to be the descendants of a common ancestor, as the Jews were reported to have sprung from Abraham. But modern anthropologists and ethnologists have not succeeded in classifying mankind upon the evidences of relationship by blood, so as to enable the political scientist to identify nations with particular races. The division of mankind into dolichocephalic and brachycephalic throws no light on contemporary problems of nationality. Long heads and round heads may be found in every country. Huxley's classification of mankind into Xanthochroic or fair white, Melanochroic or dark white, Mongoloid or yellow and red, Negroid or black, and Australoid takes into account certain superficial differences among men, color of skin, hair, and eyes, texture of hair, shape of skull, and character of features. The republic of Liberia is actually organized in accordance with this classification of races. None but negroes may take part in its government. But such a classification does not simplify the problem of home rule in Ireland or selfdetermination in India. In a world where mulattoes, mestizos, and zambos seem to be increasing and capable of perpetuating themselves, the political scientist needs a better definition of race than that which depends mainly on color. Untenability of The subdivision of a portion of the whites into the ethnological Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean races has proved theories of serviceable to propagandists seeking catchwords to popunationality larize their proposals, but it is not until such divisions of subdivisions are reached as Teutonic, Celtic, Slavic, etc., that the consciousness of racial affinity becomes a considerable factor in politics. Yet every well-informed ethnologist knows how little scientific value such concepts have in explaining the nationalist movements of nineteenth century politics. The Dutch and the Flemish have not cared to participate in the Pan-German movement, though sufficiently Teutonic. The Czechs, the Slovaks, the Serbs, the Poles, and the various divisions of Russians, to say nothing of minor groups such as the Ruthenians, the Croats, and the Slovenes, are all Slavic, but pan-Slavism has left most of them comparatively cold. The Swedes, the Norwegians, and the Danes have drifted apart, though all Scandinavians and once politically united. Anyone can observe the mixture of breeds that is taking place in America. The same process has occurred everywhere over and over again. Should an Englishman be classed (1) as a Celt together with Irishmen, both Sinn Feiners and Ulsterites, because the original inhabitants of England, the ancient Britons, were Celts, or (2) as a Teuton together with Saxons, Prussians, and other Germans, on account of the invasions of the Angles and Saxons, or (3) merely as British together with Scotchmen and Welshmen, or (4) perhaps as Scandinavian on account of Danish incursions and the Norman Conquest? The definition of a nation by Burgess It is evident that no definition of a nation, which has its essence in ties of race, can serve the needs of the political scientist. The definition by Burgess,1 for example, "A population of an ethnic unity, inhabiting a territory of a geographic unity, is a nation," must be summarily 1 Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law, Vol. 1, p. 1. rejected, at least so much of it as relates to ethnic unity. It was an unscientific product, of an age which thought it had discovered some mysterious political magic in men of Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic blood. But when, to borrow Tagore's vivid phrase,' "the West in the voice of her thundering cannon had said at the door of Japan, Let there be a nation . . . and there was a nation," it became impossible longer to regard political aptitude as a racial heritage. If some nations have been more successful than others in modern international contests, the explanation must be sought elsewhere than in the fancied superiority of any supposititious "ethnic unity." The latter part of Burgess's definition, emphasizing the Strategic geographical aspects of nationality, is no more tenable frontiers than the former. What are the natural boundaries of a "geographical unity"? One answer is, that natural boundaries mean strategic frontiers. For some Englishmen the menace of an Irish base for hostile aggression against Great Britain was a sufficient reply to the plea for the independence of Ireland. But such Englishmen do not deny the existence of a separate Irish nationality. In the opinion of some Frenchmen the Rhine frontier was the only adequate security against a revival of German power. But such Frenchmen do not assert that the Germans living west of the Rhine are French. In the opinion of some Italians, the line of the Alps and the eastern shore of the Adriatic were indispensable for the safety of their state. But there is no relation between such frontiers and the boundaries of any "ethnic unity" recognizable either by Italians, Germans, Jugo-Slavs, or Albanians. In the opinion of some Americans, the possession of the Hawaiian Islands was necessary for the protection of the Pacific Coast. Were the native inhabitants of those 1 Rabindranath Tagore, “Nationalism in the West," The Atlantic Monthly, March, 1917. Economic selfsufficiency Subjective theory of islands a part of the American nation? Strategic frontiers evidently do not coincide with the boundaries of nations. They cannot define what is meant by a geographical unity. Natural boundaries have also been defined as those necessary and proper for securing the economic independence and self-sufficiency of a body of people. This seems to have been the thought of one of the earliest and greatest of the German nationalists, Fichte. In his earlier political writings he expressed the opinion that a nation should possess such boundaries as would ensure the supply from domestic sources of all the necessaries and customary comforts of life.1 International trade should be a superfluous luxury. However practical such a policy may have been under the simpler conditions of ruder times, it need not be seriously considered to-day. The development of modern industry and commerce has gone too far along the road of the international division of labor and exchange of products. The automotive industries, for example, could not exist without rubber, petroleum, and steel, which no single country produces in the requisite proportions. Fichte himself in his later political writings abandoned the idea that the boundaries of nations should coincide with those of self-sufficient economic areas.2 There is no good reason for trying to revive it. The effort to identify a nation with either an ethnical unity or a geographical unity, to say nothing of trying to identify it with both together, has failed to explain the nationalist forces in modern politics. Such objective tests of nationality do not fit the facts. The transition from an objective to a subjective theory nationality of nationality can be illustrated by two passages from the first inaugural address of America's greatest nationalist, 1 See especially his "Der Geschlossene Handelsstaat." |