principle which governed relations within the family: the common
interests of the grouped families, the tribe, must prevail over the
separate and conflicting interests of the separate families; that which
disrupted the tribe was wrong, while that which strengthened and
consolidated it was right. Thus tribal morality was established. The
next step was taken as tribes grouped themselves together and became
a nation, and morality extended so as to include all who were within
the nation; that which disrupted the nation was wrong, and that which
consolidated and strengthened it was right. Thus national morality was
established. Further than that, utilitarian morality has not progressed,
and international relations have not yet been moralised; they remain
in the savage state, and recognise no moral law. Germany has boldly
accepted this position, and declares formally that, for the State,
Might is Right, and that all which the State can do for its own
aggrandisement, for the increase of its power, it may and ought to do,
for there is no rule of conduct to which it owes obedience; it is a law
unto itself. Other nations have not formularised the statement in their
literature as Germany has done, but the strong nations have acted upon
it in their dealings with the weaker nations, although the dawning
sense of an international morality in the better of them has led to
the defence of international wrong by "the tyrant's plea, necessity".
The most flagrant instance of the utter disregard of right and wrong as
between nations, is, perhaps, the action of the allied European nations
against China--in which the Hun theory of "frightfulness" was enunciated
by the German Kaiser--but the history of nations so far is a history of
continual tramplings on the weak by the strong, and with the coming to
the front of the Christian white nations, and their growth in scientific
knowledge and thereby in power, the coloured nations and tribes, whether
civilised or savage, have been continually exploited and oppressed.
International morality, at present, does not exist. Murder within the