A year of prophesying

Name: A year of prophesying
Author: Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)

Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)

Civilization, Modern -- 20th century; Europe -- History -- 20th century; Great Britain -- History -- 20th century

It seems to me that the full exercise of national sovereignty in
Portugal lies at the root of all its present troubles. It is a
convenient specimen, so to speak, of the universal European disease:
the attempt to treat what are now only parts of a system as though
they were still complete wholes. Its absolute independence, instead of
securing its people the full benefits of freedom and all the material
possibilities of the land, is the very thing that keeps the country
dependent upon big international financial and business interests. If
Portugal, instead of standing alone with its colonies to fight the
financial and economic forces of the world, were part of a combine of
States, acting together politically, financially, and economically, it
would be in a far better case than it is at the present time. I have
no doubt in my own mind that if Portugal were a free State in a larger
union in which sovereignty was sufficiently merged to ensure a common
currency, a common inter-State traffic control, free trade at least
within the union, common labour conditions, and a common front to the
speculative forces that are destroying Europe, her outlook would be
vastly different from what it is to-day. She would very speedily cease
to be a land of slovenly and increasingly inaccessible loveliness, and
her people would no longer be the most lamentably wasted nation in
Europe.

And I do not see that such a union is a very remote or improbable
thing. A congress of Latin Pressmen has recently been held in Lisbon,
and beneath a turbid flow of compliments and flatteries there were many
signs of a real and practical recognition of the possibility of, and
the enormous material advantages of, a federation of Latin Europe and
Latin America. There seems to be a growing recognition in Portugal,
Spain, Italy, France, and Latin America of the essential similarity of
the Latin civilisation in all this wide patchwork of States. It may
lead sooner than English-speaking people expect to practical political
co-operation. From the point of view of world civilisation all such
agglomerations of States, that will gradually relax the intensity of
nationalist concentration, are desirable and welcome developments.




                                 XXVI

    RECONSTRUCTION OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM


                                8.3.24

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

A year of prophesyingWells, H. G. (Herbert George)

History

A year of prophesying

Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)

Civilization, Modern -- 20th century; Europe -- History -- 20th century; Great Britain -- History -- 20th century

It seems to me that the full exercise of national sovereignty in
Portugal lies at the root of all its present troubles. It is a
convenient specimen, so to speak, of the universal European disease:
the attempt to treat what are now only parts of a system as though
they were still complete wholes. Its absolute independence, instead of
securing its people the full benefits of freedom and all the material
possibilities of the land, is the very thing that keeps the country
dependent upon big international financial and business interests. If
Portugal, instead of standing alone with its colonies to fight the
financial and economic forces of the world, were part of a combine of
States, acting together politically, financially, and economically, it
would be in a far better case than it is at the present time. I have
no doubt in my own mind that if Portugal were a free State in a larger
union in which sovereignty was sufficiently merged to ensure a common
currency, a common inter-State traffic control, free trade at least
within the union, common labour conditions, and a common front to the
speculative forces that are destroying Europe, her outlook would be
vastly different from what it is to-day. She would very speedily cease
to be a land of slovenly and increasingly inaccessible loveliness, and
her people would no longer be the most lamentably wasted nation in
Europe.

And I do not see that such a union is a very remote or improbable
thing. A congress of Latin Pressmen has recently been held in Lisbon,
and beneath a turbid flow of compliments and flatteries there were many
signs of a real and practical recognition of the possibility of, and
the enormous material advantages of, a federation of Latin Europe and
Latin America. There seems to be a growing recognition in Portugal,
Spain, Italy, France, and Latin America of the essential similarity of
the Latin civilisation in all this wide patchwork of States. It may
lead sooner than English-speaking people expect to practical political
co-operation. From the point of view of world civilisation all such
agglomerations of States, that will gradually relax the intensity of
nationalist concentration, are desirable and welcome developments.




                                 XXVI

    RECONSTRUCTION OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM


                                8.3.24

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

A year of prophesying

A year of prophesying

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