In the Fourth Year: Anticipations of a World PeaceWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Philosophy
In the Fourth Year: Anticipations of a World Peace
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Democracy; League of Nations; World War, 1914-1918 -- Peace
Such cases are highly probable, and no large, vague propositions about
the "self-determination" of peoples can meet all the cases. In
Macedonia, for instance, there is a jumble of Albanian, Serbian,
Bulgarian, Greek and Rumanian villages always jostling one another and
maintaining an intense irritation between the kindred nations close at
hand. And quite a large number of areas and cities in the world, it has
to be remembered, are not homogeneous at all. Will the great nations of
the world have the self-abnegation to permit a scattered subject
population to appeal against the treatment of its ruling power to the
Supreme Court? This is a much more serious interference with sovereignty
than intervention in an external quarrel. Could a Greek village in
Bulgarian Macedonia plead in the Supreme Court? Could the Armenians in
Constantinople, or the Jews in Roumania, or the Poles in West Prussia,
or the negroes in Georgia, or the Indians in the Transvaal make such an
appeal? Could any Indian population in India appeal? Personally I should
like to see the power of the Supreme Court extend as far as this. I do
not see how we can possibly prevent a kindred nation pleading for the
scattered people of its own race and culture, or any nation presenting a
case on behalf of some otherwise unrepresented people--the United
States, for example, presenting a case on behalf of the Armenians. But I
doubt if many people have made up their minds yet to see the powers of
the Supreme Court of the League of Nations go so far as this. I doubt
if, to begin with, it will be possible to provide for these cases. I
would like to see it done, but I doubt if the majority of the sovereign
peoples concerned will reconcile their national pride with the idea, at
least so far as their own subject populations go.
Here, you see, I do no more than ask a question. It is a difficult one,
and it has to be answered before we can clear the way to the League of
Free Nations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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