It is a curious fact that the moral and intellectual interdependence of
States preceded by a long period, that material and economic
independence which I have tried recently to make clear. Nothing is more
contrary to fact than to suppose that any considerable movement of
opinion in Europe can be limited to the frontiers of one nation. Even at
a time when it took half a generation for a thought to travel from one
capital to another, a student or thinker in some obscure Italian, Swiss
or German village was able to modify policy, to change the face of
Europe and of mankind. Coming nearer to our time, it was the work of the
encyclopaedists and earlier political questioners which made the French
Revolution; and the effect of that Revolution was not confined to
France. The ideas which animated it re-acted directly upon our Empire,
upon the American Colonies, upon the Spanish Colonies, upon Italy, and
the formation of United Italy, upon Germany--the world over. These
miracles, almost too vast and great to conceive, were the outcome of
that intangible thing, an idea, an aspiration, an ideal. And if they
could accomplish so much in that day when the popular press and cheap
literature and improved communication did not exist, how is it possible
to suppose that any great ferment of opinion can be limited to one group
in our day, when we have a condition of things in which the declaration
of an English Cabinet Minister to-night is read to-morrow morning by
every reading German?
It should be to our everlasting glory that our political thought in the
past, some of our political institutions, parliamentary government, and
what not, have had an enormous influence in the world. We have some
ground for hoping that another form of political institution which we
have initiated, a relationship of distinct political groups into which
force does not enter, will lead the way to a better condition of things
in Christendom. We have demonstrated that five independent nations, the
nations of the British Empire, can settle their differences as between
one another without the use of force. We have definitely decided that
whatever the attitude Australia, Canada, and South Africa may adopt to
us we shall not use force to change it. What is possible with five is
possible with fifteen nations. Just as we have given to the world
roughly our conception of Parliamentary Government, so it is to be hoped
may we give to the world our conception of the true relationship of
nations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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