This dependence and the precariousness of Europe's industrial
position, added to the fact that with an effort and some amount
of goodwill the peoples of Europe could grow to understand one
{107}
another, especially in view of their common debt to the Roman
heritage, make it unthinkable that what is practically civil war
can be tolerated much longer in Europe. Before 1914 the Labour
Movement was clearly working towards the weakening of the
idea of the nation-state and its sovereignty, but the events of
1914 showed that the movement had not yet gained a real hold
on men's imagination. The new League of Nations movement
is an evidence of development of the same line of thought among
the thinkers of the Continent, and is slowly gathering momentum
through the creation of institutions with laws for their guidance,
and the promise of the growth of a body of lawyers as interested to
maintain those institutions as the lawyers of the nation-states have
been to maintain that form of organization. The League has had
to take up the question of the relations of Europe to distant lands,
and has stood for a principle of trusteeship, the fate of which is
trembling in the balance. The more hopeful Europeans see signs
of the growth of co-operation, and find indications of it even as
between France and Germany. Britain is torn between the
attitudes of solidarity with Europe and of aloofness from Europe
and association with distant lands of English speech. Perhaps
the improvement of the League of Nations scheme or its
transformation after discussions with the leaders of the United States
of America will give a means to put an end to this dilemma by
reconciling both aims.
Therein lies one of the greatest hopes for the salvaging of
civilization, though Britain's other problem of rescuing her
population from degenerative tendencies due to industrialism is
as clamant for solution if the world's peace is to develop. That
industry should spread, that every people should maintain an
agricultural background, and that the peoples of Europe should
find means to co-operate in matters of imports from the tropics,
transport arrangements, and labour conditions, must be the hope
of all who think of the future seriously, even if this means the
{108}
discarding of ambitions of power which in less critical times
disguised themselves under the cloak of patriotism. This does
not mean the destruction of patriotism, but rather its ennoblement
into a passion for the well-being and the health of future
generations of the people, for the enrichment of each heritage
of language, literature, tradition, and art by active effort, and for
the growth of that toleration which is the accompaniment of
self-control and its attendant liberty and peace.
[NOTE.--The writer wishes to express his most sincere thanks to
his friends and fellow workers in the fields of research concerned,
especially to Miss R. M. Fleming and Mr. H. J. E. Peake, and
the late Professor V. Giuffrida-Ruggeri.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account