Washington and the Riddle of PeaceWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
Washington and the Riddle of Peace
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Conference on the Limitation of Armament (1921-1922 : Washington, D.C.); Peace; World politics
I have already said that from every country world peace and universal
prosperity will demand a price. The price America will need to pay if
she is to impose her conception of a universal peace upon the world is a
great intellectual effort—an effort of sympathy, an abandonment of some
venerated traditions. And in addition she must nerve herself to what may
seem at first very great financial generosities. France must pay by
laying aside an ancient and cherished quarrel, her glorious and tragic
militarism and the last vestige of her imperial ambition. The thought of
predominance and the thought of revenge must be the German sacrifice.
And Britain also must pay in an altered attitude to those wide
“possessions” of hers inhabited by alien peoples that have hitherto
constituted the bulk of her empire.
The destiny of all the English speaking democracies that have risen now
from being British colonies to semi-independent states seems fairly
clear. They will go on to nationhood; their links to Great Britain,
continually less formal and legal and more and more strongly
sympathetic, will be supplemented by their attraction toward America,
due to affinity and a common character. All the mischief makers in the
world cannot, I think, prevent the Dutch-English of South Africa, the
English-French of Canada, the English-French of Australia, the
English-Scotch of New Zealand, the Americans, this new emancipated
Ireland and Britain, being drawn together at last by all their common
habits of thought and speech, and even by the mellowed memories of their
past conflicts, into a conscious brotherhood of independent but
co-operative nations.
The day has come for the Irish to recognize that the future is of more
value than the past. Even without any other states, this girdle of
English speaking states about the globe could be of a great predominant
association. Within this English speaking circle of peoples a whole
series of experiments in separation, independent action, readjustment,
co-operation and federation have been made in the last century and a
half, and are still going on, of the utmost significance in the problem
of human association.
No other series of communities have had such experiences. No other
communities have so much to give mankind in these matters. The German
coalescences have been marred by old methods of force, methods which
have usually failed in the English cases. Spain and Latin America are at
least half a century behind the English speaking world in the arts and
experience of political co-operation.
But when we turn to India we turn to something absolutely outside the
English speaking world girdle.
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