OBSERVATIONS

Northern Advocate, 29 July 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

OBSERVATIONS

* ?*». %%W %

JN these days, when so many viola-

tions of obligations which have been so solemnly entered into are perpetrated apparently with no feelings of shame or responsibility, it seems futile to discuss schemes for the peaceful solution of the world’s problems. However, we must subscribe to Browning’s conviction that goodwill will finally triumph over ill, and accordingly should give consideration to plans which may, at the moment, seem to be on the verge of foolishness. But we must remember that the foolish things may confound the wise things. jQURING my reading this week, I

came across an article written by ■ T , B. Priestley, the well-known British author and journalist, who discusses what he says is “nothing less than a plan for saving the world from disaster.” This plan is called the Federal Union. There has existed for some time a society of that name in London.

fpHIS society has been making

steady progress, but it has recently been given an enormous ally, in the shape of a book. This is Clarence K.

Streit’s “Union Now,” which has proved a tremendous success in America. M R Slreit holds that a much better idea than that of the League of Nations—-and the first step towards a world state—is Federal Union. Suppose, he says, that all the democracies do not merely ally or league themselves but form a federal union, just as the forty-eight states of the U.S.A. form a federal union?

JT is pointed out that the states of

the U.S.A. did not come together m union effortlessly. After the War of Independence, the thirteen states were anything but united. They repre-jn-ted different styles of life and uifferent points of view.

jgACH state had its own currency and

economic system. Each state had its own troops. They erected tariffs against each other. They mobilised on their various frontiers.

J J*HE War of Independence had

brought them together, but the peace turned them into quarrelsome sovereign states again. For ten years little progress was made. It looked as if the colonists had fought in vain. *JpHEY were no better off than be-

fore. Their time and energy were spent in checking and counterchecking each other, not in exploiting and expanding their resources and raising the standard of living.

ten years of this chaos,

brought about by the usual “practical hard-headed” men, the “visionaries” took charge, led by Alexander Hamilton. In 1789 the thirteen state?, accepted federal union, and as other states were created, they automatically became part of the federation.

f'pHE bitter and terrible Civil War

was .ought by Lincoln not, as people here tend to think, on the slavery problem, but chiefly to preserve at all costs this federal system. If the American continent had been occupied during these last hundred years by half-a-dozen or more sovereign states, its progress would not have been a tenth part of what it has been under federal union.

Slreit introduces this historical parallel to spike in advance the guns of those who always cry “Can’t be done!” Let us, he says, see now what the proposal is. It is that the democracies, Britain and Ireland, and the Dominions, United States, France. Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, should form a huge new nation.

•jP'HIS democratic federation would have its own capital, executive, senate, house of representatives, judiciary. It would decide the union’s foreign policy. But not, of course, the domestic policies of each of the federating slates. The union would have its own army, air forces and navy, anc', no others would be allowed within its system.

tJpHE union would set up single

postal and communication systems. It would have one currency throughout. It would abolish all tariffs within the union. All colonies would be pooled, though personal ownership of colonial property would stay as it is. JNCLUDING the inhabitants of the

colonial possessions, the total population of this union would be nearly half the world total of population.

JF the figures of man power are formidable, the figures for natural resources are even more impressive. These combined states already produce 96 per cent, of the world’s nickel, 95 per cent, of the rubber, 73 per cent, of tie iron ore, 72 per cent, of tin, 66 per cent, of oil, and 65 per cent, of coal and raw cotton.

M R Strelt discusses the development of this proposal from all angles, and sums up by saying that the greatest barrier of all will be sheer mulish conservatism, fear of experiment, mistrust of your fellow creatures, dislike of co-operation, wanting to be cock on your dunghill.

fyJEANWHILE, what can the rest of

us do? We can keep before us this noble and fruitful planl We can 'set our" faces,” like' granite* against all policies that encourage mutual suspicion, heighten national sovereignty and continue to spread black chaos.