The ending of Armageddon: or the federal principle as the only basis for international peace,
liberty and prosperity

by Lord Lothian



The greatest disappointment from which mankind has suffered since the Great War has been the
failure of the League of Nations. To `the man on the street' the League symbolized the passionate
desire for the ending of war and the establishment of lasting peace, liberty and prosperity for
both individuals and nations. It was the hope that the last war would be a war to end war which
nerved the courage and endurance of the great majority of men and women in the final stages of the
great struggle.

That hope has for the moment been utterly dispelled. The era of local war, declared and undeclared,
began again in 1931. We are in the midst of the greatest race in armaments ever known, which if it
continues can only lead to universal bankruptcy. And everybody feels that another world war,
fiercer and more ruthless than the last, may break out at any time, either because it is
deliberately provoked or because an accident or a fool may set in motion events which it is beyond
the power of statesmanship to control.

All kinds of explanations are given for the failure of the League to fulfil the hopes which
centered about it. Some attribute it to defects in the Treaties of Versailles, others to the fact
that the League never won universal membership. Some lay the blame on the League powers for not
revising the Treaties of peace justly and in time, others to their unreadiness, when revision by
armed power began, to resist aggression unanimously and immediately with all their strength. Some
say that the failure has been due to the unwillingness to disarm, others to delay and inadequacy of
rearmament when power politics reappeared. Some attribute all our troubles to capitalism, others to
the malignancy of the Dictators and their parties, others again to the treachery or blindness of
democratic statesmen.

All these explanations and criticisms probably have some validity. But they none of them point to
the real cause of the relapse into armaments and war. That cause does not lie primarily in defects
on policy by any nation but in the system of international relationships in which we have tried to
live both before and after the world war. The real cause of our troubles is that the nations are
living in anarchy - by far the most fatal of all political and social diseases - the consequences
of which have been intensified a hundredfold in recent times by the conquest of time and space and
the breakdown of the old Pax Britannica of the nineteenth century. The Covenant of the League of
Nations disguises but does not end anarchy, because, while it is a contract to co-operate, it
leaves intact the root of anarchy, national sovereignty. It has been sovereignty which at bottom
has prevented a liberal and timely revision of out-of-date treaties, which has driven the nations
to a disastrous degree of economic nationalism, which has prevented any effective system of
collective security, and which has led to rearmament as the means to international change and to
the return of the alliance system. Federal Unionists believe that only by dealing with this basic
cause of anarchy, national sovereignty, will it be possible for the world to climb permanently out
of its present distress. And they believe that anarchy cannot be ended by any system of
co-operation between sovereign nations but only by the application of the principle of federal
union. They therefore stand for the adoption of that principle as the only one which can end
competitive armaments and war and remove the economic causes of poverty and unemployment in the
modern world.

Federal Unionists are not opposed to the League of Nations. On the contrary they share entirely the
ideals for which it stands. Nor are they opposed to international co-operation. On the contrary
they support it as a step in the right direction. In theory all the ideals of the League of Nations
could have been accomplished by co-operation. But the reason why co-operation failed after 1918, as
all earlier attempts to create an international co-operative system have failed, is precisely
because they have left national sovereignty intact and because that element operates continuously
and inexorably against the success of co-operation itself. That is why Federal Unionists are
convinced that only by going a step beyond the Covenant and pooling some part of national
sovereignty in a common organism which represents, not the national units or the governments, but
the people of all the member nations as a whole, can the true ends of the League be attained.

The Consequences of Sovereignty

War is inherent in the relations between sovereign states. For when agreement fails the only
instrument by which the sovereign state can defend its existence and its rights or promote its
ends, legitimate or illegitimate, is by a resort to force. This is equally true whether the nations
endeavour to exist in isolation or unite in alliances or accept universal contractual obligations
towards one another such as the Covenant of the League of Nations. Sovereignty implies that the
only instrument to which nations, in the last resort, can use to bring pressure on other sovereign
nations is the violence of power politics or war.

A second consequence of this anarchy of sovereignties is that every state is inevitably driven to
sacrifice the rights and independence of its own citizens in order to increase its own strength in
the struggle for existence. We see this going on all about us today, notably in the demand for
conscription for national defence. This will get worse until for the co-operation or anarchy of
governments is substituted a federal union of the peoples. Leagues of governments are necessarily
concerned with making the world safe for national sovereignty and not either for democracy or the
people.

A third consequence of sovereignty is its effect in producing poverty, unemployment, social
frustration and despair. Sovereignty leads inevitably to economic nationalism, whereby each state
tries to be self-supporting, promotes the interests of its own nationals regardless of the economic
interests of other nations and erects ever-increasing interferences with international trade,
migration and the movement of capital. These artificial barriers and subsidies progressively
dislocate both national and world economy by over-developing the industrial production of every
national area so that there is no balance between the production of food-stuffs, raw material and
manufacturing power either in those national areas or in the world as a whole. Unemployment and
poverty are the inevitable result. This is equally true whether nations maintain an individualist
or a socialist economy. We are not concerned, as Federal Unionists, to take sides in this
controversy. We are only concerned to make it clear that it is sovereignty which is the basic cause
of our economic distresses and that so long as it exists it will be impossible either for
capitalism or socialism or for any variant of them, to work properly. Seventy socialist sovereign
states would find it as difficult to live together in prosperity and peace as seventy capitalist
states have done.

Even from the narrowly national point of view sovereignty is fatal to security, prosperity and
peace. It leads to the frustration of every legitimate national purpose by diverting to armaments
and non-productive activities resources which should be applied to national development and social
reform.

Finally national sovereignty has been the hidden hand which has wrecked the League ideal. For
national sovereignty implies that every nation sets its own interests first, and requires every
individual to obey his own state and not the decisions of the League. The real reason why certain
nations have never joined the League or have abandoned it, why nations have been halfhearted in
living up to their obligations, why they have yielded without stint to economic nationalism, the
most potent of post-war destroyers, and to rearmament, is that every nation puts national interests
before the interests of other nations or of the world as a whole. They do not do this because they
or their statesmen are wicked but because sovereignty implies that they regard their own interests
as paramount and because there is no organism which represents or can speak or act for humanity as
a whole. Until there is an organism representative of all, which can limit armaments and economic
nationalism and act for the benefit of all, every nation will remain bound to provide for its own
security first, and that necessity compels it to put strategic and military considerations ahead of
international justice and fair play. Anarchy necessarily dethrones moral principle in international
affairs in favour of self-interest. It leads not less inexorably to imperialism. For it creates a
constant temptation to powerful armed states to impose their will on their neighbours one by one
until they reach a position of local or world domination in the name of peace. Indeed in an
anarchy, imperalism, or the control of one race by another, either in a relatively benevolent or in
a ruthless form, may be the only way in which the risk of war can be temporarily ended and peace
attained, where federal union is out of reach.

Thus national sovereignty is the root cause of the most crying evils of our time and of the steady
march of humanity back to tragic disaster and barbarism. It is a denial of the brotherhood of man
and of the principle that there ought to be one law or sovereignty, based on moral principle,
uniting and governing the whole earth.
Federal Union The Only Remedy

The only final remedy for this supreme and catastrophic evil of our time is a federal union of the
peoples so that while every nation is completely self-governing in its own internal affairs all the
people are united into a single commonwealth for their common affairs. The principal common affairs
of this commonwealth of man would be order and defence, the regulation of international trade and
migration, citizenship, currency, and some forns of debt and taxation, inter-state communications,
and the administration of the common assets and responsibilities of the federal union. It is for
this principle that the movement known as Federal Union, which has parallel movements in other
democracies, unequivocally stands. It is the only way in which the pacifist ideal can be realized
in practice. It is the only way in which the artificial dislocation of trade and employment by
economic nationalism can be ended, individual and national liberty can be made secure, and war can
be ended among men.

Federal union, however, recognises that the establishment of a world constitution, accomplishing
these blessings, cannot be accomplished at a single step. The commencement of federal union and the
creation of a nucleus of world government is only possible between nations who have a sufficent
unity in spirit, civilization and institutions to enable them to begin to feel that they form a
single community for certain purposes once the appropriate institutions exist. To force
incompatibles into a union would risk substituting civil for international war. It considers,
therefore, that the nucleus should consist of nations which accept the principle that government
must be conducted with the consent of the governed, and who base their political life upon the
freedom and responsibility of the individual. Any nation which accepted these principles and had
demonstrated its capacity to apply them would be entitled to join.

This does not mean that such a federal union of free and responsible peoples should be opposed to
any other nation or group of nations which preferred other systems. It would be willing to
participate in any universal system of co-operation like the League of Nations, especially if it
was equipped with machinery enabling it to limit economic nationalism and for equalizing economic
opportunity and the standard of living among all nations. But federalism being the only true method
of ending international anarchy nations should not refrain from federal union just because others
were not ready for it. Successful federalism must rest upon the acceptance of certain common
principles and free institutions seem to be the only basis for a federal community of nations.

Difficulties and Their Solution

By far the most original and complete plan for a federal union of nations is that put forward early
in 1939 by Clarence K. Streit in his book Union Now. Streit is an American journalist who for many
years was the representative of the New York Times in Europe, and who spent the last eight years at
Geneva. Originally an enthusiastic supporter of the League of Nations as offering the world a
prospect of lasting peace and goodwill, he endeavours to explain in Union Now why the high hopes of
1920 of making the world safe for democracy and of ending war for good have failed. He does not
attribute the disaster to ideologies such as Communism, Fascism or National Socialism, or to the
perversities and ambitions of dictators, or to the failures of democratic statesmen. These have all
been consequences rather than causes. He sees the fundamental cause of our present distresses in
the attempt of the nations to find peace and prosperity while unwilling to give up the root cause
of war and poverty, insistence on their own national sovereignty. Having thus diagnosed the root of
the disease, he proposes as the remedy the pooling of some part of national sovereignty in an
immediate federal union of the fifteen established democracies as the nucleus of what will
eventually grow into a universal system of world government. The democracies he suggests as a
nucleus are the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, France, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New
Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Holland and Belgium. The Commonwealth of
Nations so formed would contain some 250,000,000 people, not including dependencies; it would be
invincible against aggression; so long as it existed world war would probably be impossible because
nobody else could dream of attacking it; the liberties both of its individual citizens and of its
constituent peoples would be secure, and the burden of armaments and the preparation of war would
be enormously reduced. The increase in the prosperity and employment of its inhabitants from the
removal of economic barriers to trade, migration and the movement of capital, whether its economic
policy was capitalist, socialist or some combination of the two, would be immediate and immense.

Let us now consider the practical difficulties in the way of solving the problem of international
anarchy on the federal principle. They are formidable. The first is the challenge of the proposal
to the tradition of national sovereignty, to national pride and custom and to fear of the
consequences of organic union with other peoples. But as between the fore-going peoples at any
rate, these difficulties and risks are small compared with the risks they run so long as they cling
to their own sovereignty- the constant risk of war, of continued unemployment and of national
bankruptcy, to say nothing of the possibility of the triumph of the totalitarian way of life.

The second difficulty is that to confine the Union to the fifteen democracies mentioned above may
draw too exclusive a line. It is clearly impossible to combine in a single federal union
totalitarian dictatorships and democracies. But there are many countries in the world, especially
in Asia and South America and Europe, which are not totalitarian even if they are not fully
democratic and some method of affiliation of these countries with a federal union of democracies
should be found.

A third problem is represented by the so-called colonial question. Clearly no federal union can
accomplish its ideal ends if it is based on imperialism or the permanent political control of one
people by another. A federal union of nations must give a constitutional right to backward peoples,
self-government as soon as they are ready for it, and to take their part as constituent states when
their capacity to assume full responsibility has been proved.

The Federal Constitution

A fourth problem is that of the constitution itself in a federal union of nations. Mr Streit
proposes an ingenious combination of the Parliamentary and the Presidential systems in a
constitution otherwise based on the American model. It is doubtful if it is possible to foresee
today what a federal union of nations will be like. The form of these great historic constructions
emerges red hot from events rather than from the academic drawing board. The real task is to
develop a sense of community and common patriotism among nations, rising above but in no way
undermining the difference and independence of nationality itself - the strongest and within limits
the most creative force in the modern world - and to discover the institutions which will give full
play both to national and to world commonwealth patriotism.

The nature of the problem can, perhaps, best be seen by a brief historical retrospect. Greek
civilisation was developed mainly in the city states of Greece. But the Greeks could not rise above
a city patriotism and the Athenians who thought that public affairs should be directly controlled
by all the citizens, did not believe that a democratic community could be larger than the number of
free citizens who could hear the voice of a single orator. Because Greece was unable to evolve a
national patriotism or the representative institutions appropriate to it, it was in due time
overwhelmed by the totalitarian state of Macedon. The concept of law triumphant over arbitrary will
was developed in the semi-democratic republic of Rome and gradually grew into the majestic Empire
of Rome - whose strength lay precisely in its organisation of the universal reign of law. But the
Romans also seemed unable to conceive of the representative system, and the earlier democratic
elements in their system withered away under the Empire, until the vitality of the heart was eaten
away and the Roman system was destroyed by barbarian invasion from without and petrifaction and new
non-political movements within. The missing representative principle was developed under the
Plantagenets in England and made possible that combination of the reign of law with the principle
that government must be with the consent of the governed, which is the foundation of the
Parliamentary system and made possible democracy on a national scale. The Americans, confronted
with the problem of uniting states which, in separating from Great Britain, had already established
their own sovereignty, discovered the federal principle whereby the powers and functions of
government were divided between states and commonwealth. This discovery made possible the
development of a system of federal union which combined complete state autonomy with democratically
controlled reign of law on a continental scale.

The task today is to create a constitutional construction which represents a step beyond the
present federations of states or provinces, to bring into being a federal union of nations which
will give free play to national differences and feelings and at the same time organically unite all
their inhabitants under a constitutional law which itself will end war, preserve liberty and make
prosperity secure. The essence of federal union is to unite the peoples under a government of laws
and principle rather than of men. The exact nature of that constitution it is impossible to
anticipate. It will spring from the compulsion of events. But that we are being driven toward the
federal solution seems clear from the fact that if the present crisis passes away and an attempt is
made to resuscitate an effective League of Nations, it will be necessary to endow this League with
two powers not now included in the Covenant, if it is to be able to achieve its true ideal. The
first is the power to limit the economic nationalism of its members. The second is the power to
limit their armaments. Yet if any League is to do these things, both of which are essential to
lasting prosperity and peace, it will have to base itself not on the co-operation but on the
organic or federal principle. Finally, language need be no insuperable difficulty, because while
every member nation will have the right to its language, all can agree to learn the same language.

If this federal principle be the only which can solve the urgent and tragic problems of our age
there remains the vital question of time. No doubt the best answer to the problems which
immediately confront us, and the best way of averting world war, of preventing the further
successful aggression by the totalitarian states on the democracies, of restoring individual and
national liberty, and of promoting a quick return to prosperity, would be a federal union of the
democracies now. No one can say when events may not force this method of ending anarchy into the
foreground of practical politics. Nobody dreamt of a League of Nations in 1914. Nobody dreamt of a
Soviet Union, of Fascism, of National Socialism in that year. So now, events may move far more
rapidly than any of us can now conceive. They have moved in the last few months with incredible
speed. The great value of Streit's book and of other works on the subject of federal union is that
when the next crisis in world government occurs public opinion will have before it an unanswerable
analysis of the fundamental cause of its troubles and a clear indication of the basic principle on
which alone enduring peace, liberty and prosperity can be built.

This article was first published in the summer of 1939.