6
Federal Union
Federal Union was an organization formed in the autumn of 1938 in the midst
of European crisis by three young men, Derek Rawnsley, Charles Kimber and
Patrick Ransome. Rawnsley and Kimber were the originators of an effort to
prevent war by a reform of the League of Nations. They wanted to promote
the creation of a European-wide organization with sufficient power to control
the nation-states. In their estimation, national sovereignty had got out of hand
and it would only be through some wider form of union that peace would be
assured in the world. They called their embryonic organization Pax Union but
when Patrick Ransome joined he persuaded them to change the name to Federal
Union.
Rawnsley and Kimber had known virtually nothing of federalism, federal
theory or federations until Ransome enlightened them. A former student of
international law under Hersch Lauterpacht at Cambridge and a student of
Harold Laski's at the London School of Economics, Ransome was well-versed
in federalism and quickly persuaded Rawnsley and Kimber that they should
adopt that political form as their major goal. Within a few weeks an initial
pamphlet had been drafted, a statement of aims drawn up and an impressive
band of backers and associates had been attracted to their ideal. A research
department was established in late 1939 with the help of Sir William Beveridge,
Master of University College, Oxford, and meetings were soon being
held of various experts to discuss the economic, constitutional and colonial
questions raised by a federal solution of the world's ills. This research department
was reconstituted as the Federal Union Research Institute in March 1940
with Beveridge as director and Ransome as secretary. A series of federal tracts
were prepared and eventually published.1 Meanwhile, contributions were
invited for a discussion of the principles of federalism and these appeared in
early 1940 as Federal Union: A Symposium, edited by Melville ChanningPearce.2
Two annual reports of the research institute comprising the working
memoranda and comments of the expert committees were circulated in August
1940 and August 1941.3 Along with the Federal Union News and a number of
individual contributions by its members this varied material represents the
core of Federal Union thinking on the adaptation of the federal idea to the reso-
104
lution of European and world problems as of the late 1930s and the early
1940s.
The organization had enormous popular success in the early months of the
war and hundreds of local branches were formed with thousands of individual
supporters. The appeal was primarily to the young and to those who had survived
the horrors of the `war to end all wars' convinced that the power of the
nation-states must be curbed for the common good. As the war dragged into
its third year, Federal Union lost many of its young supporters to the armed
forces and most of its leadership to government service. From the summer of
1941 its efforts were minimal, but a residue of commitment survived the war
and is still active in the Federal Trust and the Lothian Foundation of today.
Federal Union was born against a background of gathering tension and
increasing aggression and the clear failure of the League of Nations to resolve
the various crises confronting it. There was a general appreciation that the
nation-state, certainly in its European form, was out of control and that the
existing international apparatus designed to mute friction between states had
proved ineffectual. Men like Lothian, Curtis, Bertrand Russell, H.G.Wells and
Leonard Woolf had periodically called for a rethinking of the approach to the
resolution of the world's problems. Lothian and others had claimed the primary
cause of contemporary instability was national sovereignty. Something
had to be done to control or curb or leash it. To Lothian and Curtis the obvious
answer had been federation, preferably a transatlantic one involving the
United States, but certainly one involving the democracies. It was not surprising,
therefore, that when Rawnsley and Kimber initially sent out personal letters
to some 500 individuals whom they had identified as interested or
involved in international affairs that Lothian and Curtis should have been recipients,
nor that they responded quickly.
Lothian and Curtis rapidly became two of the principal advisors and counsellors
of the three young men whose concern and ideals appealed to them and
reminded them of their younger selves in the earlier heady days of the `kindergarten'
and of the Round Table movement. In fact, Curtis wanted to have a
relationship to Rawnsley, Kimber and Ransome similar to the one that Milner
had had to the `kindergarten' when it was founding the movement. Lothian
and Curtis were to be very helpful to Federal Union in its early days but there
soon developed a strong difference of opinion between the older and younger
men. Lothian did write an initial pamphlet for Federal Union but he wanted
the group to adopt the title `Federal Union Now' in support of the American,
Clarence Streit, whose book Union Now: A Proposal for a Federal Union of
the Democracies of the North Atlantic had first been published in March 1939
and had quickly sold in the tens of thousands on both sides of the Atlantic.4
The three founders of Federal Union had resisted because they believed that
the organization should aim at a European federation in the first instance
rather than a transatlantic one. Curtis finally broke with Federal Union in 1941
in order to take up the cause of world-wide federation.5
Despite this rupture there was a considerable link between the ideas of the
FEDERAL UNION 105
elder statesmen of the Round Table and the young federalists of the late 1930s
and early 1940s. Both agreed that war could only be prevented if national
sovereignty were curbed within the framework of a wider union. Both preferred
a federal solution because it was the one political/constitutional
arrangement that enabled two levels of sovereignty to coexist within a single
form--one at the supranational level and the other at the national level. They
also shared a commonality of opinion on the nature of the state and the mutual
obligations of the citizens within the state. For them the state existed for the
citizens, not the citizens for the state. Lothian and Curtis adhered deeply, of
course, to the `principle of the commonwealth' and both, although for slightly
different reasons, believed federation was a commonwealth in constitutional
form. Lothian had also had a deep abhorrence of the excesses of national
sovereignty since the early years of the century and his experiences during the
war, as one of Lloyd George's secretaries, and at the Paris Peace Conference,
and in the years since, had simply confirmed him in his earlier convictions.
Where they differed, however, was in their approaches. Rawnsley, Kimber and
Ransome wanted a European-based federation while Lothian forever hankered
after a transatlantic one. He found Streit's scheme compelling while the others
did not. For his part, Curtis thought Federal Union should undertake a public
campaign to raise awareness about the merits of federalism rather than
espouse particular proposals which the expert committees were prone to do.
What strikes the reader very soon after starting to sort through the literature
and the ideas generated by Federal Union is that in a few short months more
probing attention was given to the federal idea and its implications for economic
and political arrangements than at any previous time in British history.
Under the threat of war and during the early years of World War II minds
were highly concentrated on the federal solution in a way not achieved even at
the height of the Anglo-Irish imbroglio or of Anglo-dominion tension. It was
clear that while the general public might have only a passing awareness of
federalism there were individuals in British society who not only had such
knowledge but who had already begun to think and write about the federal
idea. The Federal Union organization offered them an opportunity to explore
the concept with other like-minded or, at least, open-minded individuals in an
intense hot-house atmosphere, productive of imaginative thinking and probing
analysis. Most admitted that world federation, even European federation, or a
federation of democracies, was not imminent but they were agreed that the
world had reached an impasse in its constitutional arrangements. The nationstate
had at one time been a bold and stabilizing development in an age of
competing groups, regions and monarchies. Now it was acting as those earlier
smaller units had done with little thought for the larger whole and with paranoid
aggression in every sphere. It was clear to them that the world must
move on to a wider-ranging form of international unity. Cooperation seemed
to have failed. The confederate underpinnings of the League of Nations system
had proved as vulnerable as those of the United States in the early 1780s.
What was necessary was a systematic analysis of the economic and constitu-
106 FEDERAL BRITAIN
tional implications of federal union. And since many of the potential members
of a new federal order were imperial powers with colonial possessions it
would be essential to explore how those colonies would be managed and what
arrangements would be made to ensure their full economic and constitutional
development. All these questions, and others, were tackled by Federal Union
during its first two years--the heyday of its existence.
The first major publication to receive the support of Federal Union,
although not considered by it to be an official statement of its views, was The
Case for Federal Union, published as a Penguin Special in the autumn of
1939 and written by W.B.Curry, the headmaster of Dartington Hall School in
Devon.6 It was a cogent, eloquent, passionate cry for `a sanely organized
world order' free of the continuous preparation for mutual slaughter where
liberty and diversity could be combined with effective government. Curry
argued that the solution was federal union, beginning with the democracies but
ultimately extending over the whole world.7 While he had thought about the
problems associated with rampant national sovereignty for many years, he had
not been moved to write until he had read Clarence Streit's Union Now.
Impressed by Streit's proposals and convinced that `if the leading democracies
could be persuaded to federate...they could become the nucleus of a democratic
world order', Curry hurried to add his voice to those in Federal Union
who were arguing `that peace is not a matter of good intentions, but that it can
only result from effective ordering of the common affairs of mankind'.8
Curry pointed out that war always wreaked a devastating toll and since science
had recently drawn nations closer together, making of them a community,
it was doubly imperative to achieve lasting peace through federal world
government. Curry argued that the root cause of war lay with the rivalries and
aggressive postures of nation-states and the consequent fostering of unthinking
nationalism. Clearly, the power of the nation-state to wage war virtually at
will had to be eliminated or, at least, controlled. This would mean the curbing
of sovereignty for, as Curry put it, `Whatever may have been its utility in the
past, the sovereign State has now become an unmitigated nuisance, wasting
our lives and frustrating our hopes. While it continues to exist and make its
preposterous claims, mankind has no hope of a peaceful or even a tolerable
existence.'9 Nevertheless, Curry realized that any new world order had to be
based on democratic principles that protected both the interests of the individual
and those of the nation-state.
As an indispensable minimum. Curry argued, the national states would have
to relinquish certain powers; they would have to, first, hand over to a world
government the independent control of foreign policy; second, there would
have to be a pooling of all armed forces; third, the economic relations between
states would have to be governed by the world community; fourth, international
finance would have to be brought under world control; fifth, the problem
of colonies would have to be handed over to the world government, as
would, sixth, the control of international communications; seventh, there
would have to be international control of currency; eighth, the international
FEDERAL UNION 107
migration of peoples would have to be placed under the control of a world
government; and, ninth, the world community would have to ensure the free
movement of information and ideas in order to create an informed and alert
world citizenry.
What form should such a world government take? Curry quickly rejected
the confederal League of Nations as too much constrained by the powers of
the nation-state and he soon dismissed a world super-state because it would
involve almost complete surrender of autonomy by the nation-states. To
Curry, the only reasonable solution was a federal arrangement which at one
and the same time would allow the `world' government to have sovereignty in
key supranational areas while ensuring the sovereignty of the individual
nations in internal national affairs. Neither level of government would have
the right to interfere with the functions or powers of the other. Moreover, each
level of government would be directly elected by, and thus directly responsible
to, the voters in each nation-state. A `world' government under the federal
model would therefore govern directly, as would a `national' government.
Thus under a federal system each citizen would have dual citizenship of her/
his own state and of the wo rid-wide federal union.
Curry pointed out that
A federal system is the logical application to the whole world of liberal
democratic government, already discovered by mankind to be the only way
of combining liberty with order. By assuming control over those matters
that concern mankind as a whole, the federal government gains all the
advantages of a world super-state. By retaining separate national governments,
having authority in those matters of mainly local concern, we retain
local diversity and maximize liberty. By making the individual a citizen
with democratic rights both in his national state and in the federal area as a
whole, we develop loyalties to the federal union which make it unlikely
that serious conflict between a single state and the federal government will
arise.
By defining, in terms of a constitution, the areas of government respectively
under the control of national and federal government, we retain constitutional
safeguards for the Rights of Man. By setting up a federal government,
which acts directly upon individuals, and not upon nations, we
make law enforcement possible without resort to anything resembling warfare.
Because law enforcement is possible, because justice is secured in
advance, because under this system State aggression becomes unthinkable,
total disarmament, save for local police forces, becomes not an idle dream
but the simple common-sense of the system we have set up. The union of
free men for the preservation of their liberties and the fostering of their
common purposes is the basis of democracy. Federal Union is the doctrine
that enables us to apply throughout the world the only system of government
which has hitherto proved either tolerable or durable.10
108 FEDERAL BRITAIN
Curry recognized that world government was some way off and that considerable
educational efforts would need to be made in order to effect so radical a
shift from traditional ways of conducting international affairs. Nevertheless, he
believed a start could be made, if not with the fifteen states suggested by
Streit, then by another small grouping of European and/or transatlantic countries.
The first step to that end might, he thought, be a convention analogous
to that convened in Philadelphia in 1787.
Curry's book was a timely cri de coeur and it sold rapidly to thousands of
people fearful of war and desperately anxious for any solution of the world's
ills that would lead to permanent peace. Curry was clearly fully familiar with
the essence of federalism and the crucial division of sovereignty as the heart
of the system. His suggestions were therefore in keeping with a `true federation'
as opposed to devolutionary or home rule schemes but he did not engage
in a full-scale analysis of the application of a federal system to the world's
affairs nor did he explore the ramifications of such a system in the economic,
social and religious realms. He did address some of the questions often asked,
such as why not socialism rather than federalism? What of the USSR? And
what of India and China? But his answers did not open up in any systematic
fashion an analysis of federalism.
The first tract written for Federal Union was `Peace by Federation' by Sir
William Beveridge.11 Unlike Curry, Beveridge was firmly of the opinion that
`the federal principle is not now, if it ever will be, applicable to world government'.
Instead, he recommended a federation of the western European countries
of Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden,
Finland, Switzerland and Eire plus the four self-governing dominions of
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In the main, the area was
limited and therefore manageable and the countries to a large extent shared a
common culture, comparable standards of life, close economic relations and
all but one, Germany, were democratic. Beveridge argued that Germany would
have to be included in order to ensure peace, while the dominions should be
included because `Britain could not go into a European federation turning her
back upon the British Commonwealth'. Anyway, the experience of the dominions
in working democratic and federal systems would be invaluable. Beveridge,
like others in Federal Union, wondered about India but concluded it
could not be brought in because it would distort the federation if representation
was to be based on population. Perhaps it would be possible for India to
have a special relationship with both Britain and the federation. It was obvious
from this that Beveridge and his colleagues had still not come fully to grips
with the imponderables inherent in Britain remaining a colonial power nor
with the difficulties posed by states of varying size and political temper.
Beveridge was clear, however, that his federation should follow the American
example in the division of powers. Named powers should be given to the
federal government and everything neither transferred to the federal level nor
reserved to the people by constitutional guarantees should be left to the
national governments. Beveridge suggested the key federal powers should be
FEDERAL UNION 109
defence, foreign policy, dependencies, currency, trade and migration. The federal
legislature should have two houses, one based on population and chosen
directly by the citizens and one with equal or nearly equal representation of
the separate states. A federal executive should be responsible to the federal
legislature and there should be a federal judiciary.
Beveridge pointed out that while federalism was unfamiliar in Britain, its
problems had been the subject of intense study and practical experiment for
generations elsewhere. Problems had proved capable of solution, as they arose,
in existing federations and so, he suggested, would they in a wider setting.
The new departure now was federation across long-established national boundaries.
He, for one, was convinced that it was the only possible means of securing
peace and world order. Responding to widespread criticism that such a
scheme was Utopian, Beveridge claimed it was based on harsh realities but he
did admit that it could be seen as Utopian because it implied a vision of the
world different from the one they now lived in. Perhaps, he defiantly argued,
it needed to be Utopian because `the choice is between Utopia and Hell'.
Beveridge's dramatic and defiant claim was made in response to a telling
critique by J.Middleton Murry, `Pre-conditions of Federal Union', published in
early 1940 in a book of essays addressed to the adherents and critics of Federal
Union.12 Murry acknowledged that the difficulties in the way of achieving
some form of international federal union were not insuperable but they were
far more formidable than many enthusiastic advocates appreciated. The most
troubling as far as he was concerned was the economic difficulty. Murry was
convinced that the creation of a large free trade area would create acute distress,
unleashing socially disruptive forces that would compound the development
of `the fantastic and macabre nationalism' that international federation
was designed to ameliorate and overcome. Unless Federal Union recognized
the absolute necessity of suspending free trade within the federated area and
establishing central control of industrial production and distribution, it was
bound to fail. Without the resolution of economic difficulties, `the most extravagant
and bellicose forms of exclusive nationalism' would result. Until Federal
Union realistically investigated the problem and proposed an appropriate solution,
it would be little more than `the latest refuge for escapist idealism' offering
not much more than `a Utopian scheme'.13
Similar criticisms were levelled at Federal Union from inside the civil service.
Federal Union had drawn the attention of the British Foreign Office as a
result of its advocacy of European federation. In particular, its involvement
with a possible Anglo-French union in the early months of 1940 had aroused
general comment in the Office. The eventual failure of the British overture to
France in June 1940 could not be laid at the door of Federal Union but the
impressions formed at that time underlined the difficulties the proponents of
the federal idea were to face.14
A memorandum on Federal Union was prepared in the Foreign Office in
April 1940.15 It was factually accurate but caustically dismissive, suggesting
110 FEDERAL BRITAIN
that much of Federal Union writing suffered from `inebriated optimism' and
vagueness while the organization was overhung with
an opaque miasma of belief in the perfectibility of man. This humanitarian
enthusiasm is most regrettable, and it is aggravated by a tendency...evident
in most of the English authors (chiefly Sir William Beveridge) to invest
with the rubber stamp of God the purely political theories which they
expound.... Sir William ends his pamphlet with the words The Choice is
between Utopia and Hell'.... Most of the writers on Federal Union claim to
be inspired, but they are all in fact merely distended with their own conceits.
It is this which makes their works, for the most part, so infinitely
tedious to read. And their empty conceit has a practical consequence. For
the verdict of history has not been kind in the long run and sometimes even
in the short run to those who believe, like Oxford Groupers, that they are
divinely guided. Unless Federal Union can purge itself of this element it
will not easily catch the popular imagination, nor having done so will it be
able for long to put its theories into practice. It would be a pity if the purge
did not take place, because the theory in itself has many attractions.
Writers such as Beveridge and Curry were easy targets and left themselves
open to such patronizing criticism, but the cynical dismissal of their `humanitarian
enthusiasm' was in itself revealing of the blinkered national perspectives
that Federal Union had to overcome. As Orme Sargent, the permanent
under-secretary in the Office, had earlier remarked, the `idea of the Federation
of Europe can make its appeal to public sentiment so long as it appears only
as a vague Eldorado about the details of which we need not bother our heads
at present'. Even he recognized, however, that the application of the federal
idea to a concrete case such as Anglo-French union would demand more detail
and `a considerable amount of education'.16 One of his colleagues agreed and
made a further telling point:
Thinking in this field seems to be dominated by a desire to work out complex
logical frameworks which have, perhaps, the merit of looking shipshape
and being--abstractly--workable. In no instance does a proposed
organization for mankind appear to be based on a careful observation of
what the peoples in question really feel about each other, or of what their
range of sentiments consist of. A marriage will not last merely in virtue of
an initial ceremony and a system of laws governing the relationship. A real
desire to maintain this relationship and a sufficiently compatible background
and set of sentiments is a sine qua non for success. Exactly the
same comments apply with even greater force to any arrangement for
Union between countries.17
The criticisms levelled at Federal Union by Middleton Murry and certain officials
in the Foreign Office were generally sound and certainly isolated the ferFEDERAL
UNION 111
vour and idealism that were such a marked dimension of its activities. Nevertheless,
such criticisms did not provide a fair insight into the work of Federal
Union. As Patrick Ransome pointed out, unless the proposal for federation
across national boundaries was `accompanied by a thorough and careful investigation
of the many technical considerations which its adoption would
involve' it would `become yet another dream of the idealists, unacceptable
because ill-considered, and dangerous because of its avoidance of reality'.18
Accordingly, a research department was established at Oxford in late 1939
with Beveridge as director and Ransome as secretary.19 Three research committees
were then set up to examine the economic, constitutional and colonial
aspects of an international federation. These committees were active into the
early months of 1941 and their deliberations resulted in key problems being
explored systematically for the first time in the United Kingdom. When their
discussions were ended by the press of other commitments a draft constitution
had been prepared and various informative and educational essays had been
published.
One of Federal Union's first tasks was to define for itself and to clarify for
a wider public exactly what was meant by federation. To that end, Edward
Mousley prepared an essay entitled The Meaning of Federalism'.20 For Mousley,
federalism was the intermediary arrangement between confederate and
unitary systems; its basic condition was `willingness and readiness to unite'.
Mousley pointed out that although federations had a written constitution, a
clearly divided sovereignty and a superior court, giving them a certain `fixity
in the face of any change', it should not be assumed that federal union was a
static constitutional form. Its internal features could be adapted to particular
circumstances and the division of powers could be varied from situation to
situation. The purpose of all federations regardless of particular differences
was `wider order and wider peace'; peace which depended on law and democratic
government. Mousley countered suggestions that federalism was
designed `to unite artificially things which are naturally divided and naturally
disunited'. On the contrary, federalism was designed `naturally to unite what
only artificially was divided and what surely was most unnaturally disunited'.
He cited the United States constitution as a good example of the latter.
In sum, Mousley contended that a federation should be both a recognition
of and an adaptation to diversity and should not have as its primary aim unification
and centralization. His essay was a refreshing change from the Diceyandriven
analyses that had dominated discussion of federation through the late
nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth. When Mousley's
essay was read in conjunction with two others prepared under the auspices of
Federal Union's research department, Duncan Wilson's `The History of Federalism'
and Ivor Jennings's `Federal Constitutions', with its detailed look at
their dominant features, the uninformed reader would have had an excellent
introduction to both the federal idea and to federal practice. Equally, the
essays provided clear benchmarks and much food for thought for those
112 FEDERAL BRITAIN
actively engaged in attempting to devise a world-wide, or even a regional, fed-
eration.21
As valuable as these essays were, it was left to Kenneth Wheare, an Australian-born
constitutional expert based at Christ Church, Oxford, to outline in
late 1939 what federal government was, and was not.22 Wheare's essay was
the best short description of federalism yet published in the United Kingdom.
Cogent, discerning and widely informed it lacked the moral fire of the writings
of Lothian, Curry and Beveridge but it ensured that anyone who read it
could be in no doubt as to what federalism was. Wheare acknowledged immediately
that federal government was not something about which people in
Great Britain and Northern Ireland either had direct personal experience or
much knowledge. It was likely they did not understand it when confronted
with it and probably had no idea why such a system of government had been
invented. The people in Great Britain and Northern Ireland were used to a
form of government
one of the leading characteristics of which is that one single legislature, the
King-in-Parliament at Westminster, has authority to make laws for the
whole of the United Kingdom on all matters whatsoever; and these laws
duly made prevail over rules made by any other body in the Kingdom and
are accepted by the courts as valid law and supreme law. The result is that
people in this country may doubt whether acts of parliament are good laws,
but they cannot doubt that they are good law. In a federation, it is otherwise.
There it is possible to doubt not only whether the acts of some legislature
in the federation are good laws but also whether they are good law,
and it is possible for a court to declare acts which are almost universally
recognized as good laws to be bad law and no law at all. This intentional
obstruction, in a federation, of the will of the elected representatives of the
people as expressed in acts of the legislature, appears to us to be a strange
device. Why do people adopt such a form of government and why do they
continue to put up with it?
Wheare pointed out that the people of Northern Ireland had some experience
of what a federation was like in that they were subject to the legislation of two
legislatures, that of Westminster and that of Stormont. But he was quick to
add that while such a division of functions between legislatures was a characteristic
of federal government that was not sufficient to constitute federalism.
What existed vis--vis Northern Ireland was not federalism, it was devolution.
The parliament at Stormont was subordinate to the Westminster parliament
which could override or abolish the Stormont parliament at any time. Stormont
held its powers at the pleasure of the United Kingdom parliament and
derived its powers from that same parliament.
If devolution was not federalism, then what, asked Wheare, was federalism?
In essence, he explained, `in a federal system the functions of government are
divided in such a way that the relationship between the legislature which has
FEDERAL UNION 113
authority over the whole territory and those legislatures which have authority
over parts of the territory is not the relationship of superior to subordinates as
is the relation of the Parliament at Westminster to the Parliament at Stormont,
but is the relationship of coordinate partners in the governmental process'. The
allocation of powers between federal and state governments, once made, could
not be altered by either level of government acting alone nor could either level
of government interfere with the exercise of the other's powers. In sum, `Federal
government means...a division of functions between co-ordinate authorities,
authorities which are in no way subordinate one to another either in the
extent or in the exercise of their allotted functions.'
In considering why a federal system might be adopted, Wheare suggested
devolution would serve the citizens well if they were happy simply `to regulate
local affairs locally as a general rule' and to leave a national parliament
with a potential supremacy over all matters, national and local, throughout the
country. Such a system was obviously thought appropriate for South Africa
and it was the system in use in Northern Ireland. But where regions or states
or provinces desired, for whatever reason, to have an absolute, guaranteed,
exclusive control of certain matters then devolution would not do and federalism
was more appropriate. `Therefore,' said Wheare,
it is only when a group of territorial communities are prepared to cooperate
with each other for the regulation of certain matters but for those matters
only, and when they are determined at the same time to remain separate
and supreme, each in its own territory, for the regulation of other matters,
that federal government is appropriate. Federalism provides for this desire
for cooperation in some things coupled with a determination to be separate
in others.
Of the key essential features of a federal government the first would be a written
constitution which would clearly define the division of functions and bind
all state and federal governments throughout the federation. From such a constitution
`all state and federal authorities derive their powers and any actions
they perform contrary to it are invalid. It must be the supreme law of the
land.' Secondly,
if the division of powers is to be guaranteed and if the constitution embodying
the division is to be binding upon federal and state governments alike,
it follows that the power of amending that part of the constitution which
embodies the division of powers must not be conferred either upon the federal
government acting alone or upon the state governments acting alone. It
is preferable, though not essential to federalism, that the power should be
exercised by the federal and state authorities acting in cooperation.
Thirdly, in a federation it was necessary to have a body--preferably a court--
other than the federal and state governments to adjudicate jurisdictional dis-
114 FEDERAL BRITAIN
putes between the two levels of government. Finally, `if the governmental
authorities in a federation are to be really coordinate with each other in actual
practice as well as in law, it is essential that there should be available to each
of them, under its own unfettered control, financial resources sufficient for the
performance of the functions assigned to it under the constitution'. Each level
of government must be able to do its job and carry out the functions assigned
it. If state governments found their resources inadequate and had to call on the
federal government for subsidies then they would no longer be coordinate but,
in fact, subordinate to it. `Financial subordination', asserted Wheare, `makes
an end of federalism in fact, no matter how carefully the legal forms may be
preserved.'
Wheare admitted his tone was dogmatic. It had been his aim to put forward
an uncompromising position with respect to `the delimited and coordinate division
of governmental functions'. Nevertheless, he recognized that federal government
would have to adapt to circumstance in order to ensure good government.
It had to be remembered, above all, that federalism was not an end in
itself. It was simply `a means to providing a system of government in circumstances
where people are prepared to give up only certain limited powers and
wish to retain other limited powers, both sets of powers to be exercised by
coordinate authorities'.
Wheare concluded his pamphlet by acknowledging that it had usually been
hard to establish a federal government: `The forces of separation and individualism
which make federalism necessary make any super-state government at
all almost impossible.' And when a federal government had come into existence
it continued to exist only with difficulty. The operation of a federal system
required great skill and tact and depended upon patience and `an enormous
capacity for compromise among the statesmen who work it'. As a result,
`swift and decisive government is impossible. Deep dividing issues must be
avoided. Changes can come about only at the pace of the slowest. Federal government
is conservative government. Federal government is above all legalist.
It is created and regulated by a legal document; it is safe-guarded by a court
of law.' `Compromise, conservatism, and legalism': these, said Wheare, `are at
once the virtues and vices of federal government. It is wise to recall them
when one proposes to set up a new federal government in the world...to recall
that federalism is a form of government which is not always appropriate or
always easy to work. It is fair to recall at the same time that federal government
is at least government; it is order, not anarchy, it is peace, not war.'
Wheare's was a crisp, pointed introduction to the federal idea but he had
not pulled his punches in outlining what would be required of both the exponents
of federalism and the states that might consider joining in a federal government.
What was of particular interest was that Wheare, like Mousley, Wilson
and Jennings, had decidedly distanced himself from the negative and ultracritical
stance adopted toward federation by Dicey and Freeman. While not
backing away from the essentially conservative and legalistic nature of a `true
federation', Wheare had underlined the adaptive capacity of federal governFEDERAL
UNION 115
ment. The degree to which it was adopted would depend on those involved at
the two levels of government. If the polity that had resulted from federation
was considered worth maintaining despite occasional, or even persistent, problems
then cooperation would be its underlying feature, ensuring a healthy and
viable state. Wheare's clear-headed analysis was to become a benchmark in
the history of federal thought. It laid the basis for his classic Federal Government
published in 1946 which, in turn, was to be the primary guide for all
those in London and overseas who grappled with the application of federalism
to colonial problems in the 1950s and 1960s.
Wheare, along with Beveridge, Jennings and Curtis, took an active part in
the deliberations of Federal Union's constitutional committee.23 In conjunction
with A.L.Goodhart, Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford, he prepared a draft
constitution for consideration at two conferences in November 1939. In light
of those discussions a full-scale draft of a constitution for a `Federation of
Western Europe' was submitted to the committee's scrutiny in March 1940 by
Ivor Jennings and was published later that year.24 As Jennings pointed out in
his introduction to the published version, `"Federation" is not a magic formula.
It is nothing more than the name of a complicated system of government
which nobody would wish to see established anywhere if he could think
of a better.' There were `vast difficulties' to be confronted in any such attempt
but he and his colleagues recognized the desirability of replacing international
anarchy by international government and `ultimately' of replacing sovereign
states by world order. Although he and many of his associates did not believe
that such a dramatic shift in attitudes was possible in the immediate future, it
was essential to explore the practical problems and see what would be
involved and necessary for a federal resolution of the world's problems.25
The committee agreed that its deliberations should proceed on the assumption
that the federation would be composed of democracies located primarily
in western Europe but that provision should be made for the subsequent admission
of the dominions. Jennings's final draft not only reflected the advice of
the constitutional committee but also of the committee of economists, all of
whose meetings he had attended.26 The economists had generally agreed that
the federal level of government should be responsible for defence, foreign policy
and control of the dependencies, but as `a further safeguard against war
and as a means of raising the standard of living among all peoples and of
removing insecurity' the federal government should also control trade, currency
and migration.27 Opinion had not been unanimous on these latter issues
but all had finally accepted that the federal level of government should have
the power necessary to carry out whatever policies were thought desirable for
the preservation, prosperity and efficient functioning of the union. Therefore,
in drawing up the articles of the constitution, it would be necessary to enumerate
only the federal powers; the powers of the states would be residual. In
effect, this meant that the west European federation would follow the United
States pattern rather than the Canadian, although in his draft Jennings did rec-
116 FEDERAL BRITAIN
ommend the adoption of the system of responsible government in line with the
British tradition.28
The constitutional committee had gone over the draft constitution prepared
by Wheare and Goodhart in some detail, exploring such issues as the number
of houses in the legislature, their composition, the powers of each house, how
deadlocks would be resolved, the role of the president and of the supreme
court and the division of powers between the federal and state levels. The
committee was well aware of the difficulties involved in federating sovereign
states and made every effort to ensure that the sensitive issue of sovereignty
was realistically addressed. Nevertheless, the Utopian underpinnings of the
exercise were clear because there was no alternative, given the task at hand,
but to assume that nation-states would be willing, first, to join in a federation,
thereby sacrificing a considerable degree of sovereignty, and, second, to compromise
and cooperate once they became members of a federal state. Jennings,
who was later to become a much sought after constitutional advisor and
draftsman in such complex settings as Malaysia, Ceylon and Pakistan, faithfully
reflected these concerns and the recommendations of the committee in
his draft constitution. It was the first effort since Lionel Curtis's in World War
I to prepare such a document, certainly by a group of knowledgeable Britons.
It envisaged a Europe vastly different from the one in existence and was based
on the assumption of a shared vision of the future of mankind. That the
assumption was false and the vision but a chimera should not lead to a quick
dismissal of Federal Union's efforts. The problems the three research committees
confronted and explored could not be ignored if some form of closer
cooperation across national boundaries was to emerge from the chaos of war.
Better they should be addressed than ignored, and in taking the initiative Federal
Union did concentrate the attention of experts on a number of difficult
and contentious issues.
One of the issues of particular concern was the future of the dominions and
the colonial dependencies. For example, should the dominions become members?
Should India? And what of those colonies which unlike India were still
thought to be far from self-governing status? Should they continue to be
administered by the colonial power even after that power became a constituent
member of a European federation or should the colonies become the responsibility
of the new federal level of government? Parallel to concerns over admission
and administrative control ran questions related to the economic future of
colonies. Should an open door policy be involved or should a system of local
tariffs be permitted? And finally, what of the inhabitants of the colonies?
Should they be consulted or not? And if so, how and to what degree? These
were serious questions with no clear-cut answers and, not surprisingly, Federal
Union found many different opinions within its ranks. The speculation and
discussion generated by pondering these and other more technical issues
brought into sharper focus the complexities of international federation at a
time when empires had not fully waned and a sense of trusteeship still vied
FEDERAL UNION 117
with a desire to preserve the economic benefits accruing from colonies, to say
nothing of the prestige associated with colonial possessions.
William Beveridge had made it clear that he believed the dominions should
be included in a federation because the United Kingdom should not turn its
back on them. He carried that argument into the discussions of the constitutional
research committee where it was accepted that the dominions needed
special consideration. While they obviously could not be coerced to join the
federation they also could not be deprived of the military protection so long
afforded them by the British. The committee suggested the dominions be
offered favourable terms such as the right of secession, a right which would
not be available to the European members of the federation. An alternative
would be to allow the dominions to join a customs union as a step towards
unqualified membership of the federation. Either way there was a strong feeling
that the dominions should be involved.29 The discussion was a revealing
one and underscored much of the difficulty that the United Kingdom would
face in any effort to maintain ties with its Commonwealth while drawing
closer to Europe. The deliberations within Federal Union in the early 1940s
foreshadowed the divided counsels surrounding entry into the European Economic
Community some twenty years later.
India posed somewhat different problems. It was not yet fully selfgoverning,
although presumably well on the way to that status, and it had a
massive population. Its inclusion as a separate member would pose particular
difficulties for both constitutional draftsmen and the day-to-day functioning of
the federation. In fact, as Professor G.W.Keeton, the director of the New
Commonwealth Institute, pointed out, if the federation were based on adult
suffrage and racial equality then the federation would be completely different
from one confined solely to white, west European states. Not to include India,
however, might lead to the formation of an Asiatic federation which would
simply perpetuate power politics and the threat of war. Keeton was emphatic
that `democracy, the rights of man, and social justice' had to be the pillars of
world peace. Nevertheless, he was forced to conclude that India could not reasonably
be included in a European federation. Even in a world union India and
states such as China would have to be represented not on a population basis
but in accordance with some more limited form of representation applicable to
countries with large populations.30
The discussions surrounding India underscored the extraordinary complexity
inherent in creating a federation. Even when nation-states were willing to surrender
some of their powers to a central authority, the resulting federation
might be inoperable because of the demographic size of one of its components.
This factor had surfaced repeatedly early in the century during the
debate over the adoption of the federal idea as a solution to United Kingdom
difficulties, and it had always been an obvious impediment to a federation of
the empire where the United Kingdom had a population so much larger than
even the combined populations of its white self-governing colonies. The
British were to run into this problem repeatedly in the 1950s and 1960s as
118 FEDERAL BRITAIN
they strived to establish a number of colonial federations. The discussions also
revealed the degree to which paternalist and racist assumptions, often disguised
as trusteeship, prevailed even amongst the more enlightened of colonial
experts. It was clear that most participants in Federal Union conferences still
believed that India would still need to be administered and guided and protected
for some time to come and that full participation as an independent
entity lay some time in the future. There were close parallels in the deliberations
of the 1940s with those of fifty years earlier surrounding the place of
India in a federation of the empire. If anything, Federal Union's analysis confirmed
the problems inherent in creating a federation involving states of disparate
size, in various stages of constitutional development and differing in
ethnic, cultural and religious composition. Such a multiplicity of seemingly
conflicting variables would confront the British constantly only fifteen years
later as they sought to create stable political and economic polities in their
rush to decolonize.
Federal Union also gave special attention to the place of the colonial dependencies
in a federation of western Europe. Unlike India, the dependencies
were not considered potential members of the federation because it was universally
assumed by the discussants that the colonies would be dependent for
some considerable time to come. The problem was which government should
administer them, the new federal authority or the nation-state to which they
`belonged'? Moreover, what principles should undergird administrative practice
and inform general policy? Should they be those of trusteeship and selfdetermination
as enshrined in the League of Nations Mandates Commission or
should each colonial power determine its own approach? These problems
were, of course, important but they were peculiar to the stage at which colonial
relationships had developed since World War I, and any recommendations
reached in the early 1940s could be little more than fleeting reactions to a
rapidly changing process in which the colonies more than the imperial powers
increasingly forced the pace or proved unamenable to persuasion or coercion
from the metropole.
One expert, Georg Schwarzenberger, a lecturer in international law at the
University of London and secretary of the new Commonwealth Institute,
pointed out that federation was `essentially a democratic concept'. In his estimation,
federation would be unthinkable without self-government and representation
of the individuals who composed it. Nevertheless, he had to admit that
`quite apart from all egotistical interests of colonial powers, there are colonial
territories which have not yet reached the stage in which they could join a federation
on a basis of equality'. In these cases, it was obvious that the principle
of trusteeship would have to be applied to the colonies of the imperial powers.
He believed it would be in the best interests of the colonies if the member
states were entrusted as mandatories by the federal government with the administration
of their former colonies and mandates. This would mean the coherent,
organic development of policy; an opportunity for the sharing of experience
FEDERAL UNION 119
and cooperation among colonial powers; and the effective supervision of the
trust by a federal colonial commission.31
The colonial research committee which met in January and May 1940
agreed in the main with Schwarzenberger's analysis. Professor Norman Bentwich,
Lionel Curtis, William Beveridge, Lord Lugard, Lucy Mair, Arthur
Creech Jones, W.M.Macmillan and Sir Drummond Shields were among its
members and rarely could a more informed group have been assembled.32
They focused on Article XVI of Ivor Jennings's draft constitution which dealt
specifically with the `Dependencies', and after extensive discussion, fuelled in
part by two memoranda from the reigning colonial expert, Lord Lugard, the
committee advised the establishment of a federal colonial commission. Its
responsibilities would be to ensure `the well-being and development' of all the
people of the dependencies. There were differences among committee members
on some points but all appeared to accept the underlying assumption that
the role of empire would not end with a federal Europe, and while some
clearly favoured a steady progress from trusteeship to the grant of selfgovernment
others urged that general references to ultimate self-government
should be avoided in any constitution.33
The discussions on colonial issues were to prove more pertinent in the short
term than those on purely European matters. While the latter would come to
dominate political and constitutional discourse in the late twentieth century,
the problem of colonies and their future advanced to the top of the political
agenda more rapidly and abruptly than most observers expected. For much of
the fifties and sixties, the issues of independence and federalism were, if not
twinned, certainly entwined in the minds of those involved politically and academically
with the affairs of the British empire and Commonwealth.
By the time the research committees concluded their work in June 1941 the
initial impetus that had launched Federal Union was waning. Increasingly, the
bevy of experts who had either joined the organization or been drawn into its
deliberations were siphoned into war-related activities while the general membership
was distracted by the day-to-day demands of the war. Federal Union
survived the war, albeit in an attenuated form, and a core of dedicated federal
unionists, through the medium of the Federal Trust, an educational organization,
ensured that the federal idea continued to be given a steady if not highprofile
airing. The initiative of the three young men, Rawnsley, Kimber and
Ransome, in founding Federal Union in the late thirties had resulted in the
most intensive analysis and coherent discussion of the federal idea and its
complexities since it had first been seriously broached in the nineteenth century
as a solution both to the problems besetting the empire and those bedevilling
the efficient and fair functioning of the United Kingdom. The stimulus
given to such individuals as Kenneth Wheare and Ivor Jennings was considerable
and their ideas and advice were to be frequently sought and followed
after 1945 by those in London and in the colonies who saw in the federal concept
a means of facilitating decolonization.
120 FEDERAL BRITAIN