UNION NOW

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 254, 3 November 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

UNION NOW

CAN WE HAVE A PERMANENT PEACE ?

A Condensation of the Book by CLARENCE IL STREIT

FOREWORD TO UNION NOW. For twenty years most of the people of the world have looked forward to an era of peace and enlightenment. For the first time in history the ideals of world peace and friendly co-opera-tion among nations reached the stage where a League of Nations was actually created. For 20 years this ideal grew until it was the hope and faith of mankind. As late as 1935 it was the dominant issue in British foreign P °'i he" ideal of the League of Nations is and was, sound, practical and desirable. For its brief life the League proved an immense boon to mankind. It averted several wars. It aired grievances. It crusaded for health, improved working conditions and many other reforms. It fought crime, drug traffic, white-slave traffic -and graft. It was a sane, logical, and efficient clearing house of government, a supreme international court. Britain, or rather Britons, did more than any other nationals to found and establish it. And it is an irony that it was the cynical commercialism of a venal British Government that destroyed it. Let us make no mistake about thei. responsibility for the collapse of the League ideal. No doubt future historians will label the years 1931 —1938 the black period in British history, for during these years British 1 prestige sank to unprecedented contempt in world opinion. The cynical avarice that connived at the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and later in China, the rape of Abyssinia, and the invasion of Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Albania, did incalculable damage to British interests in the long run. The* callous disregard for human rights that made the catchword “ non-intervention ” a cover to help invaders certainly enriched individual Britons, but it was a national suicide, for by helping the aggressors Britain helped nourish Fascism, which to-day threatens our very existence. By aiding the Japanese (at a profit) in 1931, Britain lost the bulk of her Chinese trade as well as “ face ” in 1937-9. By helping Mussolini invade Abyssinia in 1935, and Spain in 1936, Britain nearly lost Egypt and Palestine in 1937-38. By conniving at Hitler’s occupation of the Ruhr, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Britain created a Frankenstein which now threatens her. The sad consequence of this shortsighted greed was that while these Frankensteins live no League of Nations is possible. We must, therefore, look elsewhere for security and hope. From the time of the League’s collapse until the present no ray of light brightened the universal gloom. No solution offered any hope of peace and - all the liberties Which make life worth while. Last year Mr. Clarence K. Streit, late editor of America’s first newspaper, the “New York Times,’ published a book entitled “ Union Now,” in which he set out a plan for a federation of democracies. Coming from such a hard-headed realist the book was a veritable bombshell. Thinkers in all fields were quick to realise the possibilities of the idea.

■•Fortune,” the voice of big business, came out in favour 1 of it. “Time,” •‘The Reader’s Digest,” and.a score of leading publications gave it publicity. The theme has swept America and Canada, and in England has a host of champions. Leading authorities in all fields endorse it. Among British supporters arc numbered: Wickham Steed (late editor of the “London Times” and a noted authority of world affairs), Ernest Bevin (Britain’s Labour boss), novelist J. B. Priestley, the famous scientist Sir Richard Gregory, Captain Liddell Hart (a leading military authority), Julian Huxlev, professor of biology, and C. E. M. Joad; professor of economics. The list could be extended ad infinitum, but perhaps we should not forget the Archbishop of York.

economics. And it is the task of our generation to formulate such economics; to find out what measures are necessary for the further development of free enterprise; to study how economic opportunity, upon which alone free enterprise must rest, can be distributed more equitably to all. The value of Mr. Streit’s book is that it throws on this particular problem a new light—white and daring. Mr. Streit \is a dreamer and his book is perhaps a dream. The idea to which he has dedicated his pages and the remainder of his life is not “ realistic.” Nevertheless the votaries of liberty •* will lay this book aside with a sigh, rather than with a shrug. For it conjures up a vision of the greatest political and economic opportunity in history, by comparison with which the opening of North America was a modest beginning. The outlines of Mr. Streit’s idea are simple enough. He proposes that the democracies of the world join together, not in alliance, not in league, but in a union analogous to the American Union. Each citizen of those democracies would be a citizen of that union, precisely as each citizen o'f the 48 states is a citizen

of the United States. There would thus be formed a new and gigantic nation, with a capital of its own, an executive board, a senate, a house of representatives, a judiciary. It would have power to frame the union’s foreign policy. But with regard to internal affairs, its powers would be strictly limited. Internally it would be concerned with international matters, just as the United States Government is Concerned with matters niterState. Each of its constituent democracies would retain itsi; own citizens, would invite 15 SBW- aicS nto file union as founWmrs. Others )you!d be admitted Traßthe world situation permits, n*ter they . ad °P t a Of yoUtil l ng the indepenr,lg of Britain as the founders tvo P uld Great Bri-

tain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. No two States in this group have been at war with each other for over 100 years. Their total population would be about 280,000,000, half in Europe, half overseas. With one representative in the house for each 500,000 of population, there would be roughly 540 representatives, and ,the United States would fall just short of a majority with 252. If the states of the British Empire voted together they could muster 140. Thus, neither Britain nor the United States could control the housp alone, though they could together. Their relative position would be reversed in the senate, where (to protect the small states) Mr. Streit allows two senators for each'2s,ooo,ooo of population, or fraction thereof. The union would establish single postal and communications systems, abolish all tariffs between its members, and set -up a single currency. All colonies would be pooled. Individual Britons, Hollanders and Frenchmen would retain title to their properties in Africa, Asia and the

isles of the Etfst; but the United States citizen would acquire a political interest in them nevertheless, and their exploitation would redound to his advantage. These territories would bring the total population of the union up to 900,000,000, or nearly half the population of the earth. The economic might of this union would be prodigious. These states already produce 96 per cent, of the world’s nickel. 95 p,er cent, of the rubber, 73 per cent, of the iron ore, 72 per cent, of the oSri, 66 per cent.qof '1 r lj| nnir the ra\v cotrriaiß^ctßvsa^'.of exploitation, thesd' marketing of ously enorminternational broken down. Ww s TV, we re international trade w I s , Vow ?hf° me orne stic trade, that ffir* and

Gigantic opportunities would be opened up. A rise in the standard of living of millions of consumers would result from the expansion of markets and the consequent lowering of prices for mass-produced goods. Even a relatively slight expansion in their known market would enable United States automobile .manufacturers (to take only one example) to cut prices, and cars would thus become available to more persons, not only in other states of the union but also at home. The economic history of the. U.S. demonstrates that this process is cumulative. There would be an inevitable revival in shipping and in railroads, and hence in the capital-goods industries behind them. Industrial unemployment might, therefore, almost disappear. And at the same time the union’s agricultural products would obtain preference in union markets, as against the products of non-member states. A genuine union of the democracies thus opens up an unprecedented vista of industrial growth to which the only enlightening parallel is the growth of the United States itself. At the time the American Union was formed the abolition of tariffs within the borders of the U.S. provided for free trade, the most spectacular practical demonstration that any economic theory has. ever had. True, free trade in the U.S. might not have caused such rapid expansion if there had not been protection from the outside world, on the one hand, and plenty of unexploited resources on the other. But the proposed union of the democracies could also protect itself from cheaper labour ip the rest of the world. And it would also have plenty of undeveloped resources, together with vast substandard “domestic” markets to he financed and built up.

The new union would maintain a common army and navy. The autocracies would certainly recoil from challenging the military might of the 15 states in question. . And enormous savings could be effected in armaments, especially in the present naval building programmes. The security of the world would be enhanced.

The core of Mr: Streit’s idea — and as a New York Times correspondent at Geneva for nine years, he knows whereof he speaks—is the penetrating distinction he makes between alliance and league, on the one hand, and union on the other. Alliances are temporary political expedients quite as apt to breed war as to prevent it. And the league is equally futile. Whereas a league is a collection of states, a union is a collection of people; and its powers are derived directly from the people. There is inherent in the union the same binding principle which, in separate states, is known as “nationalism”; indeed, it is nationalism, but on a superscale. Though it is difficult to realise to-day, there were 13 independent nations on this continent after the Revolution, and each was jealous, of its own nationalism. The situation was somewhat analogous to the situation of the 13 democracies now centering on the Atlantic Ocean. Each state reserved the right to regulate imports and exports, to issue money, to make its own sovereign laws irrespective of the welfare of the others. New York massed troops on its Vermont frontier, and “protected” its interests with tariffs on Connecticut wood and New Jersey butter. Boston boycotted Rhode Island grain. The currencies of Delaware, Virginia, and Connecticut were sound; all others were depreciated, and some worthless. Pennsylvania was even agitating against, the “menace” of Connecfirnf as it is among the democracies of to-day, that these states could be held together only by an emergency, by war. Their economic expansion, the exploitation of their resources, the raising of their standards of living—all the activities of peace—were lost in confusion.

After a decade of economic chaos a few “visionaries” began agitating for union. These were the ones whom we now revere as great “ realists.” The probable downfall of their 13 disparate economies, the dread that out of the confusion there would arise tyrants (i.e., dictators) and kings, and the fear of attack from Europe, caused the states, in 1789, to accept union. From then until 1929 their expansion was virtually uninterrupted. The analogy between the American Union and the ptoposed union of the democracies breaks down, of course, at several vital points. Innumerable arguments against the practicality of the scheme can be adduced —the scattered geographical position .of the democracies, their differing languages, cultures and economic habits, for instance. To some of these objections there are answers. The geographical distribution of the proposed union presents no problem greater than that which confronted the American founders. New York is closer now.to London than Boston was to Philadelphia in 1789; the transoceanic airplane will soon bring it closer to Australia than it was formerly to Charleston. But the objection to “Union Now,” and the answers to the objections, are not really to the point. The book is not cited here as a “practical,” and certainly not as an immediate, solution to the troubles of the democracies. It is cited because, merely to keep what he has already won, man must always progress; and to progress, he must always have a vision of something that he has not yet won. The union of the democracies is such a vision. And we can derive from it- certain propositions concerning our economic and political conduct, and especially concerning our foreign policy, which will enable us to progress sufficiently to retain: what wr haVe already won. Mr. Hull has been applying some of those propositions. Out of his work, and -out of MU Streit’s dream, may come some preliminary step such as a customs unipn, the pooling of resources, the coordination of national economic policies. These would all help to develop the free libertarian economy, from which—imperfect as it is—mankind has already derived so much. And who knows. Visions sometimes come true.

. . . HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW? Answers to questions on Page 1. 1— Oil. 2 Explosives. 3 Banking. -I—Meat. 5 Automobiles. 6 Armaments. 7 Banking. 8— Magazines. 9 Paper. 10— Oil. 11— Shoes. 12— Banking. 13— Oil. 1- —Perfumes. 15— Tobacco. 16— Chemicals. 17— Steel. 18— Banking. 19— Oil. 20— Diamonds. 21— Newspapers. 22 Electrical Engineering. 23 Nitrates. 2- —Electrolux and A.A. Guns. 25 Public Utilities. 26 Steel. 27 Matches. 28— Automobiles. 29 Railways. 30— Restaurants. 31— Newspapers. 32 Armaments. 33 Banking. 34 Shipping. 35 Banking. 36 Electrical Engineering. 37 Diamonds and Gold. 38— Flour. 39 Real Estate. 40— Tobacco, Soap, Oil. 41— Publishing. 42 Drugs. 43 Soap. 44 Chemicals. 45 Oil. 46 Jute. 47 Oil. 48— Department Stores. 49 Banking. 50— Hotels.