SIR,—One is glad to see that Professor Robbins would confine
Federation to Europe, firmly rejecting the proposal to draw in other democracies.
Ten years' residence in America has convinced me of the utter impracticability of including that vast country in any close union with Europe. And though there may be a hand- ful of Americans living on the Atlantic seaboard who may hold the opposite view, there are no grounds for thinking they could ever carry the majority of their countrymen with them. The extreme repugnance of the U.S.A. to send her armies across the ocean or bind herself by any agreement which may oblige her to do so, the subtle differences in the character of Europeans and Americans, the fact that America is a young and very independent country, whereas the young are apt to resent the old, the virile growth of population on the Pacific coast—facing away from Europe, are only some of the reasons which force one to this conclusion, and make one regret that people in England spend so much time in the contemplation of something which must prove fantastic.
Nevertheless, there is one field of activity where truly inter- national collaboration does appear very necessary. Perhaps this can best be explained by pointing to a weakness of the League, a failing which, I think, has never received the attention it deserves. I refer to its inability to give positive financial succour to countries in economic distress. Thus necessitous countries had to apply to the Governments of the wealthy, or wait on the financiers of London, Paris, New York ; it was useless to seek aid from a League which counted for nothing in the financial world. In whose hands do the advocates of Federation propose that the only kind of power which counts in peace-time should vest? Is it to remain the monopoly of competing financial groups each struggling for its own hegemony? And are we to continue the insane com- petition for world markets under a system which permits of no country getting as large a share as it would like? Ques- tions such as these will not be solved automatically by the magic word Federation, but require the most careful investiga- tion if we are to discover the basis of a real peace.—Faithfully 14 Foxgrove Gardens, Felixstowe.
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