FEDERAL UN ION
SIR,—It would not serve any useful purpose to dwell upon the offensive air of condescending superiority with which, in your last issue, Mr. Harold Nicolson deals with Federal Union, and with my own " thoughtless " contribution to that subject. But
I feel that a few of his own more thoughtful observations require further comment. He reminds us that "before the United States achieved true federation it was found necessary to wage an atrocious civil war." I am more than a little tirod of hearing of the American Civil War as an argument against Federation. That war was at least about something, and furthermore settled something, not for a few years, but, so far as we can see, for good. It demonstrated the capacity of the Union to survive. In Europe, in the 150 years during which the United States have existed, there have been wars upon wars, the Napoleonic wars, the Franco-Prussian War, the Crimean War, the Balkan wars, the Great War, the present war . . . . and how many of them led th a permanently valuable settlement? And America herself, in her capacity as a single sovereign State, has waged several external wars to her one civil war. That civil war may indeed show that Federation is no guarantee of permanent peace. But who said that it was? It does, by comparison with the rest of the world, and with what America herself has done externally, show that Federation is the best method mankind has hitherto discovered of immensely reducing the risk of inter-State war. No Federal Unionist of my acquaintance claims that Federal Union is a panacea, "a single or universal remedy for the varied evils of humanity," and in suggesting that we mahe any such claim Mr. Nicolson is merely talking through his hat. In my own book I specifically disavow any such claim. What we do claim, on inductive as well as on deductive grounds, is that Federal Union is the best known method
of tackling a group of evils that result directly from the institution of the sovereign State.
Mr. Nicolson sneers at us because we cannot tell him what is going to happen to oil, wool, cotton, and copper under Federal Union. I agree that these questions require study, but I cannot feel guilty of any levity in having advocated Federal Union while having only the vaguest notions of what
is to happen to such commodities. Those who advocate Federal Union do so because they believe that the area of effective government needs to be increased. As soon as possible they want it to cover the whole world. They propose starting with only some countries in the first place because in the near future that is all that seems practicable. But setting up a government means creating the machinery for tackling such problems as Mr. Nicolson mentions. It means the establishment of controls for the management of our common concerns. Even where expert knowledge on these questions exists there is not at present the political machinery which would enable it to be used. Since 1919 plan after plan has been produced on a great variety of world economic problems : many of them excellent plans with any amount of expert backing and research behind them. Think of the gloom account of wasted opportunities in Sir Arthur Salter's Recovery! The last twenty years make it abundantly clear that we cannot got on any longer without setting up organs of effective international government. It is ludicrous to suggest that before advocating any such idea, one should have determined in advance what the. decisions of that government will be.
Mr. Nicolson objects to the fact that in my Penguin Special The Case for Federal Union, "many most relevant questions are dismissed as 'mere matters of detail' or ' doctrinaire.' " The book was not intended to be a detailed plan for the reconstitution of the world. For that it would have had to be not one Penguin but fifty. Nor have I the expert knowledge required for such a task. It had the humbler object of helping to prepare public opinion for the need for such plans. The present political organisation of the world is not only tragic, it is silly. And until- people realise how silly it is they will
not wish to change it. Nor, I think, do people like Mr. Nicolson, who have lived much amidst the pomp and circum- stance of existing institutions, realise how silly it all is, and how it has come to exasperate beyond endurance many humbler people like myself who have none of the background that makes political and diplomatic goings-on seem dignified and important, who want to get on with their lives, and to whom the existing sovereign State, save for those internal activities that would be performed even under a world-wide federal organisation, has come to seem a confounded and
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