My Country, Right or Wrong!

- til the balance of power is upset by a change in the relative strength of the two groups. For example, since 1900, France, England, and Russia faced Germany, Austria and Italy. But increasing German strength and ambition gradually upset the balance until, in 1914, Germany made her first bid for the conquest of Europe, and failed.

That's the worst of the balabce of power: it's very unstable and it's apt to collapse and to bring down the whole world in ruins, as it did again in 1939.

At the moment there's a new balance of power. Russia's on one side and the English-speaking peoples are on the other side. And we all feel that that's equally unstable.

Well then, that means that the second solution's no good. An unstable balance of power is no better than a weak central authority. So what's left?

There's still the third solution. The third solution is the growth of a single state that's powerful enough to absorb all other states. That's already happened once in history of the Western world - in the days of the Roman Empire. After Rome had eliminated its great rival ... Carthage, Rome established a single centralized rule over the whole of the then civilized world. Rome ruled from Upper Egypt to the borders of Scotland and from the Black Sea to the Atlantic coast of Spain. It was amarvellous achievement, the Roman Empire, and it kept peace for century after century among innumerable different races.

Since the breakdown of the Roman Empire, several countries have made a bid for the domination of Europe - the Arabs and the Turks and the Spaniards and the French and the Germans. The Arabs tried to conquer Europe through the Balkans, but neither was really strong enough. The Spaniards and - later - the French under Napoleon and - latterly - the Germans both in 1914 and in 1939 also failed. The questionis whether any single country will succeed by force in the future, not only establish a United States of Europe but an United States of the World.

Will we ever have a United States of Europe other than by absorption of all the little states by one of the big Powers? I doubt whether the countries of Europe will ever unite of their own free will. They're much too frightened and jealous of each other.

It's true that, in earlier centuries, large empires were sometimes built up by marriage. But those were feudal days in which the opinionof the common man didn't count. He owed allegiance to his lord; and if his lord changed allegiance to his overlord, the common man changed his allegiance too.

It's also true that the thirteen American colonies voluntarily formed a central federal authority; so did the separate state of Australia. But each of these groups had formerly been ruled from England; and, as England dropped out of the picture, they set up local central Authorities to fill the vacuum. I know of so few cases where sovereign states have voluntarily combined to set up strong central authorities that I think it may be said that the normal way of establishing larger units out of small ones is by the use of force.

But I am very much afraid that this can't be done without a third world war. So we're thrown back on the first solution - the establishment of a central world authority to which all states will yield enough of their sovereignty. So make it really effective. Such a world authority is the only thing that stands between us. and a third world war, with the atomic bomb in the background. That's not a very pleasant prospect, is it? So we must all of us hope that the Conference of the United Nations now meeting in London, will this time succeed. It's a critical moment this, in the world's history. Woe to all of us if our leaders fail!

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