THE GREAT DEBATE

...The only escape from the dilemma may lie in a bicameral legislature with a House of Nations where because of equality the smaller powers will be in the majority and a House of Peoples with membership proportionate to population where the larger units will control...

...That there must be one is self-evident,but the determination of the "share" of representation to be "allotted" to every civilized state" is where the rub will come...

...ALLIED RESOURCES...

...Asquith's language already quoted is in agreement with this...

...And the stress of the situation will fall at the ponit of determining the allotments of representation in the International Legislature...

...Given equality of voting power therein, the small states will rule the large...

...Snow is right in sensing serious problems in a World State built up of a few strong powers and many small weak ones...

...Meantime the continuance of the war by prolonging the Great Debate, by giving time for public opinion to crystallize upon the fundamental propositions involved in the development of an organized world and by leading masses of men to formulate their conclusions thereupon, is playing its tragic part in preparing mankind for the New Age...

...To agitate it is so ,to create public opinion in its favor as to ensure the widest and most enthusiastic support therefor...

...If this demand can orjy be gotten into the mind of the modern man, he will respond to it regardless of his national affiliation...

...I mean a Commission of all the Powers...

...Moreover, as these small States are devoid of imperialistic aims, they contribute to the general stability in ths world...

...But there is no such If in man's dictionary today...

...So far as an organized World is concerned these demands create a very well-defined picture...

...It is refreshing to find such an authority as Professor Cooley exclaiming "We must do our best...

...We know we shall win...

...J. Pease Norton says of a federation of the world "The idea is grand, but the plan for a government over all seems to be impracticable...

...This stresses a world program whose emphasis upon the welfare of the exploited classes will by its very nature discredit and supersede the employment of force...

...It is quite natural that the stay-at-homes, however faithful in doing their bit to win victory, should express their opposition to militarism in milder terms and should propose for its overthrow measures less drastic than would suit the mood of those who have drunk to the dregs the cup of fright-fulness...

...When Americans couple Arizona, Wyoming and^ Nevada with Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York on the basis of population and Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island with Montana, California and Texas in extent of territory, they are likely to conclude that Switzerland wins out in the argument...

...Russia will be on hand ia that Congress in the person of her proletariat, let us hope with Bolshevism in its rightful place as a controlled minority...

...They enlarge the realm of peace, and, like an area of calm, they interpose themselves between rival and aggressive Powers...

...Professor Charles H. Cooley declares "The logical outcome is an organic international life, in which each nation and each national patriotism will be united, but not lost, as individuals are united in an intimate group...

...It satisfies neither the militarist nor the kind of pacifist who believes in fighting this war to a knockout in order forever to end war...

...Often they did it with ill-suppressed scorn...

...T>UT granting all that the Swiss' Society *^ claims, Mr...

...Instead of diminishing the number of small states in the future Europe it would be more befitting to increase them...

...European Allied Labor, including the Socialists, and American Labor through its Federation, which stand somewhat apart as two distinct groups, have evidently made up their minds that they together with their German confreres are entitled to representation in the Peace Congress which is not only to end this war but also to determine the future conditions of "organic international life" to use Professor Cooley's phrase...

...Practically all varieties of World Leaguers are agreed upon the necessity for such a consultative body though many of them affect the wisdom of being not too precipitate or too progressive by clothing the suggestion in more or less nebulous language, as for example "Conferences between the signatory powers shall be held from time to time to formulate and codify rules of international law," from the program of the League to Enforce Peace...

...It is quite startling to find that not a few, in whom this social subconsciousness has risen into active consciousness, are talking of the Central Powers as seceders from the great international combination, as revolters against human, ity...

...Two or three years ago big names were scarce among them...

...For Dr...

...On the peace commission of a beaten Germany Socialists will bulk large...

...ion of the existing armaments by which all the peoples are burdened...

...To expect to work a World State successfully with tariff barriers between the component units seems anything but hopeful...

...The small States cannot be held to have concluded their mission...

...Scudder, the well kllftwn America missionary leader in Hawaii and Japan sends this contribution to the World Court Magazine...

...Both Houses will be equally democratic through election of members by popular vote, the sole reason for a bicameral legislature being the need to equilibrate the units, make it possible for large and small Powers to live happily together and not sacrifice the characteristic contributions which, as the Swiss Society points out, the lesser States promise...

...PERHAPS the most pregnant of all propositions connected with the future of the world is that concerned with the disposition of backward people, the question of colonies...

...Along came the League to Enforce Peace which proceeded forthwith to split world-organizers into two parties, the advocates of a final sanction of force, and the seers who thought they discerned in this war the last great appeal to might against right in human history—last because another would annihilate the race...

...The entente allies—excluding Russia and including only those of British dominions which are self-governing and only the United States proper—have 11,000,000 square miles of territory, 303,000,000 people, and $495,000,000,000 of national wealth...

...Her delegates will not divide on racial or national lines...

...The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance...

...This calls for barest mention here because the whole world is today agreed upon this most important item...

...It presents only one center of grave discussion and that concerns the complexion of the judiciary but among the number of excellent plans for composing this difficulty, the wisdom of the Peace Conference may be counted upon to find a solution quite satisfactory to the world...

...Alfred H. Fried belabors "these well-meaning dilettantes" and is in royally good company the while...

...So Mr...

...The same may be said of the fourth demand, that for an international executive...

...The march of this conviction seems to inhere in the realm of the subconscious, as though society itself had a mind which was slowly thinking through to the conclusion that mankind is essentially one, and that this war is due to the failure of society to realize this basic fact...

...The Second Plank...

...Crux of Debate...

...The central powers owe $37,000,000,000 of twenty-eight percent of their national wealth...

...Every month shows a greater number of men and women quietly won to the conviction that the only possible issue of the war must lie in a bona fide organization of human society...

...That denouement will give Labor the great opportunity, for which it is using the interval before the Peace Conference to get ready...

...The first of these^ is the drafting of a world constitution by the Peace Congress...

...Over in Great Britain the New Labor Party has given to the world the only consistently thought-out after-war program yet enunciated by a powerful, aggressive political group in any nation...

...That they will know what they want and will agree in their demands in the plain teaching of their present policy of preparedness...

...I"* HE large outstanding feature of this year's * history is the irruption of labor into the Great Debate...

...There has got to be an Appomattox, an Unconditional Surrender...

...In a World State colonial units should have the right to be heard by vote as well as by voice in the Assembly that controls their development, because the privilege of the floor can never compel the attention of a deliberative body like the right of participation in the ultimate decision...

...Thc"third feature in World Federation which Labor stresses is a judiciary taking the two forms of a Supreme Court of judicature and mechanism for conciliation in non-justiciable disputes between the constituent powers...

...In laying down this proposition labor is taking its stand for the method of procedure in vogue among all recently organized democracies, one may almost venture to call it the common sense modus operandi in building up a political organism...

...But tha war began at once to speed things up...

...It presents no very serious problems that call for special discussion previous to the meeting of the Peace CongiSss...

...America's brilliant achievement in organizing into Territories and thence into sovereign states the national domain, ceded to the Federal Government by the original States or acquired by purchase, conquest or negotiation, points the way to a like procedure on the part of a federated world...

...TWO hundred and fifty billions is the estimate of the resources of the United States, according to figures published by the Treasury Department...

...as well as the control of war manufactures and the enforcement of such agreements as may be agreed to thereupon...

...These men will hold the balance of power in the Peace Congress...

...Even that stiff-necked conservative, Lord Landsdowne, goes so far as to say "I do not mean a coalition of one group of Powers against another group of Powers...

...Over against this place the point of view exhibited by the New Swiss Society...

...Nearly all thj practical political leaders damned a pan-human federation as Utopian...

...They speak of the world before 1914 as of a Society of Nations...

...Both the British National Labor Conference of last December and the Inter-Allied Labor and Socialist Conference of February 1918 demand that the Treaty of Peace shall embody "the rules upon which the League of Nations will be founded," this after carefully outlining the purport of these rules and defining the League as a "su-pernational authority...

...Slowly but steadily the ranks of the World Statesmen as against the Force Leaguers seem to be augmenting...

...Snow pointing out that "It is of course not impossible that large and strong units of territory and population should live in cooperative union with small and weak ones...

...Herbert H. Asquith, "We must aim at setting up a world-wide peace partnership, of which all the civilized communities will be members on a level footing, with equal rights and reciprocal duties...

...There has been one injustice however in this instructive experience and that has been the neglect to accord at least one vote in Congress to a representative of each Territory...

...Question of Colonies...

...If the Labor contingents of the European and American nations maintain at the council table where peace is to be determined the proposition enunciated by the British Trade Union Congress, it is likely to carry and may in the end prove the greatest single blessing to humanity secured through the present catastrophe...

...It need surprise no one if the delegates who are to represent the soldiers at the peace conference should secure the scrap-heaping of national armaments and the relegation to the Federated World State of the entire control of such armed forces as may be needed for international police purposes...

...What Labor wants in the line of guarantees against war in the makeup of federated mankind, therefore, she stands to get...

...If Prussia wins the rest of us might as well commit harakiri, for her victory will mean the end of the world as a livable place...

...Those of the west of Europe—Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and Denmark—march at the head of progressive nations.^ Those of the east of Europe—Serbia and Poland (if indeeH Poland may be described as a small State)—only require liberty and independence in order to show their worth...

...This proposition, then, that the Peace Conference shall not only deal with matters profoundly affecting single States such as boundaries, rehabilitation and the like but shall also address itself to the determination of the status of the World as an organic whole, goes to the root of all that is involved in this cataclysm and promises the only safe and scientific outcome of these years of nameless horror...

...The entente owe an aggregate debt of $G9,-000,000,000, which is about fourteen per cent of their total assets...

...She has already clearly outlined a number of her demands...

...The present world conflict then is nothing more nor less than the analogue of our Civil War to bring back the seceders and save the Union, and at its close the nations will confront the task of the thirteen independent American units during that critical interval 1783 to 1789, when the inchoate federation was crystalizing into an organized government...

...This is the weakest statement in the entire program...

...Did President Wilson mean anything like this in item third of his famous peace declaration of January 8th last...

...It is modern prophecy at its acme...

...Our annual earnings are about $50,000,000,000...

...But he must be a daring prophet who would hazard a guess as to what definite forward step the Peace conference *nll be able or inclined to take on this road to national disarmament...

...THE second plank in the platform of the Inter Allied Labor and Socialist Conference Is the formation of "an International Legislature in which the representatives of every civilized state would have their allotted share...

...No combination to offset them promises much success, because they are likely to voice the public opinion of the World...

...but such a situation is dangerous to international peace and order, and the more nearly the u:.its can be equilibrated by being made equal in size and strength, the more harmonious and perfect will their union be...

...France and the other nations, excepting only Japan and China, will not be able to keep the delegates of their wage-earners at home...

...On the one hand we have Mr...

...A community of economic interests must be created between all the parts of the Federation to serve as the strongest of binding forces...

...BUT these obstructions have not halted the procession, one wing of which still holds an Intermediate position between the two parties and while not relinquishing the appeal to force declares for a bona fide international organization strong enough to make war impossible...

...The man of the street likes plain speech like "International Legislature" or "World Diet...

...Swiss Society Claims...

...In other words, the first business of the Peace Congress must be to determine a basis of organization for the World...

...Back of every great war stands a network of economic causes...

...Loyalty to our dead makes a negotiated peace what Lloyd George calls a "premature and vanquished peace," unthinkable...

...Alpheus H. Snow writes, "The union of all nations—which, though very imperfect, really exists at the present time —is in a position similiar to that of the United States during the period from 1779 to 1783 when the problem of equilibrating the units of the Union was being considered...

...David Jayne Hill, one of the latest authorities to commit himself on paper, argues that a general international government is neither possible nor desirable, and Mr...

...at nothing less than a partnership of the nations in the joint pursuit of a freer and fuller life for the countless millions...

...The fifth plank in Labor's international platform is worded by the Inter-Allied Conference as follows, "The League of Nations, in order to prepare for the concerted abolition of compulsory military service in all countries, must first take steps for the prohibition of fresh armaments on land and sea and for the common limi-t...

...Because of its interest at this time La Follette'e reprints the article.—Editor's Note, DOES the trend of discussion during the past four years warrant the conclusion that if the war lasts long enough, it will end in the creation of a World State ? There is much evidence to support an affirmative answer to this question...

...Before August 1, 1914, visionaries had word pictured an international commonwealth, just as Tennyson had sung of "The Parliament of man, the Federation of the world," but none realized more than these rainbow-chasers that their dream was "one far-off divine event" toward which the creation was "inchin' along" like the darkie's "pore inch worm...

...Look over the field...

...Interest of Labor...

...The states must undertake such manufactures themselves . . . The nations, being armed solely for self-defense and for such action as the League of Nations may ask them to take in defense of international right, will be left free, under international control either to create a voluntarily recruited force or to organize the nation for defense without professional armies for long terms of militarv service...

...He advocates "The creation of . . . a tentative and elastic machinery and a system of procedure, consultative and executive," to aim "at something more than the negative functions of policing the world and preventing breaches of the peace...

...Base the representation upon extent of territory or population, and the large States will dominate...

...Leav-ing-to one side all such peace details as relate to individual States, boundaries, allegiances, creations of new independent national units and the like, there are seven planks of first importance in this after-war platform, which Labor is proposing to the World for its adoption...

...THE crux, then, in the Great Debate is What is Labor Going to Ask...

...Ever since the opening of the Great Debate political economists and students of history have rung the changes upon the theme that a League of Nations can never be worked without international iree trade...

...This may as well be granted provided Germany is thoroughly whipped...

...It is perfectly clear that if they will to form a part of the Conference, nothing can keep them out...

...to establish at least the beginnings of an international constitution, with judicial, legislative, and executive barnches, and to provide a process of orderly change by which the world may assimilate new conditions and thus avoid fresh disaster...

...The British Empire and America . are making Labor history so fast that the Trades Unions will get their dues in the personnel of their official peacemakers...

...The only comparison that can be made with this utterance is a bunch of selected excerpts from the book of Isaiah...

...Enrico Bignami, Secretary of the League of Neutral Countries, recently wrote to the World Court of "the hope of a peace based on an international constitution...

...The clarion note struck by the recent Trade Union Congress in Great Britain "That free trade among the nations is the broadest and surest foundation for world prosperity and international peace in the future" sounds the final chord in Labor's peace anthem...

...So also Dr...

...If reports from the allied front reveal the mind of our fighting men, this purpose to make armed conflict impossible in future is the animating principle of their self-*»crifiee...

...Counting in the third liberty loan, the national debt is approximately $12,000,000,000...

...Here peacemakers of all stripes have* gravitated to a common conclusion, that the only feasible solution lies in international control with equal trade conditions open to all Powers...

...Meantime the study of the Great Debate which has been revolving about that unknown quantity, "After the war what...

...lIn the presence of an inspired forecast like this, one feels that at the conclusion of the war Labor in the large sense employed by the British Labor Party is certain to be in the saddle...

...is growing more absorbingly interesting every month...

...Two Divergent Views...

...they strike their own particular note, giving a diversity of soul and culture which the world can ill afford to lose...