BY
JOSIAH STRONG
There is, I think, a widespread impression that great world events of
profound importance are now preparing. The break-down of time-honored
theories of international relations based on armed force would seem
to mark the end of the present war as a favorable time for the
reconstruction of the political relations of the nations on a higher
plane.
Since the beginning of the simplest form of life on this planet,
there has been down through all the ages, a stream of tendency toward
increasing diversity, and toward a more complex and more highly organized
form of life. This biological law is also the great law of social
progress, that is, first, differentiation, and then, coördination and
integration. Or, in other words, there is, first, the development of
diversity, and then, the organization of these diverse elements into a
social unity.
For thousands of years nations and races became increasingly unlike
until within the memory of living men, when this time-long stream of
tendency, having accomplished its work, was reversed; and now, for nearly
a century, there has been an increasing tendency toward oneness—the
coördination and integration of different peoples into one great world
life. This new tendency was caused by the application of steam to
transportation by land and sea. In the first stage of international
commerce transportation by caravans and row boats was so costly that only
luxuries, such as gems, precious spices, and silks, were articles of
commerce. This concerned only the few. The second stage was introduced
by the application of sails and the discovery of the mariner’s compass,
which made it possible to transport many of the conveniences of life,
which affected increasing numbers. The third, and present, great stage
of commerce began when railways brought the produce of continents to the
seaboard, and the triple expansion engine made great merchant vessels
possible. As a result, the necessaries of life are now transported in
immense quantities, which fact vitally affects the entire people. These
conditions have created an interdependence of the nations from which
there is no escape. If a nation is agricultural, it is dependent on
others, both for markets and for manufactures; if it is a manufacturing
nation, it is dependent on others, both for markets and for food.
When an agricultural people attempt to make themselves independent of
other nations by establishing their own manufactures, they soon discover
that by a sort of _mechanical Malthusianism_ machinery inevitably
increases several times as fast as population; hence the nation no sooner
becomes independent of those who wish to sell than it becomes dependent
on those who wish to buy. The only possible way to avoid such national
interdependence is to adjure modern civilization.
The differentiation and organization of a world industry, which
necessitates an ever-increasing international dependence, has created
this new world life. In earlier ages, when nations were economically
independent, political independence was natural and inevitable. Of course
there could be no world-consciousness when a common world life did not
exist, and each sovereign nation was sufficient unto itself. But as the
world’s economic life becomes more nearly one—as it certainly will under
the quiet compulsion of economic law—the increasing interdependence of
nations places the well-being of each increasingly in the keeping of
others; and their relations to each other become more and more vital
until their mutual service becomes a matter of life and death. If, for
instance, all other peoples should make and enforce a declaration of
non-intercourse with Great Britain, that nation would literally perish in
a few months.
Evidently, the increasing interdependence of the nations is creating new
international rights and duties, but there is no World Legislature to
recognize and legalize them; there is no World Court to interpret and
apply them; and there is no World Executive to enforce and vitalize them.
Precisely here appears one of the most obscure and, at the same time, one
of the most potent causes of the war.
The economic and industrial organization of the world has far outgrown
the political organization of the world. And in spite of all efforts to
keep the peace, this will continue an active cause of war until there
has been provided for the new world life an adequate body politic. Until
then governments will undertake, by military power, to make, interpret,
or enforce a law of nations to please themselves; and this seizure of
civil functions on the part of armed force is war; it is an attempt to
make might right; it is the law of the jungle; it is the abnegation of
civilization; it is anarchy between nations.
Now that the world is coming to self-consciousness, it must accept the
responsibility of its future, and take intelligent direction of it.
The new tendency toward world integration is permanent because it is
due to new conditions which are permanent. This cosmic movement toward
coördination and integration is the very essence of the new civilization
which is reshaping the world. Nations and individuals have unconsciously,
and, therefore, unintelligently, and slowly adapted themselves to these
changed and changing conditions. Now is the accepted time to undertake a
readjustment which shall be _conscious_ and, therefore, _intelligent_—a
broad-minded “coöperation with the real tendency of the world.” which
Carlyle called the “insight of genius.”
The new world life means, sooner or later, a world consciousness, a world
conscience, a world ethics, and a World Court, together with the other
departments of an organized political life embodied in a Federation of
the World.