VI.

One further objection to the final efficacy of a federation of civilized nations demands consideration. It may be stated as follows: Suppose a federal government of European nations and their colonial offspring to be possible, in such fashion that internal conflicts were precluded, this peace of Christendom would be in constant danger of invasion by the “lower” races, black and yellow, who, assimilating the arms and military tactics now discarded by the “civilized” races, will overwhelm them in barbarian incursions even as the ruder European and Asiatic races overwhelmed the Roman Empire. You cannot get the whole world to the level of civilization which will admit it into the alliance; the powers outside will be a constant menace; and if the main purpose of federation is to eliminate militarism from the economy of national life, effective resistance to the invaders will not be possible. This has been the universal fate of empires in the past; what talisman would this latest federal empire possess enabling it to escape?

To this objection we make only a preliminary answer, since space is lacking for a complete defense. Two factors in the older empires have primarily contributed to weaken their powers of resistance against outside “barbarians” and to strengthen and stimulate the zeal of the invaders. The first is the habit of economic parasitism, by which the ruling state has used its provinces, colonies and dependencies in order to enrich its ruling class and to bribe its lower classes into acquiescence. This bleeding of dependencies, while it enfeebles and atrophies the energy of the imperial people, irritates and eventually rouses to rebellion the more vigorous and less tractable of the subject races; each repression of rebellions rankles in the blood, and gradually a force of gathering discontent is roused which turns against the governing power.

The second factor is related to the first, consisting in that form of “parasitism” known as the employment of mercenary forces. This is the most fatal symptom of imperial infatuation, whereby the oppressor at once deprives himself of the habit and the instruments of effective self-protection and hands them over to the most capable and energetic of his enemies. This conjunction of follies and vices has never failed to bring about the downfall of empires in the past. Will it prove fatal to a federation of European states? Obviously it will, if the strength of the combination is used for the same parasitic purposes, and the white races, discarding labor in its more arduous forms, live as a sort of world-aristocracy upon the exploitation of “lower races,” while they hand over the policing of the world more and more to members of these same races. These dangers would certainly arise if a federation of European states were simply a variant of the older empires, using a pax Europaea for the same purposes and seeking to maintain it by methods substantially the same as those which characterized the so-called pax Romana. The problem here presented is a great one, forming in fact the supreme test of modern civilization. Is it possible for a federation of civilized states to maintain the force requisite to keep order in the world without abusing its power by political and economic parasitism?

J.A. HOBSON LONDON, ENGLAND