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... great empires. The war revived with a startling force the idea of free nationality, throwing it up in three forms, each with a stamp of its own. First, in opposition to the imperialistic ambitions of Germany in Europe the allied nations, although themselves empires, were obliged to appeal to a qualified ideal of free nationality and pose as its champions and protectors. America, more politically... therefore the first duty of their statesmen, must be to preserve each its own empire, and even, where it can in their view be Page 527 legitimately done, to increase it. The principle of free nationality could only be applied by them in its purity where their own imperial interests were not affected, as against Turkey and the Central Powers, because there the principle was consonant with their... attached to it by the pure idealist of the Russian type who was careless of all but the naked purity of his principle. What then would be the practical consequences of this qualified principle of free nationality as it would have been possible to apply it after a complete victory of the Allied Powers, its representatives? In America it would have no field of immediate application. In Africa there are not ...

... Latin, and arrived in this way at a characteristic instrument of self-expression; but under modern conditions this is not easily possible. 2 Ireland had its own tongue when it had its own free nationality and culture and its loss was a loss to humanity as well as to the Irish nation. For what might not this Celtic race with its fine psychic turn and quick intelligence and delicate imagination, ...

... enough, could effect the transition of society to a second and more advanced basis of the same or even to a still farther development. But we are concerned only with the effect on the ideal of free nationality. On this point all Russia except the small reactionary party was from the first agreed; but the resort to the principle of government by force brought in a contradictory element which endangered ...

... on the rearrangement of States in a system of large imperial combines and not on the basis of a status quo of mixed empires and free nationalities. 1 But even if this development does not take place or does not effect itself in time, the actually existing free and non-imperial States will find themselves included indeed in whatever international council or other system may be established,... practical impossibility in the present international conditions and the present state of international mentality and morality the idea of an immediate settlement on the basis of an association of free nationalities, although this would be obviously the ideal basis. For it would take as its founding motive power a harmony of the two great principles actually in presence, nationalism and internationalism... It may be questioned whether by the time that things are ready for the elaboration of a firm and settled system, the idea of a just internationalism based on respect for the principle of free nationalities may not by the efforts of the world's thinkers and intellectuals have made so much progress as to exercise an irresistible pressure on States and Governments and bring about its own acceptation ...

... fusing and welding of mankind into a single vast nation and centralised world-state with many provinces or to its aggregation under a more complex, loose and flexible system into a world-union of free nationalities. If the former more rigorous idea or tendency or need dominated, we must have a period of compression, constriction, negation of national and individual liberties as in the second of the three... inevitably the dominant Young Turk element was carried away by the instinct for establishing, even by coercion, a uniform Ottoman culture and Ottoman nationality. 1 Belgium, composed almost equally of Teutonic Flemings and Gallic Walloons, grew into a nationality under the aegis of a Franco-Belgian culture with French as the dominant language; the Fleming movement which should logically have contented itself... humanistic tendencies and institutions of the Southern States. There are indeed apparent types of a freer kind of federation, Switzerland, the United States, Australia, South Africa, but even here the spirit of uniformity really prevails or tends to prevail in spite of variation in detail and the latitude of free legislation in minor Page 439 matters conceded to the component States. Everywhere ...

... to themselves; each is a nation free in itself but dominating over other human groupings who are not free or only partially free. Even little Belgium has its Congo, little Portugal its colonies, little Holland its dependencies in the eastern Archipelago; even little Balkan States have aspired to revive an "empire" and to rule over others not of their own nationality or have cherished the idea of becoming... alive and dominant and stronger at present than the principle of nationalism, the evolution of great empires can hardly fail to overshadow for a time at least the tendency to the development of free nationalities. All that can be hoped is that the old artificial, merely political empire may be replaced by a truer and more moral type, and that the existing empires, driven by the necessity of strengthening... Greek islands. This imperialistic tendency is likely to grow stronger for some time in the future rather than to weaken. The idea of a remodelling even of Europe itself on the strict principle of nationality, which captivated liberal minds in England at the beginning of the war, has not yet been made practicable and, if it were effected, there would still remain the whole of Asia and Africa as a field ...

... possible forms or lines of alternative or successive development it may take. The ultimate result must be the formation of a WorldState and the most desirable form of it would be a federation of free nationalities in which all subjection or forced inequality and subordination of one to another would have disappeared and, though some might preserve a greater natural influence, all would have an equal status... for the first time turn into an assured fact the ideal of human unity which, cherished by a few, seemed for so long a noble chimera; then might be created a firm ground of peace and harmony and even a free room for the realisation of the highest human dreams, for the perfectibility of the race, a perfect society, a higher upward evolution of the human soul and human nature. It is for the men of our day... overpassed; only the formation of a true World-State, either of a unitary but still elastic kind,—for a rigidly unitary State might bring about stagnation and decay of the springs of life,—or a union of free peoples could open the prospect of a sound and lasting world-order. It is not necessary to repeat or review, except in certain directions, the considerations and conclusions set forward in this book ...