The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-09-30

DV the QOOUUGu imperial lIdulllOAlt Uo- gan nevertheless clusmy slow to this process of nA~ terial change, unable to ignore iCs pressures and compilations, but evi- dently indisposed to recognize its na- ture.
 l use thIs word "indisposed" de- liberately. The political mind, like the legal mind to which 1t Is so closely akin, looks backward habitu- ally, prefers precedents to Utopias, clngs to the old and Is pushed along y the new, Europe clings still to the imperial tradition four centuries after 1t became impracticable, Its kindred peoples are divided and de- story one another in the feuds of dead trouble. Frenchman and ter man waste Europe as Asia Minor was wasted by Byzantine and Fer. sian in a futile search for kind or supremacy that can never return to this world. They are like rivals who fight for a woman already dead ana decayed.
 Europe Not The World.
 Continental Europe Is being oeso7 lated and destroyed by intellectual incapacity, by the failure to recos- niza the obsolescence of its political ideas and traditions. But Europe Is not the world, nor will Its decline and fall he the end of the human story. In the United States of Amer ica, in this so-called British Empire and now in the United States of Rus sia, we must recognize breaking away from tradition complete as when the Roman empire broke away from the forms and traditions of any previous political synthesis, These rev systems arise not to inherit, but to supersede.
 It Is this conception of the history of the world during the last four centuries as being essentially In lts broadest aspects a belated, tofceo and largely unconscious process oi political adaptation to changing con- ditions, of vast subconscious and un- willing trials and experiments ID rev and great political associations to replace that formerly dominant imperial idea, that I wish to put be- fore my readers. It carries us on 10 the further realization that since the process of change in communications is only now approaching some sort of limiting completion the new po- litical systems that have appeared cannot be considered as anything but preliminary and transitory sys- tems The United States of America, the Spanish, Dutch and British colo nial empires of the eighteenth cen tury, the Russian empire and the second British empire Of the nine teeenth century, the British Empire of this present discussion must all from the angle of this conception seen as things experimental an transient, destined to the most ex- tensive coalescence, readJustments and modifications in a few score years.
 World Peace FOreseen.
 The form to which these synthetic baterial forces. this constant aboli- ton of distance between state ana state and man and man, are driving us all, even in spite of ourselves, IS g. common Pax Mundi, world com .n.onwealth, a federal suppression of armaments, q federal money system, 8 federal postal system, a federal control of the production and distri- button of staple products, federal direction of mainline sea and lana transport and of the movements of population. To these things 1t seems to me human affairs trend now in- exorably. The economic and finan- cial world net grows tighter anu closer; war becomes so intimate and inconclusive and destructive as 10 become impossible. The old ideas may hold our race in 8 bloody and WdSLelul bQDJCCtlOll ACA WY VI centuries yet; but the Pax Mundl waits at the end of the passage.
 A man holding these opinions must necessarily judge the present Britisn Empire without any fanatical loyalty, critically as possible half-way house or a possible obstacle to more comprehensive and enduring synthesis. It Is not really the same thing as the British Empire" of 1923, which was a string of trading posts and areas of economic predominance about the world, plus, John Com pany's fantastic acquisition of the derelict rule of the Great Mogul. The bulk of the present British Elm pire" was created and held together by the steamship. This rendered possible the transfer of considerable masses of population to new terri tories and the importation of bulky staples, of such things as wheat and cattle, across great stretches or oceanI The Dominions were made .by the steamship and the telegraphlc cables and they constitute the fresh est, most peculiar feature Of the present British Imperial system Colonies the world has known be- fore. but neither the Greek nor Phoe- nlcian colonies of the old world nor the American colonies Of the eighteenth century were linked close ly and abundantly enough to the mother country to prevent final es- arrangement and detachment. The British Dominions today are on the contrary kept in touch and more eff fectively kept in touch with each other aud the mother country. Their mutual relationships are unprece- dented. Their unity may be endur- ing.
 O O
 India Different Problem.
 But when we turn the relationship of the Great Britain and these Do- minions on the one hand to India on the other, we find something entirely different, a new growth also, but Of absolutely different structure and different capabilities, something ac- cidental and precarious and mani festly provisional. A London com pany running a system of trading stations, acquired almost inadvert- ly amidst a wild political welter In India the Empire of the Great Mogul Great Britain has taken over this companys possession, enlarged them, given India a peace and certain unity, educated her people but not widely nor sufficiently developed her resources but not very generously, and manifestly has but the vaguest ideas of her future. The educational and intellectual development of the British people has not kept pace with this rapid expansion of British responsibilities. Our world responsi- bilities have increased a hundredfold in the last century, but our educated class, our supply of potential rulers, directors and the like, our university rganlzations, have not increased tcnfold.
 I. ;s n, o,an ouastIoD Uhether on