One Country, Two Systems

“ Here we are one country, one language, one allegiance, one standard of citizenship, one flag, one Constitution, one Nation, one destiny. It is otherwise with foreign nations, each a separate organism, a distinct and independent political society, organized for its own, to protect its own, and work out its own destiny. We deny to those foreign nations free trade with us upon equal terms with our own producers. ”

“ Many other nations, with different histories and cultures, facing different circumstances, have successfully incorporated these core principles into their own systems of governance. History has not been kind to those nations which ignored or flouted the rights and aspirations of their people. ”

“ And development can become a cooperative and not a competitive enterprise— to enable all nations, however diverse in their systems and beliefs, to become in fact as well as in law free and equal nations. ”

“ It takes all sorts of men, says the old proverb, to make a world. It takes all sorts of nations to make a modern State. "The combination of different nations in one State is as necessary a condition of civilised life as the combination of men in society. ”

“ If it is true that the governments of the world are striving through the medium of the United Nations system to construct a new global order, it is equally true that the peoples of the world are galvanized by this same vision. ”

“ How far shall the modern world recognize nations which are not nations, but combinations of a dominant caste and a suppressed horde of serfs? Will it not be possible to rebuild a world with compact nations, empires of self-governing elements, and colonies of backward peoples under benevolent international control? ”

“ That the smaller and small nations should become independent is not contrary to the tendency of the development which makes the inter-state and inter-national relations ever closer and closer; individuals and nations, it is true, have a direct need for union with others, and history aims at the organisation of all mankind. ”

“ To denationalise the nations into one nation only—the nation of mankind—is too vast an idea to grow quickly, but in all classes, and perhaps most in the working class, there are an increasing number of thinking men who say to the varied nations, "We are all one; our interests, duties, rights, nature and aims are one." And, for my part, I believe that in the full development of that conception the progress of mankind is most deeply concerned, and will be best secured. ”

“ Foundation of the League of Nations for the sole purpose of re-establishing order among nations, and laying the basis of reciprocal guarantees of territorial integrity and political independence for all states, both great and small. ”

“ Thus, along with other free peoples and peoples still to become free, we can join together within the framework of the United Nations, into a regional association given to the advancement of world peace and prosperity. ”

“ And especially ought we to go forward in developing co-operation, on a basis of equality and partnership, with the great self-governing communities of our race in the distant portions of the world, else they will drift away from us. ”

“ Such a reversal of opinion is the natural outcome of the extraordinary changes which have passed over the national life. The extension of commercial and industrial relations, the growth of common interests, the increased facility for communication, above all, the retention in the colonies, under their new systems of free government, of a strong national sentiment, and the absence of the anticipated desire to break the national connection, have thrown new light upon the whole question. ”

“ No doubt certain nations, because of their perilous international situation, may be obliged to sacrifice the moral and economic individuality of the people to the demands of political security and efficiency. ”

“ Have they come primarily to get or to give? Will the actions of each nation be governed purely by self-interest, to gain security, to insure colonial possessions, to learn new secrets of power for national aggrandizement? ”

“ The “mills of God grind slowly,” but the mills of human government seem even more tedious and rusty. Now that, in the advance of intelligence and civilization, the nations have passed from the self-subsistent stage of national life into the dependent one; now that, through the great discoveries of modern times, the nations have been brought together, compacted into one community, and the interests of all have been blended ”

“ It is the view of the states of the globe as forming a great family of nations, united by a growing body of international law, creating institutions as they are needed to regulate international relations, bound together in community of interest by free commerce, communicating to one another the triumphs won by each in science and art, sharing their thoughts by a common literature in which the barriers of language are made as little effectual as possible, and thus creating one society of the enlightened nations independent of state boundaries. ”

“ As nations are the necessary product of their parts—as the government is as it is because the people are as they are—it follows that a certain degree of homogeneity is necessary to secure peace and permanence. A majority of the people must have sentiments, instincts, and temperaments, as nearly similar as possible, where a difference in circumstances, occupations, and position is necessary. It is a constant strain upon the coherence of a nation, where the parts are of different civilizations. ”

“ They had built up the structure of a cosmopolitan society without looking to the foundations. The economic activities of mankind have indeed brought a World-Society and a World-Industry into being; but its political analogue, a World-State, can only be formed, not through the co-operation of individuals or groups of individuals, but through the union of nations and the federation of national governments. ”

“ Two countries on the same continent working out parallel political problems by different agencies may be mutually helpful with varying experiment and example. Contrast and mutual reaction stimulate progress for more than vast monotony of system. ”

“ In short, then, the future is not to the empires, but to federations of self-governing nations, exactly as, within these nations, the future is not to Capitalist Oligarchies, but to Collectivist organizations of free and equal citizens. ”

“ We can easily understand that it requires no very marked natural boundary to form the line of division between nations which differ in language, religion, and descent, as in the case of European states. ”

“ It does not ignore, nor does it attempt to suppress, the diversity of ethnical origins, of climate, of history, of language and tradition, of thought and habit, that differentiate the peoples and nations of the world. It calls for a wider loyalty, for a larger aspiration than any that has animated the human race. It insists upon the subordination of national impulses and interests to the imperative claims of a unified world. It repudiates excessive centralization on one hand, and disclaims all attempts at uniformity on the other. Its watchword is unity in diversity”. ”

“ It looks forward to abiding results, not through the mechanical co-operation of governments, but through the growth of an organic citizenship, through the education of the nations themselves to a sense of common duty and a common life. It looks forward, not to the definite establishment, in our day, of the World-State, but only to the definite refutation of the wicked theory of the mutual incompatibility of nations. ”

“ Moreover, it is to be observed that this increasing heterogeneity in the governmental appliances of each nation, has been accompanied by an increasing heterogeneity in the assemblage of governmental appliances of different nations: all nations being more or less unlike in their political systems and legislation, in their creeds and religious institutions, in their customs and ceremonial usages. ”

“ Secretary, you spoke the truth in your memorable speech at Rio de Janeiro, and your words seem like corner stones. Sovereign states are not merely coexisting on the face of the earth, but are members of one great palpitating organism, collective persons who, obeying the same natural law which groups together physical persons into civil and political society, also instinctively group themselves together in order to form the body, the life, and the thought of the international world. ”

“ A country whose people have different standards of action must be a divided country, as our own American history sufficiently demonstrates. Unless upon the vital questions of human adjustment, men are able to agree, they cannot live together in peace. If we are a distinctive and unique nation,—if we hold a distinctive and unique place among the nations of the globe,—it is because you and I and the other inhabitants of our country have developed distinctive and unique ideals and prejudices and standards, all of which unite to produce a community of conduct. ”

“ It is an interesting experiment, crowned by complete success, in the application of Western ideas and methods of organization to a semi-civilized people; and a similar system is gradually being introduced into the other Protected States. ”

“ Since conformity implies and involves a will to diversity, measures to establish and maintain order and peace would include the widest possible latitude and the utmost effort to encourage the greatest possible diversity at regional, national and local levels. ”

“ For the development of such international cooperation as assures equality in economic relations in the world, sovereign exploitation of national resources and the creation of conditions conducive to the more rapid development of the underdeveloped countries. ”

“ Fair play for the several advanced nations with their expanding trade and population, security for the interests of the backward peoples in areas thus opened to development and migration, and more broadly the utilization of the world’s economic resources for the equal benefit of all mankind — such was the practical ideal which a League of Nations or other international system should envisage and seek to attain. ”

“ But the European who measures the unpreparedness of the nation in the terms of the unpreparedness of his own, or any other European, country, not taking into account the colonial character of the population, the alertness and audacity of the national mind, the resourcefulness and confident self-reliance of the people, is likely to fall into error. ”

“ The new community will be built up on an international basis. The nations will fraternise together, will shake hands over old quarrels, and unite in gradually extending the new State over all peoples of the earth. ”

“ Each{102} nation, by preserving the integrity of its own territory, is more at liberty for intercourse with its neighbours, and for the development of the high ideals which are urging the peoples towards economic unity. ”

“ Carry through a policy of economic nationalism, under which all the large and well-equipped nations and empires conserve for their exclusive uses the national resources they command, and what happens? ”

“ Within the territorial limits of this nation, this consummation may be viewed as the culmination of the process of human government. The diversified and loosely related elements of a divided community were brought together, unified and incorporated into one coherent system. ”

“ Nor would any form of government be acceptable that blotted out the individuality that each of the seven nations has established. They are members of a great civilization, each to-day practically self-supreme. Whatever arrangement they may choose to enter upon to protect themselves and their civilization, they will wish to continue always nations. ”

“ Men must learn to be conscious of the common interests of mankind in which all are at one, rather than of those supposed interests in which the nations are divided. It is not necessary, or even desirable, to obliterate the differences of manners and custom and tradition between different nations. These differences enable each nation to make its own distinctive contribution to the sum total of the world's civilization. ”

“ Despite the insistence of reason and experience that strength and stability are the result of unity,--tradition, custom and habit have held human society at the level of political, economic and ideological diversity. Nowhere in history is this generalization more emphatic than in the failure of the European standard-bearers of western civilization to replace a millennium of diversity, discord and conflict by a unified, coordinated, co-existing, cooperating European community. ”

“ Even our relationships with foreign lands are linked to developing our hinterlands. Our foreign policy is based on three pillars: the preservation of our territorial integrity and national security, the promotion of development through economic diplomacy, and the protection of the rights and welfare of our overseas nationals. ”

“ For, what is law? It is the outward expression, the visible sign and symbol of the social consciousness and the social conscience. Without it, society might have some sort of order, but it would not be sufficiently articulate, sufficiently self-conscious, to be secure, efficient and progressive. Nations can no more be left to themselves to act alone with regard to international measures affecting other nations than individuals can be allowed to do just what they please, regardless of the fortunes of their fellows. ”

“ Conscious that Humanity is One despite the existence of diverse nations, races, creeds, ideologies and cultures and that the principle of unity in diversity is the basis for a new age when war shall be outlawed and peace prevail; when the Earth’s total resources shall be equitably used for human welfare ”

“ Solely by inducing those nations which are strong enough to maintain the principles of international law—to unite in their support, and by such union, effectually to guarantee the peace of the world. To effect this most desirable object, you have adopted the true method. You would operate upon the public opinion, and public opinion operating upon free government, creates and establishes public and international law. ”