World Parliament

“ Parliament is as competent to come to a judgement upon the emancipation of any part of our subjects who are not in possession of the privileges to which they are entitled; the principles on which a commercial code is to be established or a representative system founded are as well known to them as to any body of men in the world; but it is quite a new doctrine to appeal to Parliament to initiate a foreign policy. To initiate a foreign policy is the prerogative of the Crown, exercised under the responsibility of constitutional Ministers. ”

“ What he has accomplished in making treaties with various nations is very good, but when we have the interparliamentary body composed of delegates from all the nations of the world and devoted to the maintenance of agreement and goodwill, the utopian dream of sages and poets, the parliament of man, will be realized. ”

“ But a Parliament is composed of a great number of men by no means at the top of the world. When you establish a predominant Parliament, you give over the rule of the country to a despot who has unlimited time,—who has unlimited vanity,—who has, or believes he has, unlimited comprehension, whose pleasure is in action, whose life is work. There is no limit to the curiosity of Parliament. ”

“ We should none of us like to have the internal affairs of Great Britain settled by a parliament of the world, if ever such a body came into existence. Nevertheless, there are matters which such a body could settle much better than any existing instrument of government. ”

“ IN the last decade certain disconnected movements have accomplished something in the way of bringing about a world state, and other movements are on foot to bring about a completion of this general movement. The Hague Peace Conference (1899) brought about the establishment of a permanent international court of arbitration or the international department of justice; the Interparliamentary Union is trying to effect the establishment of a world parliament or congress, or legislative department, and if possible a world executive department. ”

“ There never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the "end of time," or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and therefore all such clauses, acts or declarations by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void. ”

“ Let the commons in Parliament assembled be one and the same thing with the commons at large. The distinctions that are made to separate us are unnatural and wicked contrivances. Let us identify, let us incorporate ourselves with the people. Let us cut all the cables and snap the chains which tie us to an unfaithful shore, and enter the friendly harbor that shoots far out into the main its moles and jetties to receive us. "War with the world, and peace with our constituents." ”

“ Each house of the World Parliament shall adopt its own detailed rules of procedure, which shall by consistent with the procedures set forth in this World Constitution, and which shall be designed to facilitate coordinated functioning of the three houses. ”

“ But it does not follow that the solution of these problems lies in some super-government of all the world arising by conquest or by the coalescence of existing governments. By analogy with existing institutions men have thought of the Parliament of Mankind, of a World Congress, of a President or Emperor of the Earth. Our first natural reaction is towards some such conclusion, but the discussion and experiences of half a century of suggestions and attempts has on the whole discouraged belief in that first obvious idea. Along that line to world unity the resistances are too great. ”

“ The Parliament indeed follows with genuine interest the philanthropic endeavors to spare the civilized world the horrors of war, and it joins with great sympathy in the demonstrations that aim to make nations comprehend the priceless advantage of peace. ”

“ It has long been apparent that the Imperial Parliament, as at present constituted, is unequal to the double task of managing the affairs of a world-wide Empire while also performing the minor functions which in Federated States are assigned to the individual communities of the Federation. ”

“ But the whole mischief of the present system is that the obscure members of Parliament are not sheep; they are a crowd of little-minded, second-rate men just as greedy and eager and self-seeking as any of us. They vote straight indeed on all the main party questions, they obey their Whips like sheep then; but there is a great bulk of business in Parliament outside the main party questions, and obedience is not without its price. ”

“ The election of these souls who are chosen by the national assembly—that is, the parliament—must be confirmed by the upper house, the congress and the cabinet and also by the president or monarch so that these persons may be the elected ones of all the nation and the government. From among these people the members of the Supreme Tribunal will be elected, and all mankind will thus have a share therein, for every one of these delegates is fully representative of his nation. ”

“ The Parliament of the World, which came into existence after the atomic explosions of 1950, was simple and sensible; fifty new representatives elected every five years; proportional representation; every man and woman with an equal vote ”

“ And so with most constituencies, and the result is a legislative body consisting largely of men of unknown character and obscure aims, whose only credential is the wearing of a party label. They come into parliament not to forward the great interests they ostensibly support, but with an eye to the railway jobbery, corporation business, concessions and financial operations that necessarily go on in and about the national legislature. That in its simplest form is the dilemma of democracy. ”

“ I have had the benefit of close personal relationships with people in North Borneo and Sarawak and throughout the territory of Malaya and in Singapore.
Like noble Lords who have spoken—the noble Lords, Lord Milverton, Lord Twining, Lord Shepherd, Lord Shackleton and Lord Ogmore—and many of the other noble Lords who know this part of the world, I have found myself becoming increasingly attached to the people who live in these countries. It has been said with great truth that the peoples in North Borneo and Sarawak have a deep affection and respect for the British people. ”

“ We were supposed to be serious, practical men, come together to devise means of improving the methods of combating crime. We sat for an hour and a half through tiresome, bombastic exchanges of international greetings. The election of a chairman, of honorary presidents and vice-presidents, of a real secretary and a host of honorary secretaries took up the rest of the morning. A nation's parliament could have organized in less time and we had only come together to exchange ideas, we had no power. ”

“ The argument of the Fabian opponents to Proportional Representation is frankly that the strongest Government is got in a House of half a hundred or fewer leading men, with the rest of the Parliament driven sheep. ”

“ The majority of the British Parliament, made up of the three united parliaments of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, determines the headship, the quality and policy of the ministry, and determines it largely on considerations arising out of British domestic politics. ”

“ I do not know of any country in the world other than Malaya where, as it were, the immigrant population, or at least the population of descendants of immigrants, is almost equal to the indigenous population. There are Chinese, Malays and, of course, a very large population of Indians. Throughout these years there has been this very happy relationship at a time when in the rest of the world it seemed almost impossible for the people of different races and religions to get on well together in one country. ”

“ But the excellence of the relationship—and this is not, I believe, a sentimental view—between the European officer and the people of those countries was most striking: the really close affection and understanding the ability to cross any race or hierarchical distinction. There is no doubt that it is a part of the world in which it will be easier to build a multi-racial society ”

“ But it is to be hoped that as a representative of this country he would never forget what we have tried to maintain and to spread in the world in the way of religious liberty, and will believe that this is something for which all nations of the world should eventually be grateful. ”

“ He may discern the true limits of his own power, and abandon an attempt which he believes to be impious because he sees that it is impossible. And then the untiring protest which England and France have made against this wrong, and their continued assertion of this right will have their full efficacy in encouraging this benevolent wisdom, in proving to that sovereign, that in best consulting the interests of his own empire, he will be confirming the ties of amity and peace with the most powerful nations of the world. ”

“ And His plan is this: that the national assemblies of each country and nation—that is to say parliaments—should elect two or three persons who are the choicest of that nation, and are well informed concerning international laws and the relations between governments and aware of the essential needs of the world of humanity in this day. ”

“ The prospects of peace and justice not only within the existing political organizations, but in their relations with one another, were never so good as to-day, because the principle of Parliamentary Representative government has been applied during the past few centuries, to a greater or less degree, in almost every nation of the world, and this has prepared each of these nations to participate more easily and more effectively in the application of this principle to the affairs common to them all. ”

“ Giving expression as they did to the peaceful aspirations of a growing crowd of electors, their resolutions carried great weight, and supplied food for reflection to the governments, the most absolute of which, if one sets aside Russia, had at that time learnt to reckon with popular sentiment. What surprises us nowadays is that no one discerned in those meetings of deputies come together from all countries the first attempt at an international parliament. ”

“ But, in a rough practical way, Parliament, and through Parliament the constituencies, can exercise a good deal of influence on foreign policy, though an influence much slighter and much less direct than that which they exercise on domestic policy. ”

“ Oure Lorde God, Kyng of all Kyngs, by whos infynyte goodnesse and eternall providence all thyngs been pryncipally gouverned in this world, lighten youre soule, and graunt You grace to do, as well in this matier as in all other, all that that may be accordyng to his wille and pleasure, and to the comen and publique wele of this Lande ”

“ Now, my notion is, that every great measure can have only one real importance, by throwing weight into the scale of one or other of the two great Parliamentary parties. Do what you will,—agitate, write, speak, pamphleteer, and libel,—but all resolves itself to some question of a harm to one side and good to the other, the country the while being wonderfully little the better or the worse for all the legislation. We used to have a Constitution in England: we have now only got a Parliament, and to be anything in the nation a man must make himself felt there! ”

“ This right has often since been proved to be the main strength of the Parliament, by preventing the King from acting against their opinion, and by rendering it the interest of all classes of men to attend to the proceedings of the sovereign: it has not only kept kings in check, but it has saved the nobles and commonalty from sinking into that indifference to public affairs which has been the bane of foreign nations. ”

“ Take any parliamentary country, from America to Switzerland, from France to England, Norway and so forth; the actual work of the State is done behind the scenes and is carried out by the departments, the chancellories and the staffs. Parliament itself is given up to talk for the special purpose of fooling the "common people." ”

“ I will tell you fairly that you, as the less populous and less powerful part of this great nation—you of all the men in the United Kingdom, have by far the strongest interest in a thorough reform of the Imperial Parliament, and I believe that you yourselves could not do yourselves such complete justice by yourselves as you can do, by fairly acting with the generous millions of my countrymen in whose name I stand here. ”

“ Many of the members thought that a foreign war would serve as a pretence for continuing the same Parliament, and delaying the new model of a representative, with which the nation had so long been flattered. ”

“ Our national political system may be divided into two parts. On the one hand, there is the working machine, which goes on, year in, year out, whether Parliament is sitting or not, and which would still go on quite well for a time if Parliament never met again. We call it the Government, and we habitually and rightly hold it responsible for every aspect of national policy and action, for legislation and finance as well as for foreign policy and internal administration. ”

“ Parliament as a body is practically committed to the policy of faithful observance of pledges given to the Amir, and it may well be that so much Parliamentary unanimity on any large question of foreign policy may not occur again for a very long time. ”

“ If the Administration had in both Houses a majority—not a mechanical majority ready to accept anything, but a fair and reasonable one, predisposed to think the Government right, but not ready to find it to be so in the face of facts and in opposition to whatever might occur; if a good Government were thus placed, I should think it decidedly better that the agreements of the Administration with foreign powers should be submitted to Parliament. ”