Global issues

“ The scientific and technological advances occurring in this unusually blessed century portend a great surge forward in the social evolution of the planet, and indicate the means by which the practical problems of humanity may be solved. They provide, indeed, the very means for the administration of the complex life of a united world. Yet barriers persist. Doubts, misconceptions, prejudices, suspicions and narrow self-interest beset nations and peoples in their relations one to another. ”

“ So the most practical question for each of us for some time is likely to be this: what will be the effect of our own country’s conduct in its relations with other countries, upon the future peace and international condition of the world? ”

“ I look forward to discussing our progress in ridding the world of this great threat to civilization, and we'll discuss our work to build a better world beyond terror -- a world of greater opportunity and more open trade, stronger security and more individual freedom. ”

“ Do you not know that all progress comes from successful and peaceful industry, and that upon it is based your superstructure of education, of morals, of self-respect among your people, as well as every measure for extending and consolidating freedom in your public institutions? I am not afraid to acknowledge that I do oppose—that I do utterly condemn and denounce—a great part of the foreign policy which is practised and adhered to by the Government of this country. ”

“ What is at stake now is the peace of the world. What we are striving for is a new international order based upon broad and universal principles of right and justice—no mere peace of shreds and patches. ”

“ It is this development of nations through international relations, and the dependence of national destiny on the character of the surroundings, that explain why so many things in the history of the world seem to be accidental, strange, and sudden. ”

“ The extent and activity of industry and commerce; the necessity of consulting the general good; the habit of frequent, easy, prompt, and regular intercourse between peoples; the invincible bias for free association, inquiry, discussion, and publicity,—these characteristic features of great modern society already exercise, and will continue to exercise more and more, against the warlike or diplomatic fancies of foreign policy, a preponderating influence. People smile, not without reason, at the language and puerile confidence of the Friends of Peace, and of the Peace Societies. ”

“ They compare experiences, seek answers to common problems and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies that increasingly in today's globalised world must form a web of even practice across nations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Political boundaries are fading before larger interests. Every railroad train crossing the frontier, every ship plying the seas, every article of commerce, every exchange of business, every cable conveying news from distant lands—all these are potent factors in the cause of international peace. ”

“ These are the great fundamental things which civilization must accomplish before the international order is established and war is forever abandoned in favor of reason as a method of settling the world's problems. All these will be made possible by the average man and woman, by whom that large public opinion is molded through which the international mind comes into existence. We have depicted the ideal, and the ideal must be thoroughly understood and kept in mind always in all efforts which are being made for the attainment of the ultimate peace of the world. ”

“ If we are to decide therefore not for imperialism and imperialistic wars but for a policy which will mean peace for ourselves and peace and international reorganisation for Europe and the World, we must begin our labours at home. ”

“ Given a world law and world security, a release from the net of bickering frontiers, world-wide freedom of movement, and world-wide fellowship, a thousand good things that are now beyond hope or dreaming would come into the ordinary life. ”

“ We have now reached the stage in world development and in world intercourse where peace must be internationalised. Our present chaotic condition, which exists simply because we haven't [Pg 214] taken time as yet to establish a method, must be made to give place to an intelligently devised system of law and order. ”

“ To prevent that consummation, as far as human means can prevent it, —to avert the possibility of that catastrophe—the system called the balance of power exists; and on the basis of this system the foreign policy of all nations, in so far as they pursue a righteous and enlightened course of policy, is now-a-days administered. ”

“ For such mastery as is attainable of problems of international policy at any point of time and contact in the relations of State to State particularity of knowledge is indispensable, and that must be sought in special works and in the sources that bear upon each problem. ”

“ These immediate measures are not enough to accomplish this permanent peace: they are merely deeds by the way,—important deeds, but not sufficient. What, then, is the next great thing that the world must do to bring about the new world order which it demands? ”

“ Here, then, are three great principles, important to the advancement of civilization, which, if not established in International Law by the Peace of Paris and the war it closed, have at least been so powerfuly reinforced that no nation is likely hereafter lightly or safely to violate them. ”

“ The great questions will, as a matter of fact, be chiefly questions of economics, of industry, of political principle and theory, and so far as they are mere struggles of interest they will be class conflicts rather than national conflicts. ”

“ Our extended trade and commerce, and the economic considerations for the further expansion thereof, our hegemony in this hemisphere and the firmly established doctrines it has entailed, and our intricate and complex relations with the world at large have greatly extended the horizon of our governmental and national duties and responsibilities, and are likely to constantly bring us face to face with critical questions, and often, perhaps, to the verge of conflict. ”

“ Within this relatively restricted internationalism there will be, there is now, a certain yet more definite aggregation of peoples, interests, and traditions upon which rests a great and peculiar moral responsibility. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The turmoil in various parts of the world attests to the need to promote respect for international law and to strengthen international institutions for the protection of international peace and security and of human rights. ”

“ The development of civilization and of human welfare is based on the acceptance by individuals of certain fundamental decencies in their relations with each other. The development of peace in the world is dependent similarly on the acceptance by nations of certain fundamental decencies in their relations with each other. ”

“ And it may be said without exaggeration that the great extent and rapid increase of international trade, in being the principal guarantee of the peace of the world, is the great permanent security for the uninterrupted progress of the ideas, the institutions, and the character of the human race. ”

“ 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? ”

“ WIDENED POLITICAL SYSTEM.—In the political relations of countries, it is found necessary to comprehend all parts of the globe in the political system, in the right adjustment of which each country has a stake, and over which stretches an acknowledged code of international law. ”

“ We earnestly advocate such a compact between nations, because we know that the result will be world-peace, in perpetuity; yet we are deliberately abrogating the theory among ourselves when, just as surely, the result can be only disorder and chaos. ”

“ We face today a world filled with suspicion and hatred. We look at Europe and see a civil war going on, with other nations participating not only as individual volunteers, but obviously with the help and approval of their governments. We look at the Far East and see two nations, technically not at war, killing each other in great numbers.
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Every nation is watching the others on its borders, analyzing its own needs and striving to attain its ends with little consideration for the needs of its neighbors. ”

“ On some points these two groups of problems are closely related and cannot be settled separately. Some internal questions will have to be viewed in the light of world affairs; and some international problems must be given solutions which will have influences within our own country. Ignoring the overlapping of the two groups, we shall study the problems of peace in this chapter under two headings: (1) national problems; (2) international problems. ”

“ The drift of thought seems now to be in the direction of a number of special committees or organizations, with world-wide power delegated to them by existing governments in this group of matters or that, bodies concerned with the waste or development of natural wealth, with the equalization of labour conditions, with world peace, with currency, population and health, and so forth.
The world may discover that all its common interests are being managed as one concern, while it still fails to realize that a world government exists. ”

“ But in international affairs it remains to be created. The difficulties are stupendous, but they must be overcome if the world is to be saved from periodical wars, each more destructive than any of its predecessors. ”

“ Depression, war, international tensions, national and international markets, and the surging growth of science and technology have precipitated national and international problems that demand national and international solutions. While these trends and events have occasioned a consolidation of governmental power, power has also become much more organized in what we have commonly considered to be the private sector. ”

“ I go on to show the obligation of nations to contribute to the well-being and civilization of man, from a consideration of the moral ends and duties of nations.
The primary ends of civil government are the conservation of men's lives, bodies, and goods. ”

“ The only solid hope seems to lie in the possibility of world-wide domination by one group, say the United States, leading to the gradual formation of an orderly economic and political world-government. ”

“ The ordinary peace and order situation, though comparatively better than that obtaining in most developed as well as developing countries, is itself serious enough to call for immediate and extraordinary measures. ”

“ Resolved, That in this mission of science from one country convulsed by war to another not entirely at peace, we behold the humanizing and pacific influence of its aims and studies, and that we cannot but look forward to a day when nations engaged in the common pursuits of science and industry, and bound together by commerce and by enlightened views of interest and of Christian duty, will refer all questions in dispute to peaceful arbitrament rather than to one of violence and bloodshed. ”

“ The problem of the establishment of a perfect constitution of society depends upon the problem of a system of international relations, adjusted to law, and apart from this latter problem cannot be solved. ”

“ The American people will realize at last that, without a conscious exercise of their will, they have become a “world-power,” and that in their own interest, quite apart from humanitarian motives, they must accept new responsibilities and take an active part in international affairs. ”

“ We must see that all the questions which have disturbed the world, all the questions which have eaten into the confidence of men toward their governments, all the questions which have disturbed the processes of industry, shall be brought out where men of all points of view, men of all attitudes of mind, men of all kinds of experience, may contribute their part of the settlement of the great questions which we must settle and cannot ignore. ”

“ Nor would any general scheme of mere organized international cöoperation, in whatever sphere of human activity, however ingenious in conception, or extensive in scope, succeed in removing the root cause of the evil that has so rudely upset the equilibrium of present-day society. ”

“ We can neither fully understand, nor hope successfully to solve, the great international questions, the great international quarrels, unless we are acquainted with their historical genesis and with the views and actions of the claimants in the past. ”

“ If we were to carry farther our analysis of this species of democratic fervour and of the movement which it inspires and is designed to help, we should find that many of those who speak and labour under its influence cannot take a dispassionate view of the manner and the instruments of the conduct of foreign policy. ”

“ Though we deny—or do not steadily see—that nations as well as individuals have capacities for good as well as evil, we admit it when we attempt to create international influences, which shall promote civilisation. ”

“ Does any modern State really present within its own borders, and in its treatment of all classes and interests, an example which, if extended, would make the world safe for Internationalism—an end which I am inclined to think is more important than making it safe for Democracy? ”

“ All history, and all the present relations of nations to one another may, of course, be considered in terms of the desires for specific objectives caused by the imperial desires of peoples, these desires themselves being regarded as a sum of motives, the effects of past political relations, and containing both rational and irrational elements. The world is a vast field of stress in which the powers at work are national wills rather than political forces as the projects of rulers and the diplomats. ”