Global politics

“ We have international finance. Our standards of living are becoming internationalized. Socially, economically, in the world of thought, national barriers are being broken down. It is only in politics that we are national. ”

“ Nothing tends so much to promote public spirit as the study of politics, of the several systems of civil government, their advantages and disadvantages, of the constitution of our own country, its situation, and interest with regard to foreign nations, its commerce, its defence, the disadvantages it labours under, the dangers to which it may be exposed, how to remove the one, and how to guard against the other. ”

“ But we do well to remember that politics as a study is apt to be made a playground of analogies, and we should come to no absolute judgement as to whether an autocracy, open or veiled, a bureaucracy, howsoever founded and inspired, or the moderated democracy is the best fitted for the conduct of foreign affairs. ”

“ The nations, thus massing themselves for exterior defence, and maintaining a healthy system of graduated and distributed powers, original or conferred, for the support of domestic order and activity, have cultivated successfully the field of home politics. ”

“ If we are parts, although different ones, of one and the same civilisation, if we understand the interdependence of the modern world, this must also be present ever more in politics, in practical efforts aimed at the harmonisation of international relations. ”

“ Local affairs will be handled by local governments; national affairs, by national governments; international affairs will be administered by global government.
World peace cannot be maintained by treaties, diplomacy, foreign policies, alliances, balances of power, or any other type of makeshift juggling with the sovereignties of nationalism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The State is the country acting as a political [230] unit, it is the group acting as a repository of force, determiner of law, arbiter of justice. International politics is a “power politics” because it is a relation of States and that is what States infallibly and calamitously are, huge aggregations of human and industrial force that may be hurled against each other in war. When a country acts as a whole in relation to another country, or in imposing laws on its own inhabitants, or in coercing or punishing individuals or minorities, it is acting as a State. ”

“ The goal of world government, as of any political enterprise that pretends to represent human needs, will be social stability, security, efficiency of service, and enlarged opportunities for citizens to speak and act for themselves, directly or through their representatives, at all levels. Politics is the theory and practice of the possible in any given situation. ”

“ I first give you, gentlemen, what I think the right principles of foreign policy.
The first thing is to foster the strength of the empire by just legislation and economy at home, thereby producing two of the great elements of national power—namely, wealth, which is a physical element, and union and contentment, which are moral elements,—and to reserve the strength of the empire, to reserve the expenditure of that strength, for great and worthy occasions abroad. Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. ”

“ During the years of exhaustion following the war, resolute leaders of public opinion will be setting themselves everywhere to frame schemes of international relations which shall yield adequate guarantees of peace. For the first time in history great reading and thinking communities will give their chief attention to international politics. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The argument for a world government begins with the assumption that means should exist to deal with international issues before they reach an acute stage. Such means exist within each local government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Today the nation stands in a position to contribute to the political progress of the world, says the author: “Either it can cling hopelessly to the last vestiges of its policy of isolation or can launch out into imperialistic ventures, or finally it can promote, as can no other nation, a policy of internationalism, which will bind together the nations in a union of mutual interest, and will hasten the peaceful progress of the economic and political integration of the world.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ambitious attempts at world-power, the most splendid combinations to group nations into a civic unity, have tottered to their fall, as surely as the little systems which have had their day and ceased to be,—shifting, fleeting, impotent. ”

“ A democratic constitution may be held to be necessary in domestic government in a modern State, but may, without inconsistency, be condemned, or in essentials curtailed, in its application to international policy. The spheres of application are different. In seeking to shape and control foreign policy the politically enfranchised majority of a people are passing beyond the concerns of one nation—their own—to those of others. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A third major principle of our foreign policy is to help build those associations of nations which reflect the opportunities and the necessities of the modern world.
By strengthening the common defense, by stimulating world commerce, by meeting new hopes, these associations serve the cause of a flourishing world. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Our policy in regard to Europe, which we adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same—which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto as the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a firm, frank and manly policy; meeting in all instances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none. ”

“ From this admission of the equality of nations came the need for the observance of public law. "There is no duty so sacred, incumbent upon any Government in its foreign policy, as that careful and strict regard to public law." ”

“ There, in fact, would be the test of world government efficacy—in its ability to leave the handling of local problems to local groups, and to concentrate its energies on the administration of those problems which have assumed a distinctively world scope. Such capacity to understand the difference between the business of local groups and the business of the world organization would be the touchstone of world statesmanship, the criterion by which the master political minds of the age could be tested. ”

“ When our power and national standing have come to be recognized, we should take the lead in punishing the nation which may act contrary to the principle of international interests; and in so doing, we should join hands with the nations whose principles may be found identical with those of our country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The nation and the national government will be the custodian of the national literature and the common law, the controller and perhaps the vehicle of intermunicipal and international trade, and an intermediary between its municipal governments and that great Congress to which all things are making, that permanent international Congress which will be necessary to insure the peace of the world. ”

“ Democracy and Peace.—First of all, the main assumption made by Englishmen who advocate the democratisation of foreign policy is that international peace would thereby be assured. True, the extension of the democratic principle is to many men an end in itself, quite apart from the question whether it tends to peace. ”

“ The first idea which must strike everybody who attends to the subject is that, if elective government must necessarily embody the popular sentiment and opinion of the day, it must be unfavourable to international relations which are based on certain fixed principles and rules; principles and rules which it is the very object of international society to maintain, against the caprice, interest, or passion of individual States. ”

“ I think what you will see in the President's conduct of foreign policy in Europe and around the world, that he wants to have a foreign policy that is marked by a humble -- humble foreign policy, a humble nation, that does not go around the world dictating to other nations what to do. ”

“ 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? ”

“ After the great catastrophe which had overtaken Europe, nations in future would want to know more about that foreign policy. He was sure that the after effects of a change like this, although it looked a simple change, were going to be very important, not only for the Commonwealth of nations, but for the world as a whole. People were inclined to forget that the world was growing more democratic, and that public opinion and the forces finding expression in public opinion, were going to be far more powerful than they had been 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. ”

“ We have moved from the outer edge to the center of world affairs. Other nations look to us for a wise exercise of our economic and military strength, and for vigorous support of the ideals of representative government and a free society. ”

“ We underline our support for a more democratic and just multi-polar world order based on the rule of international law, equality, mutual respect, cooperation, coordinated action and collective decision-making of all states. ”

“ Morel endeavours to simplify a problem which still remains complicated and obscure to the general public. He shows us “foreign policy” as an influence working in our everyday lives. He brings “diplomacy” into our homes, and serves it up as a dish upon the breakfast table. He depicts us as helpless automata moving blindfolded in a world of make-believe until we secure an effective democratic control over the management of our foreign relations.
1008THE NEW LABOUR OUTLOOK, by Robert Williams. ”

“ 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. ”