rebellion rankles in the blood, and gradually a force of gathering discontent is roused which turns against the governing Power.
The second factor, related to the first, consists in that form of “parasitism” known as employment of mercenary forces. This is the most fatal symptom of imperial infatuation, whereby the oppressor at once deprives himself of the habit and instruments of effective self-protection and hands them over to the most capable and energetic of his enemies.
This fatal conjunction of folly and vice has always contributed to bring about the downfall of Empires in the past. Will it prove fatal to a federation of European States?
Obviously it will, if the strength of their combination is used for the same parasitic purposes, and the white races, discarding labour in its more arduous forms, live as a sort of world-aristocracy by the exploitation of “lower races,” while they hand over the policing of the world more and more to members of these same races. These dangers would certainly arise if a federation of European States were simply a variant of the older Empires, using a pax Europæa for similar purposes and seeking to maintain it by the same methods as those employed under the so-called pax Romana. The issue is a great one, furnishing, in fact, the supreme test of modern civilisation.
Is it possible for a federation of civilised States to maintain the force required to keep order in the world without abusing her power by political and economic parasitism?
Part II, Chapter III
Notes
- National Life from the Standpoint of Science, p.44 (Black, 1901).