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Major C.H. Douglas in "The New Age," Jan. 14th,
1932
Notes of an Address originally delivered in London, U.K.
· Society at the present time is a battle ground of two
fundamentally opposed ideas and the future of society (now civilisation)
likely to be determined by which of those ideas shall prevail.
· One of these ideas, is the breaking down of all differences,
social and national, and the setting up of a world state.
· And evidence to the contrary offers no evidence or argument
to the Internationalist. The idea is impervious to the assault
of fact.
· There is a perfectly straightforward and practical explanation
of this propaganda for internationalism, and for practical purposes
one does not really need to look far.
· Hardly a day passes without a leading article in leading
newspapers remarking, as though it were axiomatic, that the world
is one economic unit, and that no adjustment of the present discontents
can be expected which does not proceed from international agreement.
· This opinion, is never argued; it is always stated as
though it were obvious to the meanest intellect.
· The simplest explanation of this is that if you only make
a subject large enough and involve a sufficiently large number
of people in the solution of it, you can rest assured that you
will never get a solution.
· A democracy of a thousand voters can be personally approached
and convinced on any subject within a reasonable period of time.
· Enlarge the franchise to include everyone over twenty-one
in a population of 45,000,000 and you can be sure that any general
conclusion will be twenty-five years after that conclusion ceases
to be true.
· If you can super-impose upon that by means of a controlled
Press, Broadcasting, and other devices of a similar nature, something
that you call "public opinion'' (because it is the only opinion
which is articulate) you have a perfect mechanism for a continuous
dictatorship.
· A dictatorship with power but not responsibility.
· Almost equally obvious, and probably equally true -- local
sovereignty, particularly as it extends to finance, is a barrier
to the supremacy of international finance.
· The mentality which is attracted by the Internationalist
idea is incapable of distinguishing between numbers, things, and
individuals.
· It is a type of mentality which is fostered and ultimately
becomes inseparable from people who deal with nothing but figures,
and is, the reason why the banker in particular is fundamentally
unsuited for the position of reorganiser of the world.
· No banker as such, has any knowledge of large undertakings.
He thinks he has, because he deals with large figures, and he
mistakes the dealing with large figures as being equivalent to
dealing with large numbers of things and people.
· ''Can like be equated to like, by any necromancy of gold?"
You might put the matter another way by enquiring whether there
was any similarity between a Beethoven Sonata and a bottle of
wood alcohol in New York, because you can buy either of them for
5s.
· The idea at the root of the International Idea - you can
obtain an elaborate series of statistics regarding the populations
of the world and put a committee down at Geneva, or elsewhere,
to legislate for them on the basis of statistics.
· An idea never accepted by anyone who has ever run or organised
a small business,
· The qualifications for organising the whole world have
never been checked by any kind of laboratory experiment. They
are, in fact, in exactly the position of a would-be bridge builder
who is ignorant both of the Theory of Structures and the Strength
of Materials.
· The danger to the world of this idea is instant and practical.
There is a world movement definitely conscious of its aims, consciously
working for just this purpose.
· With it, or behind it, however you like to regard the
matter, are all those forces whose ends are best served by the
subjection of the individual to the group. While it will certainly
fail, its backing makes a conflict certain.
· An illuminating instance of this appeared in an issue
of "INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS," (November 1931?) which is
the journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
· It is hardly necessary to point out to an instructed audience
that the conflicts between nations, at any rate, in modern times,
are not due to the existence of nations so much as to the existence
of conditions which cause friction between nations. Professor
Toynbee, and others who think like him, are not really interested
in removing the cause of complaint at all, they are merely interested
in making it impossible for complaints to become effective.
· To argue that the best way to stop war is to abolish nationality
is exactly the same thing as to say that the best way to stop
fighting between individuals is to abolish individuals.
THE INTERNATIONAL IDEA
Major C.H. Douglas in "The New Age," Jan. 14th,
1932
Notes of an Address originally delivered in London, U.K.
I should like to impress upon you that in bringing forward the
subject which is covered by the title for discussion, I have no
intention of merely initiating an interesting discussion upon
a philosophical
abstraction. As you are aware, I regard society at the present
time as being the battle ground of two
fundamentally opposed ideas, at any rate, as they are put forward,
and the future of society as likely to be determined by which
of those ideas shall prevail. So far as I call see, those of us
who are in this room constitute the general staff of one of the
armies. We are the general staff, not perhaps because of any outstanding
qualifications for the task, but because there does not seem to
be any other on our side with a clear conception of what it is
trying to do. Now one of these ideas, the one which we oppose
and which has many forms, has one of its embodiments in the idea
that the logical and almost inevitable form that social progress
must take, is the breaking down of all differences, social and
national, and the setting up of a world state.
But the first doubt which I should like to assist you in casting
upon this superficially attractive idea is to direct your attention
to the fact that, like all the other analogous ideas of which
it forms one exhibit, it is impervious to the assault of fact.
The fact that the Irish Free State has split itself off from Great
Britain, and that India and Egypt seem likely to go the same way,
that there is a strong and growing Home Rule movement in Scotland,
that certain States of Australia arc contemplating secession from
the Australian Commonwealth, that there is quite a strong, if
not articulate, division growing up between the Eastern and Western
States of the American Union, and between the Eastern and Western
Provinces of the Dominion of Canada, that Spain seems likely to
split into two separate republics, that of Catalonia and that
of Northern Spain, and many other instances of the same type,
offers no evidence or argument to the Internationalist.
Now, of course, there is a perfectly straightforward and practical
explanation of this propaganda for internationalism, and for practical
purposes one does not really need to look further. Hardly a day
passes without a leading article in "THE TIMES," or
other papers of the same type of interest, remarking, as though
it were axiomatic, that the world is one economic unit, and that
no adjustment of the present discontents can be expected which
does not proceed from international agreement.
These journals are ably seconded by High Clerics. This opinion,
you will notice, is never argued; it is always stated as though
it were obvious to the meanest intellect, which is, in fact, just
about what it is.
Now, as I have just said, the simplest explanation of this is that
if you only make a subject large enough and involve a sufficiently
large number of people in the solution of it, you can rest assured
that you will never get a solution. A democracy of a thousand
voters can be personally approached and convinced on any subject
within a reasonable period of time, but if you enlarge the franchise
to include everyone over twenty-one in a population of 45,000,000
you can be reasonably sure that any general conclusion at which
it will arrive, it will arrive at twenty-five years after that
conclusion ceases to be true.
If you can super-impose upon that by means of a controlled Press,
Broadcasting, and other devices of a similar nature, something
that you call "public opinion" (because it is the only
opinion which is articulate) you have a perfect mechanism for
a continuous dictatorship, and moreover, it is the form of dictatorship
which is fundamentally desired by the collectivist mentality-a
dictatorship which has power without responsibility.
There is, however, another explanation almost equally obvious,
and probably equally true, and that is that local sovereignty,
particularly as it extends to finance is a barrier to the supremacy
of international finance.
A Jewish financier, expressing his contempt for Gentile mentality,
once remarked that the secret of the inability of the Gentile
to shake himself free from the dominance of finance resided in
the fact that the Gentile was incapable of distinguishing between
numbers and things.
I should be inclined to go further than that, and say that the
mentality which is attracted by the Internationalist Idea is incapable
of distinguishing between numbers, things, and individuals. It
is a type of mentality which is fostered and ultimately becomes
inseparable from people who deal with nothing but figures, and
is, in my opinion, the reason why the banker in particular is
fundamentally unsuited for the position of re-organiser of the
world.
No banker, as such, has any knowledge of large undertakings. He
thinks he has, because he deals with large figures, and he mistakes
the dealing with large figures as being equivalent to dealing
with large numbers of things and people. Mr. Brenton has dropped
upon a letter from a correspondent, Sir E. 0. Williams (incidentally,
an engineer) to "THE TIMES" of December 8, and referred
to it in "THE NEW AGE" of December 17.
It calls attention in a hesitating way to one of the most important
ideas I have ever seen in that newspaper, which idea I feel sure
must have crept in by mistake. It is contained in the enquiry:
"Can like be equated to unlike, by any necromancy of gold?"
You might put the matter another way by enquiring whether there
was any similarity between a Beethoven Sonata and a bottle of
wood alcohol in New York, because you can buy either of them for
5s.
Now this is the idea which is at the root of the International
Idea, where it is held sincerely. It is that you can obtain an
elaborate series of statistics regarding the populations of the
world and put a committee down at Geneva, or elsewhere, to legislate
for them on the basis of statistics. It is an idea which would
never be accepted by anyone who had ever run or organised a small
business, and its most vocal exponents, such as, for instance,
Mr. H. G. Wells, or Sir Norman Angell, have never, I think, been
responsible for the organising of a business of any kind.
Their qualifications for organising the whole world have never,
as one might say, been checked by any kind of laboratory experiment.
They are, in fact, in exactly the position of a would-be bridge
builder who
is ignorant both of the Theory of Structures and the Strength
of Materials.
The danger to the world of this idea is instant and practical.
There is a world movement definitely conscious of its aims, counting
amongst its adherents many persons placed by social position,
prestige, and other conditions, in what would seem to be a most
impressive relation to politics and organisation, which is consciously
working for just exactly this purpose. With it, or behind it,
however you like to regard the matter, are all those forces whose
ends are best served by the subjection of the individual to the
group. While it will certainly fail, its backing makes a conflict
certain.
I should like to direct your attention, as a more than usually
illuminating instance of what I mean, to an article which appears
in the November issue of "INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS," which
is the journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs,
commonly known as Chatham House, an organisation which possesses
a Royal Charter, and which (as viewed from Chatham House) brings
together the best brains on all subjects connected with High politics.
The article is entitled, "The Trend of International Affairs
Since the War," and the following extracts are indicative
of its nature:- "Either our modern economic internationalism
has to be sacrificed, or else we must learn to live our political
and our cultural life on the modern worldwide scale, which we
have achieved in our economic life already."
"The other alternative, of course, is that we should bring
our political and our cultural life into harmony
with our economic life; that we should preserve our economic internationalism
by internationalising our social life through and through, in
all its layers."
"You remember, perhaps, that one of the most famous generals
in history once remarked that his opponents were invincible because
they never knew when they were beaten. It is my hope that this
same kind of invincible ignorance-a really heroic form of ignorance,
may carry our generation to victory in our spiritual war for the
establishment of universal and enduring peace (!!!)."
'If we are frank with ourselves we shall admit that we are engaged
on a deliberate and sustained and concentrated effort to impose
limitations upon the sovereignty and the independence of the fifty
or sixty local sovereign independent States."
"The surest sign, to my mind, that this fetish of local national
sovereignty is our intended victim is the emphasis with which
all our statesmen and our publicists protest with one accord,
and over and over again, at every step forward which we take,
that, whatever changes we may make in the international situation,
the sacred principle of local sovereignty will be maintained inviolable.
This, I repeat, is a sure sign that, at each of those steps forward,
the principle of local sovereignty is really being encroached
upon, and its sphere of action reduced and its power for evil
restricted. It is just because we are really attacking the principle
of local sovereignty that keep up protesting our loyalty to it
so loudly. The harder we press our attack upon the idol, the more
pains we take to keep its priests and devotees in a fool's paradise,
lapped in a false sense of security which will inhibit them from
taking up arms in their idol's defence.''
"In plain terms, we have to re-transfer the prestige and the
prerogatives of sovereignty from the fifty or sixty fragments
of contemporary society to the whole of contemporary society."
"In the world as it is to-day, this institution can hardly
be a universal Church. It is more likely to be something like
a League of Nations. I will not prophesy. I will merely repeat
that we are at present working, discreetly, but with all our might,
to wrest this mysterious political force called sovereignty out
of the clutches of the local national states of our world. And
all the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with
our hands."
"But supposing this does not happen? Supposing that the present
generation of mankind is defeated in the end, after all, in the
strenuous effort which we are making to centralise the force of
sovereignty."
"But Prussia has not ceased to be one of the great States
of the modern world. She is still great, because her public organisation
... is still second to none. I suggest to you that history is
likely to repeat itself here, and that, once again, what Prussia
is to-day, France and Great Britain and Italy, yes, and even the
United States, are likely to become to-morrow. For the sake of
the peace and prosperity of the world, I devoutly hope that my
prophecy will prove correct."
Now if the address from which these extracts are taken had been
given at some local Socialist or Communist Forum, and had appeared
in, let us say, "THE WORKER," or some other organ of
those sections of society which are more obviously suffering from
the present state of affairs, one would, if one had felt obliged
to notice it at all, have remarked that it was rather poisonous
nonsense, and left it at that. Communists, in their periodical
appearances in the police-court, might well refer to it. But the
speaker was Professor Arnold Toynbee, who was one of the British
representatives at the Peace Conference, and, I believe, amongst
other things, is, or has been, the occupant of the Chair of Greek
at London University, and the occasion was the Conference of Institutions
for the Scientific Study of International Relations held at Copenhagen
on June 8th 1931, at which twelve countries were represented,
and, in addition, delegates attended from four international organisations,
the nature of which was not stated.
These Conferences were initiated by the League of Nations Institute
of Intellectual Co-operation. The address, therefore, from the
auspices under which it was given, is a matter for serious attention.
The first point in it to which I should like to draw your attention,
is the emphasis that it places on the fact that the work of which
the speaker is so proud has been persistently pursued for the
last twelve years with all possible energy and in every country,
and yet it does not appear to occur to the speaker to question
whether there is anything in the state of the world at the present
time which would suggest that the results could be regarded as
a subject for congratulation to anyone outside the confines of
a criminal lunatic asylum.
In Europe, the national sovereignty which has, perhaps, been most
wholly delivered over to the tender mercies of the League of Nations
in the period under review is Austria, and if the state of Austria
at the present time is an exhibit as to the state that the whole
world will be in when it, too, has been brought under the League
of Nations, then I think we can say in all seriousness, "God
help the world."
You will notice that this peculiar blindness to facts which seems
to be characteristic of all persons afflicted with the collectivist
mentality is strongly in evidence, together with the peculiar
determination to regard the populations of the world as only salvable
through a continuous course of deception, by being made to vote,
and to think, and to call for things of which they do not know
the meaning or the result.
You will also note that there is not a single reference in this
article, and in general there rarely is, in proposals of this
nature, any reference to the remote possibility that so far from
nationality being the cause of the world-wide unrest, it is sovereignty,
whether national or international, which is resented, and that
to replace national sovereignty by international sovereignty is
to still further complicate and exaggerate the evil against which
the whole world is rebelling. Or to put the matter another way,
Professor Toynbee, and others who think like him, are not really
interested in removing the cause of complaint at all, they are
merely interested in making it impossible for complaints to become
effective.
I think it is significant that what one might call "good-class"
propaganda for internationalism has for many years been a passport
to political success, particularly in Great Britain. It has been
clearly allied with political Liberalism, and the support which
political Liberalism has always received from international finance
is well-known. Strictly speaking, the orthodox tenets of British
Trades Unionism are strongly national and anti-international,
a fact which anyone can prove for themselves by talking to the
average working Trades Unionist on the subject of Protection.
Yet, the British Labour movement, which has also received considerable
covert support from international finance, has officially presented
a policy of internationalism as a part of its platform, and those
Labour and Trades Union officials and politicians who have in
the past been most conspicuously successful have taken care to
render, at any rate, lip service to the international idea.
It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to point out to an instructed
audience that the conflicts between nations, at any rate, in modern
times, are not due to the existence of nations so much as to the
existence of conditions which cause friction between nations.
To argue that the best way to stop war is to abolish nationality
is exactly the same thing as to say that the best way to stop
fighting between individuals is to abolish individuals.
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