A World-Legislature

AT the session of the Massachusetts Legislature of 1902 a petition was presented in favor of a world-legislature. That petition was referred to the Legislature of 1903 in order that the subject might receive further public consideration, and the chairmen of the committee which heard the petitioners said, in each branch respectively, that the proposal was meritorious. According to the report, the petition is pending before the Legislature of 1903, with hundreds of signers, including some of the best citizens. The American Peace Society, by vote of its directors, signed the petition, while it also presented another petition of its own, asking for a movement for a world-conference or congress, with recommendatory powers, to meet at stated intervals, say once in seven years. Thus the proposal of world-organization is formally before the public.

Since the first petition was presented repeated instances have occurred to support the main argument for it, — that business exigencies of the world were becoming so urgent that world-organization, as a necessity, would precede the efforts of pure philanthropy or statesmanship for the same end. Early in the year came the Pan-American Congress. Among its proposals, suited for a world-scale, were these : a Pan-American bank; a custom-house congress, and an international customs commission; a statistical bureau of international scope ; an international copyright law; an international commission to codify international law; international regulations to cover inventions and trademarks ; a common treaty of extradition and protection against anarchy; international regulations for the world-wide practice of the liberal professions; an international archæological commission; an international office as depositary of the archives of international conferences ; an international regulation granting equal rights to all foreigners from any of the signatory countries, and some minor plans.

Other world-propositions which developed during the year included (in January) the organization of the International Banking Corporation, with power, under a Connecticut charter, of doing business all over the world ; (early in the year) circulation by the Manchester (England) Statistical Society of a pamphlet advocating an international gold coinage; (in July) suggestion by Russia of an international conference to protect the nations against trusts and other private operations of capital; (in July) another plan for an international bank; (in August) meeting of the International Congress on Commerce and Industry; and (in December) the meeting of the International Sanitary Conference in Washington; to which may be added (in January, 1903) the meeting in New York of the International Customs Congress. For one year that is a notable record of progress toward world-organization in matters of business, not as matters of theory or of pure philanthropy. These instances illustrate the truth, which many persons still fail to realize, that the world is getting together at a rapid rate, and that, as a matter of self-interest, the nations must soon have a permanent legislative body as a means of establishing regulations for the benefit of all.

Pertinent to the case is the fact that world-legislation has occurred repeatedly, though no world-legislature has been organized. This action has been possible only by special meetings for special purposes. The essence of world-legislation is the consent of the nations to a particular course of action. That is, the will of the world decrees that a certain thing shall be done. When all nations agree, we have absolute worldaction. When fewer than all agree, we have action of the same kind, but less in degree. In the case of the International Postal Union, we have absolute world-legislation. All civilized nations of the world are in formal agreement upon the propositions involved in the international transmission of mails. The world-will has taken specific expression, and that will is carried into execution in that field of action.

That is the most conspicuous and most successful illustration of worldlegislation, because it embraces organized mankind, and because it is so eminently successful. Provision for stated meetings of the International Postal Congress at Berne every seven years for such action as may be necessary to improve or maintain the system makes the illustration for our purposes complete.

But many other instances have occurred in which more than two nations have been parties to an agreement regarding some particular matter. Largest in world-importance has been the agreement of the principal nations of the world, and some of the smaller ones, in the establishment of the Hague Court of Arbitration. Though legislation is not the object of that court, yet the act of establishing the court was, in itself, an act of world-legislation (as far as the signatory nations were concerned) of the largest benefit to mankind.

Mention may be made of the International Conference in Washington in 1885, for the establishment of a common prime meridian, at which twenty-six nations were represented. At the International Sanitary Conference in Vienna in 1892, fifteen nations were represented. At the Dresden International Sanitary Conference in 1893, nineteen nations were represented. Our PanAmerican conferences, at which groups of nations have been represented, illustrate further what has already been done by way of reaching an expression of international will upon particular matters, though in no case has a proposition for a general international legislative body, for promiscuous business, been presented. But the point is sufficiently established, for the assurance of the conservative, that international or world-legislation has occurred repeatedly. What is proposed now is not a new departure, but the establishment, in permanent form, of a means of expressing the will of the nations, instead of the present imperfect means of calling special meetings with power to consider only special subjects.

Now, as to the urgency of the case. Foremost of the political questions of the times is the great and complex one, What is to be done to regulate or control the vast aggregations of capital which are exercising unscrupulously their enormous powers as monopolies and taking extortionate sums from consumers in return for their products? All the world is now laid under tribute. At present the world lies helpless because it is disorganized. In the United States we have barely made a beginning in the solution of the problem. Most advanced of all the states, and more advanced than the general government, is Massachusetts. President Roosevelt, in his message to Congress treating of the problem, mentioned the corporation laws of Massachusetts as the most advanced means yet proposed in the form of law. But Massachusetts is only a spot on the surface of the earth. National legislation is in embryo. Publicity as a remedy is the most potent force yet suggested, and the efficacy of that is disputed by the chairman of the Inter-State Commerce Commission in open difference from President Roosevelt.

While legislation halts within state and national limits, the problem is world-wide. Our interstate law is a sorry success, at best. But if it were absolutely successful within our boundaries, yet it would fail in the case of goods shipped direct from Chicago to London, as is done already for the express purpose of evading the interstate commerce law. That reveals the problem. World-transportation can be controlled only by world-legislation. Monopolies winch defy national laws because they are world-monopolies can be grappled with successfully only by world-laws. Already the necessity is upon us for world-legislation, because business transactions now extend all over the world, and no national legislation will be adequate to protect the people from world-monopolies.

Now, though the necessity is here, the means of relief is not here. Worldlegislation can be secured only as the nations are educated both to the necessity of it and to the means of securing it. But governments of most of the nations are to-day controlled by those who have a direct personal interest in the continuance of the present order, rather than by those whose relief from the present order is urgent. Years of effort are necessary, in the first place, to educate the nations to the point of recognizing the need of world-legislation. Following that will come years of struggle by the educated reformers, to win their reform against the entrenched opposition of the powerful classes whose interest it is to maintain and perpetuate the monopolies. It is high time, therefore, for the public agitation and education to begin. Sore enough will be the need of reform by the time the peoples of the earth shall be able to secure it.

It is especially for the people of the United States to take the lead in this upward struggle for world-unity. The greatest government by the people is most fit for the leadership. We have the form of government which foreshadows the form of world-government that will exist when all mankind are brought into organic political connection. Theoretically our states are sovereign. All rights are reserved to them which are not formally surrendered, by the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, to the central government. In matters of world-legislation the nations individually would surrender to the nations collectively only such jurisdiction as they voluntarily yielded in passing upon propositions from the world-legislature, for it is not to be supposed that a major part of the physical force of the nations would force upon a minor part such regulations as might be approved by a majority of the representatives sitting in the worldlegislature. Settlement of the right of secession would lie far in the future until the rightfulness and scope of the organic law of mankind were determined more exactly than would be possible for a long time after the first session of the world’s representatives. The organic unity of the world would develop slowly, under unwritten principles, as the British Constitution has developed. The probable course in the establishment of the world-legislature may be outlined, approximately, as follows : —

First step. The President of the United States, acting under the authority of Congress, would send to the principal nations of the world an invitation to meet in Washington for the purpose of establishing and setting in motion, as far as practicable, a world-legislature. That invitation might properly contain a statement that the people of the United States believed in the unity of mankind as an organic whole, regardless of any man-made laws or constitutions, and that the people were desirous of a practical, formal recognition of that unity in order that the organic growth, prosperity, and peace of mankind might be promoted. The invitation might further say that the people of the United States recognized that there was a true limit to the nominal sovereignty of so-called sovereign nations, and that they were ready to surrender formally their conceded right to control their own course upon certain matters which might better be placed under the jurisdiction of a world-legislature. The invitation might specify, for the sake of a frank and friendly beginning, to stimulate the cooperation of other nations, such matters as postal regulations, arbitration, customs regulations, world-patents, trademarks and copyrights, world-coinage, weights and measures, sanitary regulations for great ports and lines of travel, the collection of world-statistics, explorations of geography and antiquities, industrial investigations, and regulation of world-monopolies. The invitation might request the invited nations to specify the particulars in which they would consider propositions to waive claims of sovereignty, in case they accepted the fundamental principle upon which the invitation was based.

Second step. The nations receiving the invitations would severally accept or decline. If any declined, then an end of progress for the present would be reached with every such nation. If any accepted, they could, in sending their representatives, either instruct them or omit to instruct them in regard to the claims of sovereignty which they would waive in behalf of the sovereignty of mankind. They would probably reserve the right to accept or reject the specific legislation proposed.

Third step. Delegates from such nations as accepted — and two or three nations would suffice for a beginning — would organize for action. As each nation, whether small or great, would be on an equal footing of nominal sovereignty with every other, it would doubtless be found expedient or necessary to allow it only one vote, no matter how many delegates it might send. Following organization would come suitably a declaration, agreed to by all the participants in the meeting, in recognition of the sovereignty of mankind, saying that the purpose of the participating nations was to realize their higher unity by means of world-legislation. Then would follow practical world-legislation, such as would be covered by the termas whereby certain claims to absolute sovereignty had been surrendered conditionally by the participating nations, joined with a declaration that it should become operative in the nations severally when accepted by them.

Fourth step. The proposed legislation of the first meeting would be referred to the respective home governments for ratification.

Then regular sessions would follow according to the precedent established, resulting in the development of mankind, as far as included by the nations represented, into an organic whole.

In advancing along this line of progress, the nations would be passing over ground previously untrodden. Precedents would be established only after hesitation, doubt, and experiment. Conservatism and old accepted theories would be perpetual obstacles, and only the genuine unity of mankind, working out for the benefit of the large majority against holders of special privilege, would be strong enough to surmount the objections and the persistent opposition. Gradually the world would realize that the real world-constitution is not a form of government set up by men, but is the aggregate of the conditions in which mankind is placed by a power superior to itself. All that men can do for their progress and prosperity is to recognize those conditions, and world-law, national - law, state - law, city-ordinance, and town-meeting-vote, from highest to lowest, each within its sphere is but a recognition by men of the conditions placed upon them, and an effort to conform to them.

Hence, in the light of this truth, world-progress is only an adaptation of mankind to conditions. Really there is no such thing as absolute national sovereignty. In the present stage of world-progress nations are recognized as absolute because they declare themselves to be such, and no power is strong enough to disprove their assertion. But they are parts of organic humanity, subject to its laws. From that relation they cannot escape; from those laws they cannot break away.

In rising to the height of world-legislation the nations would be simply recognizing a higher and broader truth in their relations than they had hitherto admitted. They would not create any new relation, except in a limited sense. They would recognize the truth of their close relations one to another and attempt to shape their conduct in harmony with those relations, instead of shutting their eyes to the truth and reaping the evil consequences which inevitably befall all who deny the higher truths in the midst of which they live.

World-organization must inevitably result in unspeakable benefit in the way of world-peace. Since mankind is one, when it is formally organized as a unity its several parts will promote the peace and prosperity of the whole, and the increased health and vigor of the whole will react for the strength of every part. Thus far the parts have been, and still are, using their strength to injure one another, to cripple one another, to prevent the progress of one another, and, in short, to violate fundamentally the conditions which are essential for the growth and strength of the whole. War by means of the most destructive inventions men can contrive to kill one another (preparations for which almost break the backs of the great European Powers) is supplemented by commercial strife, in which corporate and national energies are taxed to the utmost to destroy rivals, to ruin their industries, to prevent sale of their products, and to prejudice class against class, nation against nation, for the benefit of the few. That absurd condition is eulogistically called modern progress. The one step which evidently will do most to promote the peace, strength, health, and prosperity of the organism known as mankind is to put the parts in their organic relations of harmony and mutual helpfulness, and to prevent their constant warfare upon one another as contending fragments. Hence the thorough reasonableness of the proposition for a world-legislature and the urgency that the movement be promoted by all who love their kindred around the world, or even who love themselves, for the health of the whole means most health and strength to each and every part.

This movement is in the form of a petition for the establishment of a worldlegislature. But a world - judiciary would necessarily follow as an immediate step of world-development. The Hague Court of Arbitration is not a general world-court. It is merely a court for the settlement of differences between nations. Its purpose is to prevent war. It is in no sense a court to pass upon world-law. But, after a world-legislature is in operation, then the necessity of a court to interpret and apply its laws would arise as truly as it exists in the case of other courts whose function is to interpret and apply national or state law. Such a line of development inheres in the case by the very conditions amid which mankind exists.

But decrees of world-courts must have an executive arm for their enforcement. Laws by the world-legislature must be carried into execution. Expenses of world-organizations must he paid. Hence, though for a time the enforcement of world-laws might be left to the several nations within their boundaries, yet it is to be expected that in time a world-president would naturally take his place as the logical official to complete the system, while, before that stage was reached, there might be minor officials of world-rank, such as secretaries, treasurers, and commissioners.

Judging from experience in the practice under the Hague Court of Arbitration, one powerful influence might surely be counted upon to promote the success of the first attempts at world-organization. That would be the high character of the men who would be selected for the service and the extreme sensitiveness of all parties to conduct proceedings with the most scrupulous honor. Each nation would select for its servants in world-organization the very best men it could possibly produce. Petty reasons and local politics would be very insignificant factors in the selection of these men. All the nation, not a faction or a party, would be represented on the world-stage, in sight of all the world and under the criticism of the keenest intellects of the human race. No nation would risk its interests or its reputation by sending any but its worthiest and ablest sons.

While legislation was in progress, the world-legislature, conscious that the world’s eyes were fixed upon it, scrutinizing every act and weighing every motive, would be watchful, every member of it, to see that every act was above suspicion. Existing high moral character would be reinforced by a constant earnestness to keep every step of procedure above criticism on moral grounds. A high standard would be set and maintained, which would react upon the nations severally and upon the world collectively, and would promote the efficiency of the organic action and progress of the whole.

Association of the nations, represented by such men, would surely tend to remove misunderstandings and so advance friendliness among the different quarters of the globe. Reasonableness in the positions of different nations would be seen better than is now possible. World-peace, from this added reason, would be promoted, and the material prosperity of each part would advance with the increasing assurance that the rights of each would be preserved, and that each would be safe from interference in its effort to make the most and the best of itself.

Some say that the idea of world-organization is Utopian. Others say that it is a magnificent ideal, but that it is far in the future, and that it is idle to dream, even, of such a measure in the present stage of civilization. Perhaps the best answer to such critics and objectors is that they are behind the times ; that they have not opened their eyes to what is in progress all over the world. During the last year positive and manifest progress has been made toward world-organization. Progress has occurred both in gatherings which foreshadow a world-legislature and in the increase of forces which impel mankind to organize on a world-scale. The movement is not undertaken with the expectation of immediate realization. But it is maintained that world-business already demands the attention of the world, and that plenty of work would be brought to a world-legislature if it could be organized this year. And it is further recognized that time must elapse before the common sense of the world is educated to the point of demanding world-organization. Urgency exists, therefore, that this process of education should begin at once.

To say that world-organization is impossible is to affirm that mankind is not of one origin, or is so unreasonable and degraded as to make such organization hopeless. But either of these alternatives seems less reasonable than to affirm that mankind is of one blood, and that the nations have sufficient reason and energy to establish their organic relation through a world-legislature, to embody their united intelligence, and to express their united will.

Raymond L. Bridgman.