Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/272

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DEMOCRATIC IDEALS AND REALITY

recognise that they present the danger of a financial control of the world. Your League of Nations may have to take them in hand, lest we be ruled by one only of the 'interests' of society. There are two courses open to us in regard to them; to control them federally, or to fight them and balance them by the international organisation of other 'interests.' The federal authority, whether of the League or the Nation, is constituted of communities of complete growth, and cannot, from its nature, aspire to Empire, since it consists every-where of balanced humanity. But great specialist organisations, guided by experts, will inevitably contend for the upper hand, and the contest must end in the rule of one or other type of expert. That is Empire, for it is unbalanced.

Do you realise that we have now made the circuit of the world, and that every system is now a closed system, and that you can now alter nothing without altering the balance of everything, and that there are no more desert shores on which the jetsam of incomplete thought can rest undisturbed? Let us attempt logical, symmetrical thought, but practical, cautious action, because we have