One of the most
difficult and (be it admitted) one of the most dubious problems raised
by any attempt to establish a constructive relationship between those
two principles hangs on the fact that hitherto national development has
not apparently made for international peace. The nations of Europe are
to all appearances as belligerent as were the former European dynastic
states. Europe has become a vast camp, and its governments are spending
probably a larger proportion of the resources of their countries for
military and naval purposes than did those of the eighteenth century.
How can these warlike preparations, in which all the European nations
share, and the warlike spirit which they have occasionally displayed, be
reconciled with the existence of any constructive relationship between
the national and the democratic ideas?
The question can best be answered by briefly reviewing the claims
already advanced on behalf of the national principle. I have asserted
from the start that the national principle was wholly different in
origin and somewhat different in meaning from the principle of
democracy.
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