Asiatic Complex and Great Britain's Position are Difficulties of United States of Europe, Says Hart

The following is an extract from an article entitled "The Disunited States of Europe," appearing in the November Issue of Current History, in which A. B. Hart '80, professor emeritus of History, discusses the possibility of a confederation of the European nations.

What an alluring caption is the title "The United States of Europe"! How skillfully it sets forth in five words the regeneration of mankind, suggesting the solution of the tremendous issues of the twentieth century and at the same time delicately alluding to the great and successful United States of the New World. It is undeniable that the chief republic of North America has solved, with reasonable success, the problem of reconciling vast areas and immense populations with a comparatively simple and understandable federal system. It is equally undeniable that since the fall of the Roman Empire nearly fifteen centuries ago the rich Continent of Europe, including the fountains of Western culture and Western government, has been broken up into warring units. Likewise, it is true that the so-called Holy Roman Empire in North Central Europe reconciled some of the Jealousies and hostilities of a group of countries for nearly a thousand years. That combine distantly approached world government, which in past ages meant the government of Central and Southern Europe with the adjacent portions of Northern Africa and Western Asia. Yet the outcome of all, the efforts of European unification was fiercer animosities, more terrible wars and the subdivision of large countries into smaller and hostile units.

Two Difficulties in Way

The present agitation for European confederation on a great scale is subject to two inherent and stubborn difficulties. The first is the Asiatic complex. Anything approaching world confederation must take account of the two enormous aggregations of population in India and China, which together include about half the human race. No world union is possible so long as this vast population might out-vote the rest of the globe. The second difficulty is that, if the majestic idea of a vast federation is actually carried out in Europe, two of the most important units must he omitted. The first of them is Russia. Five-sixths of the population of that Soviet Union live west of the Ural Mountains, commonly considered the boundary between Europe and Asia. But Russia has put out creepers across Asia which are not compatible with membership in a European federation. To be sure, the Soviet Union is the strongest believer on the globe in international unification. The Russian idea, however, is not at all a world federation, but a world Soviet which, if the present government of Russia is an example, means a world dictatorship in the hands of the men who now rule the Soviet Union.

Great Britain Presents Problem

The other difficulty lies at the other geographical extreme of Europe--Great Britain. That country is already part of an empire which has many of the elements of confederation--a common official language, a common system of laws for people of European derivation, a coordination of large and small units. If Great Britain joins a European United States, will that bring into the system the Europeanized communities of Canada and Australia and South Africa and the other far-flung colonies dominated by Great Britain? On a basis of equal representation of population groups. Great Britain and her dependencies would contribute to the world federation something like one-fourth of the population, the greater part of which is not English. That is a great morsel for a union of countries in which, for example, Finland and Switzerland and Greece are to have in some respects an equal status with Great Britain. Furthermore, the question of foreign trade and tariffs is one in which the interests of Great Britain have for the last hundred years been very different from those of the other countries.

Europe is hampered by vital governmental problems from which the American States are practically free. In the first line comes the question of proportional representation.

A strict population basis would not work. Allowing one representative for every million of the 480,000,000 people on the Continent of Europe, France would have forty-one and Albania one. A combination of a few large States could always outvote the rest of the union. A genuine United States of Europe, founded on the successful American model, would presumably establish two legislative houses. If each nation should have one vote in the upper house, Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Spain combined could always be outvoted by a group of States with an aggregate population of loss than 2,000,000. It would be the tall wagging the dog. The number of small States in the upper house would be far greater than is possible in the Uniter States Senate.

The question of official languages must also come up, and that is a point on which the small nations are insistent German, French, Spanish Italian and Polish are the languages spoken by the largest number of individuals. Presumably, Hungarians and Bulgarians and Latvians, if they wished to influence their colleagues, would have to address the houses in some language that is not understood in their own bailiwick.