By What Authority? - The Question of Our Time and the Answer

By Hugh J. Schonfield

This book would be well worth reading as a survey of human progress towards World Order from the Code of the Hammurabi to the concept of International Law, as an outline of governmental institutions from the Roman Empire to the United Nations, as an objective consideration of universal programmes as diverse as Functional Federalism and State Shintoism. But the book is even more worth reading as a masterly analysis of current problems and principles, spiritual, political and scientific, which affect mankind in its quest for harmony and unity.

But the reason why this book must be read by everyone concerned for the issues of War or Peace is because it makes a major contribution towards the solution of our international difficulties. The author gives here not only an answer - but perhaps The Answer - to the great question of our time.

This book has something to tell which is NEWS, real and thrilling news, which thousands the world over will want to hear about and discuss. An enterprise has been begun - not just contemplated or proposed - which none of the Governments could have undertaken and which, in its fruition, can transform the international situation. The unexpectedness of the new agency may arouse controversy and even criticism in some quarters but by most it will be warmly and thankfully welcomed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Texianer Verlag
• Release date: Apr 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393365099

Book preview

BY WHAT AUTHORITY?

The Question of our Time and the Answer

HUGH J. SCHONFIELD

By what authority doest thou these things, and who gave thee this authority? (Matt, xxi. 23).

By what world authority shall peace and social justice be assured to all mankind?

© Published by the Hugh & Helene Schonfield World Service Trust

Johannesstrasse 12 D-78609 Tuningen Germany

www.schonfield.org

Editor: Stephen A. Engelking

Copyright © 1945 Hugh J. Schonfield

Table of Contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER I - THE CASE ADVERSE TO WORLD UNITY

Popular Apathy and Ignorance

The Principle of Self-Determination

The Survival of Tradition

The Ideological Conflict

The Lack of a Common Morality

The Conflict of Loyalties

CHAPTER II - THE CASE FAVOURABLE TO WORLD UNITY

The Holy Roman Empire

Corporate Responsibility

Foundations of International Law

The Era of Conferences

The League of Nations

CHAPTER III - THE WAY OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY

Militant Communism

Fascism

State-Shintoism

Anglo-Saxonism

The United Nations

Dumbarton Oaks

CHAPTER IV - THE WAY OF FEDERALISM

Political Federalism (A World Federation of States)

Political Federation (Regional and Geographical)

Political Federation (Regional and Ideological)

Functional Federalism

CHAPTER V - THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

World Religion and World Unity

Community

Pacifism (The Faith of Non-Violence)

Moral Re-Armament (The Christian Revolution)

The Remnant

CHAPTER VI - THINKING THINGS THROUGH

The World as an Organism

Governments

Religious Authorities

Individuals and Independent Groups

The Spirit of the Times

CHAPTER VII - TALKING THINGS OVER

Spirit and Civilisation

World Citizenship and World Order

World Citizens as a Nation

The Servant of Mankind

CHAPTER VIII - WORKING THINGS OUT

Forming the Service-Nation

Jews & Christians in the Ancient World

An Organic Plan

Political Aspects

Moral and Spiritual Basis

World Unity and World Loyalty

World Education

Science and The Better Life

Colonies and Backward Races

The World Court

Maintenance of Peace

Economic and Social Problems

Summing Up

Appendix A

THE BIBLICAL CONCEPT OF A SERVANT-NATION

Appendix B

The Service-Nation Movement

Membership

Basic Constitution

Appendix C

Partial Glimpses and Anticipations

Citizens of The World

International City

The Holy Nation

CHAPTER I -   PREFACE

The sub-title of this book might have been qualified by my stating that it was an ‘attempted’ answer to the question of our time. It would have been a more modest assertion, especially when so many well-informed persons have claimed to be in possession of a solution. But after earnest consideration I have decided to let it stand because of my deep conviction of its truth. I am able to do so with a good conscience because the answer is not really mine at all, but one which has been implicit and to an extent explicit in a great literature which is among the noblest of human heritages. I am not alone in realising this, but my task has been more definitely and directly to relate the answer to the political situation and to express it in terms of political action. Moreover, it is action which I not only advocate, but to which I am myself committed and others increasingly with me.

So in this small book will be found not merely a theory or proposition, but something of tremendous import which is actually happening and in which any convinced reader is free to participate. This book, then, represents news as well as views. Outside the sphere of governmental operations and the discussions of statesmen which make the headlines, and which are debated by the public, the real construction of a better world order is taking place quietly and unobtrusively. To most of my readers, no doubt, this will be the first they have heard of it, and some may find it startling: they may even disapprove if it does not consort with their own preconceptions. But it is going on, and it is hoped that their respect for it will progressively develop as they become accustomed to it.

Necessarily the first part of the book covers ground which will be familiar to many, but in dealing with the issues of war and peace it has been impossible to avoid a preparatory consideration of the historic processes and of contemporary events and ideas. It is out of these, and because of these, that there now emerges the new instrument for the welfare of mankind. I have also made frequent reference to the writings and opinions of others pertinent to the theme, and it has been helpful to have the use of material of mine contributed, from time to time to The World Citizen, the magazine the name of which is the goal of my argument.

HUGH J. SCHONFIELD.

BY WHAT AUTHORITY?

CHAPTER II -   THE CASE ADVERSE TO WORLD UNITY

For agile minds imbued with humanitarian sympathies and equipped with technical qualifications there has rarely been any difficulty in putting the world right—on paper. For the past 300 years, ever since the Thirty Years’ War gave rise to the modern international problem and the days of the unifying influence of the Holy Roman Empire were numbered, plans for the promotion of international law and a permanent peace have been put forward with increasing frequency and intensity. With the acute stage of the problem represented by twentieth-century scientific and total war new plans are pouring in a continual spate through the world’s presses; for the fear is real that if we do not end war, war will end us.

It does not seem to be appreciated, however, by the advocates of the majority of these plans that the prospect of being able to try them out is very remote and probably altogether vain. The conditions are not the same as for theories which are open to local and small-scale test.

This fact, as regards American peace agencies (but it is everywhere the same), was emphasised not long ago by Dr. Charles Davis, of World Fellowship Inc., when he wrote: There are some 40 prominent non-profit organizations which have been promoting peace for 50 years past more or less. One has had for 30 years 500,000 dollars a year to spend. Others have large funds and powerful influential men and women leaders and members. Innumerable memorials signed by several hundred million people have been prepared, presented and given publicity throughout the world advocating peace. Not one has advanced any specific, concrete, workable plan to attain peace. A recent request to each of them asked: (a) What plan do you advocate to attain World Peace? (b) What progress towards its accomplishment have you made? One and all replied that they had no plan save through ’education.’ One and all said that no practical advance had been made to indicate that their efforts would be crowned with success within any conceivable period of time.

The point would seem to be that world willingness to submit to what must necessarily be a revolutionary process is almost incredible; yet organizations continue to agitate for the adoption of universal policies, when quiet reflection should have convinced them of the impracticability of their task. Policies on the world-scale, especially when they clash with habitual practice and self-interest, only become acceptable very gradually, and then usually if they have first achieved regional success. There is a religious quality about peace, because it signifies a balanced and harmonious condition, and one might therefore imagine that it would be at least as difficult to promote universal peace as universal faith. There are great world religions, which have had millennia of propagation, but there is still no world religion. If one regards religion as essentially an individual matter, and prefers to make comparison with some collective ideology, one may instance Communism as a world plan which so far has failed to secure a mandate for universal experiment, and which must depend for its wider commendation on agreement as to the beneficial results of its limited practice for a sufficient period.

The problem has been stated in these terms by the International Consultative Group of Geneva: As it becomes increasingly evident that the crisis of Western civilization is in the last resort a spiritual crisis which is due to the absence of great common and compelling convictions, and that none of the ideologies which are at present in control can pretend to be able to bring about a true integration, men everywhere are searching for a new universalism.[1] No such universalism has been discovered, and, if it is intended to represent a compelling conviction shared by all, may well be indiscoverable.

Consequently, it is of no service to express the belief that if all the nations, or all persons, would adopt my or our plan peace and concord would be assured, and to proceed on the assumption that there is a chance that they might be induced to do so. Once we are rid of this delusion, if we have suffered from it, we can honestly face the obstacles to the realisation of our cherished desires.

It is needful here, at the outset, to emphasise further the unreality of universal remedies.

For ages men have had visions of a better world: they have embodied them in their religion, their philosophy, their poetry and art. But the act of faith requires also the will to fulfilment. In such concepts as these we move from the particular to the general. We are dealing with matters which concern others beside our individual selves, and it is then that our own faith becomes inadequate. Our design can only be accomplished according to the measure that we can induce faith in those for whom it is intended. It must become their vision and their will.

The whole history of progress, reform and revolution may be offered in illustration. It usually, but not inevitably, follows that the larger the number of those whose faith in an idea has to be quickened the slower will be its realisation. There may be only a partial achievement because the faith has become attenuated in dissemination. Sometimes it has happened that a great visionary has failed altogether to pass on his faith to his generation. Our verdict is that he has lived before his time. Centuries may elapse before a sufficient awakening to the truth of his vision has occurred. With all schemes affecting the masses, particularly political schemes, it too often happens that the faith is lacking even in the originator or group of originators. They are no more than academic essays in imagining, stillborn as soon as they are contrived. They can never reach maturity, and represent a fruitless, if harmless, pastime on the part of those who either being in public positions wish to appear to be constructive, or alternatively wish to obtain a self-satisfying reputation for sagacity and humanitarianism. Into these categories fall most of the blue-prints for a New World Order, the individual and joint declarations of eminent personages, the lists of points and programmes, and the generality of sweeping resolutions passed at conferences.

But even where faith is to a degree present, as with a number of persons and societies whose aims are now being propagated, where the scope of such aims embraces either the whole world, or any considerable portion of it, success must be remote or improbable. The plan will not work without the faith of the majority to whom it is to apply, or of those—governments, etc.—who act for that majority. This, unfortunately, is frequently lost sight of by movements labouring for universal causes. The odds against the acceptance of their thesis are almost overwhelming by reason of indifference, hostility and plain lack of conviction. Were they themselves in the position to implement their own proposals the situation might be very different.

It is a hard conclusion to reach, but these considerations render ineffectual for all practical purposes the activities of a host of well-intentioned people and organizations. The schemes are not themselves fantastic as a rule: they are eminently sensible and cogently reasoned; but that docs not save them from being utopian, and even coming under the castigation of that newer and more bitter word Globaloney.

Must one then abandon planning for world unity and enduring peace? By no means. But one must be fully alive to all the hindrances and obstacles, so that the plans deal with things as they are and not as we would like them to be. Let us make a preparatory survey of some of the real difficulties we shall have to take into account.

Popular Apathy and Ignorance

The desire for social security is in these days widespread, and the effect of two world wars within so short a period has been to increase the recognition that war is an enemy to such security. But the knowledge has been negative: it has not given the ordinary man and woman any confidence that war is avoidable or that it lies within his or her power to do anything about it. To the contrary, the processes which could bring about the elimination of war and the achievement of social security are held to have become so complex and involved as to be far beyond the average capacity for comprehension and investigation, and consequently the condition of the masses is almost wholly one of dependence on governments' and parties to attain these ends for them, if, indeed, they are attainable. The prevailing atmosphere is one of fatalism engendering apathy. When passions are aroused it is usually at the bidding of propaganda: but popular feeling is primarily occupied with petty concerns, and in major issues the tendency is towards acquiescence in the decisions of whatever authority is regarded for the time being as on the side of the underdog.

Parochialism too is still a force to contend with, and there is little real sympathy with or understanding of alien problems. There are frontiers of the mind and will as restraining as geographical boundaries. Science has overstepped these frontiers, but education has hardly begun to remove them.

It is quite unsound, therefore, to believe that the peoples of the world, ignorant and only half-articulate, or even the workers of the world, would unite on any grounds of a common humanity, brotherhood, or other lofty ideal. The hatreds have still their primitive power: if governments decide to go to war, they will yet again carry their people with them. The loves are confined to the noble moments of individual souls.

The Principle of Self-Determination

That peoples may and should determine their own national future was accepted as a principle for which a victory was won in the First World War. The result was a considerable increase in the number of independent sovereign states. The principle is not only still recognised, but in the Second World War there has been added to it the right of states to choose their own form of government.

In advocating self-determination it was the small nation which was in view, and it must be admitted that it is the small nations which are most tenacious of their national rights and privileges. All the evidence today is that these nations, many of them still medieval in character, fully maintain their attitude; and other nations which have not so far achieved independence are determined to secure it. However a number of people may indict national sovereignty as a fruitful cause of war, the fact has to be faced that the majority of states are not prepared to abate one jot of their sovereign rights. The small ones, indeed, want them guaranteed by the larger Powers. No peace policy can therefore be of any avail for a foreseeable future which is based on the assumption of general consent to the limitation of sovereign rights. It is no use saying, That is where we went wrong last time, when, if we did do so, the wrong is certain to remain for a long time to come without any prospect of our remedying it.

We are also faced now with an application of the principle of self-determination on a collective basis, involving spheres of influence with great Powers attaching to themselves a group of smaller ones as satellites. Nazism has exhibited the working out of this principle in its most aggressive form, and in its least aggressive form it is implicit in the system of a Commonwealth of Nations such as Russia has now adopted.

The Moscow Three-Power Conference emphasised the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states. But which are the peace-loving states? Concerning this, Sir William Beveridge, in a speech at Cambridge, said: "If the term ‘sovereign’ (in the Moscow Declaration) means that each nation is to continue to be free to act in relation to other nations according to its own view of its own interests, shall be a law to itself in external as well as in internal affairs, then that is inconsistent with lasting peace. It is a perpetuation of jungle anarchy among nations. Security from war can be got only at the price of all nations, willingly or under compulsion by others, renouncing something of what they claimed of complete freedom of action in earlier days, can be got only by all nations acting on the Kellogg Pact