Anglo-American Establishment полностью

“Until the nations can be brought to the two principles of collective security already

described, the best security for peace is that the world should be divided into zones within

each of which one of the great armed Powers, or a group of them, is clearly preponderant,

and in which therefore other Powers do not seek to interfere. Then there may be peace for

a time. The peace of the 19th century rested on the fact that the supremacy of the British

Nà: kept the whole oceanic area free from general war. . . . The vital question now arises

whether in that same zone, to which France and Scandinavia must be added, it is not

possible, despite the immense armaments of central Europe, Russia, and the Far East, for

the democracies to create security, stability, and peace in which liberal institutions can

survive. The oceanic zone in fact constitutes the one part of the world in which it is

possible today to realize the ideals of the League of Nations.”

From this point onward (early 1938), the Milner Group increasingly emphasized the

necessity for building up this Oceanic bloc. In England the basic propaganda work was

done through The Round Table and Lionel Curtis, while in the United States it was done

through the Rhodes Scholarship organization, especially through Clarence Streit and

Frank Aydelotte. In England, Curtis wrote a series of books and articles advocating a new

federal organization built around the English-speaking countries. The chief work of this

nature was his Civitas Dei, which appeared in three volumes in 1934-1937. A one-

volume edition was issued in 1938, with the title The Commonwealth of God. The first

two volumes of this work are nothing more than a rehash and expansion of the older work

The Commonwealth of Nations (1916). By a superficial and frequently erroneous

rewriting of world history, the author sought to review the evolution of the

"commonwealth" idea and to show that all of history leads to its fulfillment and

achievement in federation. Ultimately, this federation will be worldwide, but en route it

must pass through stages, of which the chief is federation of the English-speaking

peoples. Writing early in 1937, he advocated that the League of Nations be destroyed by

the mass resignation of the British democracies. These should then take the initiative in

forming a new league, also at Geneva, which would have no power to enforce anything

but would merely form a kind of international conference. Since it would be foolish to

expect any federation to evolve from any such organization as this, a parallel, but quite

separate, effort should be made to create an international commonwealth, based on the

example of the United States in 1788. This international commonwealth would differ

from the League of Nations in that its members would yield up part of their sovereignty,

and the central organization would function directly on individuals and not merely on

states. This international commonwealth would be formed, at first, only of those states

that have evolved furthest in the direction of obtaining a commonwealth form of

government for themselves. It will be recalled that this restriction on membership was

what Curtis had originally advocated for the League of Nations in The Round Table of

December 1918. According to Curtis, the movement toward the Commonwealth of God

can begin by the union of any two national commonwealths, no matter how small. He

suggested New Zealand and Australia, or these two and Great Britain. Then the

international commonwealth could be expanded to include India, Egypt, Holland,

Belgium, Scandinavia, France, Canada, the United States, and Ireland. That the chief

obstacle to this union was to be found in men's minds was perfectly clear to Curtis. To

overcome this obstacle, he put his faith in propaganda, and the chief instruments of that

propaganda, he said, must be the churches and the universities. He said nothing about the

Milner Group, but, considering Curtis's position in this Group and that Lothian and others

agreed with him, it is not surprising that the chief source of this propaganda is to be found

in those agencies controlled by the Group. (12)

In the United States, the chief source of this propaganda was the organization known

as Union Now, which was an offshoot of the Rhodes Scholarship network. The

publicized originator of the idea was Clarence Streit, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in 1920

and League of Nations correspondent of The New York Times in 1929-1938. Mr. Streit's

plan, which was very similar to Curtis's, except that it included fifteen countries to begin

with, was first made public at a series of three lectures at Swarthmore College in

February 1939. Almost simultaneously his book, Union Now, was launched and received

wide publicity. Before we look at that, we might mention that at the time the president of

Swarthmore College was Frank Aydelotte, the most important member of the Milner