" THE FEDERAL DREAM "
Sm,—The review of Clarence K. Streit's book Union With Britain Now, in your issue of June 6th, prompts the remark that, union being a means and not an end, one ought, before falling for the propaganda, to get the unspecified objective into focus. " Federal Union," implying, as it does, the yielding by individual nations of their sovereignty to an international power, it is inescapable that the aim of any such union is the control of that power. If the suggestion is that Britain should control it, are we not tending to out-Hitler Hitler? If not, then we must become a colony of some power which we cannot hold responsible for results, and whose bidding we should have no means to resist if we disliked it, whereas the chief purpose of the war is understood to be to make the world safe for individual nations to live and let live in the fullest sense of the term.
The issue thus appears to be between concentration of power (dictatorship) and decentralisation of power (democracy). Which is likely to prove the more acceptable to the common people? Why not put it to the test in this country on the democratic principle of " government in accordance with the people's will "? That would not be difficult, and would, incidentally, not only solve the problem of our war-aim, but would indicate the only terms upon which we would be prepared to negotiate peace.—Yours faithfully,
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