Some argue earnestly that what really restrains and regulates the conduct of individuals is not force, but the general sense of decency, the public opinion of the community; and that the same rule applies to nations. In other words, that there is no reason why inter-State morality should be different from that prevailing amongst the individuals within a State.

This argument neglects to perceive, first: That the public opinion of a community is, in reality, latent force; that in a real community “Right is Might,” up to a certain point. And, secondly: That there is as yet no community within which the nations dwell.

An individual cannot pursue rank egotism to the complete overriding of his neighbours without knowing that those neighbours can and will give concrete expression to their resentment and suppress him. This latent force is at the back of all State-law, and of all public opinion, which is but State-law unwritten. The essence of its efficacy is the fact that individuals do live in community, each one perceiving with the non-rampant part of him that the rest are right in squashing his rampancy, since life in community would soon be impossible if they did not. He consents, subconsciously, to being squashed when he is rampant, because he recognizes himself to be part of a whole.

Until nations have come to be parts of communities, or group-States, there will be no really effective analogy between individual morality and State morality. There is, of course, a growing international decency, a reaching out toward co-operation, a recognition that certain things are “not done”; but it is liable to be violated, as we have seen, at any moment by any State which is, or thinks itself, strong enough to override laws which have no adequate latent force behind them. To create this latent controlling force we have paramount need of a system of group-States, leading on by slow degrees, through the linking of one group with another, to a United States of the world. The necessary line of progression is sufficiently disclosed by the violation of Belgian neutrality and other matters in this war. Public opinion not backed by latent force has been proved useless. There is no such thing, I fear, as public opinion worth the name except within a definite community. The task of statesmen when peace comes is the formation of a United States of Europe—linked if possible with the countries of America—the creation of a real public opinion backed by a real, if latent, force.