This is not the place to speculate upon the nature of these
convulsions, but there must be some violent break-up of the lamentable
tradition, a shattering of the social, of the administrative--certainly
of the territorial--unity.
Voices have been heard saying that the time for reforms in Russia is
already past. This is the superficial view of the more profound truth
that for Russia there has never been such a time within the memory of
mankind. It is impossible to initiate a rational scheme of reform upon a
phase of blind absolutism; and in Russia there has never been anything
else to which the faintest tradition could, after ages of error, go back
as to a parting of ways.
In Europe the old monarchical principle stands justified in its
historical struggle with the growth of political liberty by the evolution
of the idea of nationality as we see it concreted at the present time; by
the inception of that wider solidarity grouping together around the
standard of monarchical power these larger, agglomerations of mankind.
This service of unification, creating close-knit communities possessing
the ability, the will, and the power to pursue a common ideal, has
prepared the ground for the advent of a still larger understanding: for
the solidarity of Europeanism, which must be the next step towards the
advent of Concord and Justice; an advent that, however delayed by the
fatal worship of force and the errors of national selfishness, has been,
and remains, the only possible goal of our progress.
Pages:
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141