Such a moral force would be irresistible, and debate would take the place
of war, in the settlement of international disputes. If the arbitrament
of reason, ousts the arbitrament of war, a new and beautiful world is
unveiled.'
It was because Sir George saw, in federation, a vista of brighter life
for the masses, that he was so persuaded an advocate of it, so keen a
believer in its realisation. As a result of the cohesion of the race, we
should have all life quickened and developed; unemployed energies called
into action in many places where they lay stagnant. Below federation, the
very essence of it, was decentralisation, the getting of the people
fairly spread over the earth, not huddled into a few places where decay
would follow overcrowding.
'Every section of the British Empire,' Sir George detailed this point,
'having complete self-government would contain its own life within
itself, would offer the highest opportunities to the labours of its
citizens. Whenever you constitute a new centre of authority you create a
basis of general activity, which, in its turn, has off-shoots. There
would be more employment; the waste lands of the Old World, and the still
untilled ones of the New World, would be taken up. Federation is not the
mere grouping of us together, but the settlement of problems that have
long been forcing themselves to the front.
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