Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/588

 582 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

the geographical units of a federation are inhabited by persons of nearly equals howsoever different^ average attainments total population has proved to be the simplest and fairest basis of apportionment ; but the individual human units of the world's civil units are by no means equal in their participation in the world's work, hence total population would not be a fair basis of apportionment of legislative voice among nations. To a proposal to make it such China would answer " Yes  ; Holland, No/' If foreign commerce were proposed, England, Holland and Germany might answer "Yes"; Italy and Austria-Hungary, in com- pany with all of the smaller of the younger nations, would probably say ''No/' If area were proposed as the measure, Russia and Brazil would answer " Yes " ; Switzerland and Belgium, " No." Shall colonies give additional weight to the mother country's allotment? Britain and Holland would answer " Yes " ; Sweden, " No."

Granted that in a constituent assembly each nation would evince a genuine willingness to consider all of the elements of national greatness possessed by every other nation, nevertheless the tangle would grow, and the conference would end in confusion and discord, unless an imr personal and malhematicai formula embodying their notions of justice could be found. Why, then, not weight the principal assets of national greatness in proportion to their bearing upon the world's work? The United States, in particular, can afford to be conciliatory in the attempt to reach an agreement by this road, for its faith in the federal idea, based upon experience, is sincere and clear, and its elements of national greatness, while quantitatively great, are harmoniously balanced, so that almost any just formula would give her about the same peroentage of the sum total of the rating of all of the several sovereign nations.

The accompanying tables, one and two, represent an impartial effort to rate the nations of the world in national assets, giving due considera- tion to those factors which make nations intrinsically great and partici- patory in the world's work. Table three shows the unfairness of depending upon any one single national asset as a basis for rating nations for equitable representation in a World Parliament.

There should be secured from representative men of every profes- sion of every nation and colony of the world the formula which each man individually considers jv^t and would be willing to see his own country subscribe to. These formulae should then be worked out in apportionment tables with as great accuracy as the obtainable data will permit. There are now in the United States a number of agencies working actively for the promotion of international peace and world government. Among them are the "Carnegie Endowment for Inter- national Peace," the " World Peace Foundation," the " League to En- force Peace/' the " American Peace Society," the " International Peace Forum," the "American Peace and Arbitration League Inc.," the

�� �