e could be
tested. The short-sighted, narrow-visioned leader of world affairs
would seek to gain and to hold power for himself and for his immediate
local interests. The presence of many such men in positions of power
would soon split the world government into a series of factions, each
one seeking to destroy the others and to take away their authority. Such
a competitive stage would represent little advance over the present
nationalism.

A world government has no virtue in itself, and may as easily degenerate
into a scramble for office as may any other phase of group relationship.
Its success would only be possible where its power was strictly limited
to the control of those matters that had reached a plane of world
importance. Even then success would be impossible unless those
responsible for making essential decisions saw the world problems as
wholes rather than as localized and separable problems.

Grave issues hang on the method in which the world problems are
approached and handled. Success is not assured by any means. Still, the
dangers and disadvantages of a plan do not condemn it unless they
outweigh the apparent advantages.

The people of the western world face a number of serious problems that
cannot be solved by the existing nations. Some step must be taken to
cope with the new situation that has followed on the heels of the
industrial revolution, and in so far as the actual practices of life
have evolved to a world plane, and in so far as they concern the workers
in more than one industry, it must be apparent that nothing less than
some world authority will suffice to cope with the issues that they
present.

A number of economic questions, such as the control of resources and of
transport, have already passed beyond the boundary of the individual
nation, and have reached a stage of world importance where they can be
handled only on a world basis. In the normal course of social evolution,
other questions will, in like manner, emerge into a place of world
consequence. As rapidly as such developments occur, the administration
of the world issues must be delegated to the world parliament and to its
appointees and subordinate bodies.

3. _Five World Problems_

There are a number of problems that have passed beyond the control of
any single nation, and that should therefore be made the subject of
world administration. Among them are: (1) the control of resources and
raw materials, (2) transport (3) e