realisation. A Federal State comprising all the single States of the
whole civilised world is a Utopia, and an International Army and Navy
would be a danger to the peace of the world.

Why is a World State not possible, at any rate not in our time?

No one has ever thought that a World State in the form of one single
State with one single Government would be possible. Those who plead for
a World State plead for it in the form of a Federal State comprising all
the single States of the world on the pattern of the United States of
America. But even this modified ideal is not, in my opinion, realisable
at present. Why not? To realise this ideal there would be required a
Federal Government, and a Federal Parliament; and the Federal Government
would have to possess strong powers to enforce its demands. A powerless
Federal Government would be worse than no government at all. But how is
it possible to establish at present a powerful Federal Government over
the whole world? How is it possible to establish a Federal World
Parliament?

Constitutional Government within the several States has to grapple with
many difficulties, and these difficulties would be more numerous,
greater, and much more complicated within a Federal World State. We need
democracy and constitutional Government in every single State, and this
can only be realised by party Government and elections of Parliament at
short intervals. The waves of party strife rise high within the several
States; no sooner is one party in, than the other party looks out for an
opening into which a wedge can be pushed to turn the Government out. In
normal times this works on the whole quite well within the borders of
the several States, because the interests concerned are not so widely
opposed to one another that the several parties cannot alternatively
govern. But when it comes to applying the same system of Government to a
Federal World State, the interests at stake are too divergent. The East
and the West, the South and the North, the interests of maritime States
and land-locked States, the ideals and interests of industrial and
agricultural States, and many other contrasts, are too great for it to
be possible to govern a Federal World State by the same institutions as
a State of ordinary size and composition.

The British World Empire may be taken as an example to show that it is
impossible for one single central Government to govern a number of
States with somewhat diverge