Chapter II: Friendship Among Nations15

Let us suppose that four centuries ago some far-seeing prophet dared to predict to the duchies composing the kingdom of France that the day would come when they would no longer make war upon each other. Let us suppose him saying:--

"You will have many disputes to settle, interests to contend for, difficulties to resolve; but do you know what you will select instead of armed men, instead of cavalry, and infantry, of cannon, lances, pikes, and swords?

"You will select, instead of all this destructive array, a small box of wood, which you will term a ballot-box, and from what shall issue--what? An assembly--an assembly in which you shall all live; an assembly which shall be, as it were, the soul of all; a supreme and popular council, which shall decide, judge, resolve everything; which shall say to each, 'Here terminates your right, there commences your duty: lay down your arms!'

"And in that day you will all have one common thought, common interests, a common destiny; you will embrace each other, and recognize each other as children of the same blood and of the same race; that day you shall no longer be hostile tribes--you will be a people; you will be no longer merely Burgundy, Normandy, Brittany, Provence--you will be France! You will no longer make appeals to war; you will do so to civilization."

If, at that period I speak of, some one had uttered these words, all men would have cried out: "What a dreamer! what a dream! How little this pretended prophet is acquainted with the human heart!" Yet time has gone on and on, and we find that this dream has been realized.

Well, then, at this moment we who are assembled here say to France, to England, to Spain, to Italy, to Russia: "A day will come, when from your hands also the arms they have grasped shall fall. A day will come, when war shall appear as impossible, and will be as impossible, between Paris and London, between St. Petersburg and Berlin, as it is now between Rouen and Amiens, between Boston and Philadelphia.

"A day will come, when you, France; you, Russia; you, Italy; you, England; you, Germany; all of you nations of the continent, shall, without losing your distinctive qualities and your glorious individuality, be blended into a superior unity, and shall constitute an European fraternity, just as Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Lorraine, have been blended into France. A day will come when the only battle field shall be the market open to commerce, and the mind open to new ideas. A day will come when bullets and shells shall be replaced by votes, by the universal suffrage of nations, by the arbitration of a great sovereign senate.

Nor is it necessary for four hundred years to pass away for that day to come. We live in a period in which a year often suffices to do the work of a century.

Suppose that the people of Europe, instead of mistrusting each other, entertaining jealousy of each other, hating each other, become fast friends; suppose they say that before they are French or English or German they are men, and that if nations form countries, human kind forms a family. Suppose that the enormous sums spent in maintaining armies should be spent in acts of mutual confidence. Suppose that the millions that are lavished on hatred, were bestowed on love, given to peace instead of war, given to labor, to intelligence, to industry, to commerce, to navigation, to agriculture, to science, to art.

If this enormous sum were expended in this manner, know you what would happen? The face of the world would be changed. Isthmuses would be cut through. Railroads would cover the continents; the merchant navy of the globe would be increased a hundredfold. There would be nowhere barren plains nor moors nor marshes. Cities would be found where now there are only deserts. Asia would be rescued to civilization; Africa would be rescued to man; abundance would gush forth on every side, from every vein of the earth at the touch of man, like the living stream from the rock beneath the rod of Moses.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 15: By Victor Hugo, a celebrated French writer (1802-1885).]