1 62 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE [460 



be separated geographically from the parent state. A solu- 

 tion would be difficult to find. It would have to be either 

 submission to the new state of affairs, or, assuming the 

 consistent application of the principle of self-determina- 

 tion by way of the plebiscite, separation from the seceding 

 territory. In the last case there are three possibilities of 

 action for the dissenting minority in the seceding section: 

 (i) demand for complete independence, (2) return to the 

 political union with the mother state though separated 

 geographically from the latter, and (3) affiliation with or 

 incorporation in another neighboring state for the sake of 

 protection or for other reasons. 



There is also a possibility, or rather a probability, that 

 the dissenters are scattered all over the seceding territory 

 in more or less all of its localities and country districts. 

 In this case the 49 per cent, being forced against their will 

 into secession, will either quickly submit to the change, or 

 they will set to work to convert their minority of 49 into 

 a majority of 51 and then to reverse the decision of seces- 

 sion into a vote for reannexation to the parent state. This 

 would, of course, be made more difficult if the secession 

 from the mother country had at the same time, or after- 

 wards, been followed by a decision for annexation to 

 another state. 



The examples here adduced, complicated as they seem to 

 be, are, in reality, very simple. It requires no great amount 

 of imagination to see that in the seceding territory there 

 may be even more than two factions, all with different aims ; 

 or that after the assumed separation of the dissenting 

 minority from the seceding majority minorities remain in 

 both who again may claim the application of the principle 

 of self-definition for themselves. It can readily be seen 

 that with a consistent application of the doctrine of self- 

 definition, we may in certain sections of Europe return to 

 communal autonomy as the only solution of a complex 

 racial tangle. Where a final disintegration into clear-cut 

 communal divisions on racial or political lines would not be 



