RELATIVE EQUALITY TO INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION. 569 



tralise it, till it becomes a homogeneous State. A perfect and permanent balance 

 between these forces I believe to be a practical impossibility ; and for this reason, 

 I regard all Confederations as transitional forms of government. Where absolute 

 union must not be aimed at, even as an ultimate object, as is the case in the pre- 

 sent instance, some modification of Federal organisation is, of course, inevitable. 

 But the looser the bond, the less, I believe, will be the danger of its rupture ; and 

 I consequently concur in the latest opinion of Kant, whose great mind was much 

 occupied with this great subject before it experienced the eclipse which darkened 

 his last days— an opinion in which he was partially anticipated by Grotius 

 — to the effect that it is to the creation, not of a Confederation, in any sense of 

 the word with which we are as yet familiar, but of a Permanent Congress of 

 Nations, or International Parliament, that we must direct our endeavours. 



Such a Congress, I think, would obviate the errors I have indicated, and 

 satisfy the great desideratum of a self-vindicating International Legislature and 

 Executive, if it were constituted in accordance with something like the following 

 scheme : — 



1. That its meetings should be annual, taking place in the autumn between 

 the Sessions of the various National Assemblies ; and that the places of meeting 

 should be Belgium and Switzerland alternately, or one of the Swiss Cantons, say 

 Geneva, set apart as neutral European ground. 



2. That each State should be represented by two deputies, both of whom 

 should be present at the meetings of the Congress, but one of whom only should 

 be entitled to speak and to vote.* 



3. That each State should be entitled to vote in 'proportion to its real power and 

 importance for the time being. 



4. That in order to fix this proportion, it should be the first business of each 

 Congress to ascertain the relative importance of each State, on the basis — 



a. Of population. 



b. Of free revenue. 



c. Of exports and imports. 



5. That each State be entitled to propose, and push to a vote, any question of 

 international politics in which it might be interested. 



6. That each State be bound to supply a contingent of men, or money, pro- 

 portioned to the number of votes assigned to it, for the purpose of enforcing the 

 decrees of the Congress, by arms, if necessary. 



7. That the representatives of any State which should make war without the 

 sanction of the Congress be excluded from its next meeting ; and that the con- 

 duct of such state be judged of in the absence of its own representatives on a 



* This is a proposal of Bentham's, and I think there is much good sense in it, greatly as I 

 dissent from his general principles. 



VOL. XXIV. PAET III. 7 P 



