ely granted
that one of the most notable advances in modern political theory has
been the recognition of the fact that men naturally organize themselves
into groups--families, clans, tribes; sects, societies, churches;
guilds, trade unions, clubs, and so on--and that the State is rather a
federation of groups than an association of isolated individuals. It may
be granted, secondly, that some of these organizations are anterior to
the State in point of time, and that they deal with matters that are not
appropriate for direct State control. Finally, it may be granted that
the State will be well advised to leave some or all of them in
possession of large powers of self-administration. Nevertheless, when
once the Great Society has come into existence, and has organized itself
as the National State, they must, if anarchy is to be avoided, all take
their places as constituent members of the community, and recognize that
they exercise such autonomous powers as they possess in virtue of the
permission of the general will. The State, however prudently it may
employ its powers, must be, and must be universally admitted to be, in
all causes, civil or ecclesiastical, throughout all its dominions, in
the last resort, supreme. In the interests of the common good it cannot
tolerate any rivals.

FOOTNOTES:

[48] Reported in _Daily Chronicle_, January 4th, 1916.

[49] McKechnie. _The State and the Individual_, p. 3.

[50] Barker. _Political Thought from Spencer to the Present-Day_, p.
108.

III. WHAT THE STATE IS AND DOES

In the purification and exaltation of the Democratic National State
rests the one hope of the salvation of Britain and the Empire. In a
federation of Democratic National States resides the best prospect of
the future peaceful and well-ordered government of the world. The
individualism of Dr. Clifford leads straight to anarchy; the unchecked
development of the party-system means the corrupt tyranny of the caucus;
the triumph of Syndicalism would involve the tragedy of class war; the
dream of the reunion of humanity in the bosom of a cosmopolitan church
is a vain revival of a mediaeval illusion. The individual must be brought
to recognize that politically he has no separate existence, and must
learn to limit his operations to his proper share in the constitution
and determination of the general will; party must be remorselessly
reduced to its legitimate subordination to the interests of the
community as