Speaker 1: Chapter sixteen of Considerations on Representative Government. This LibriVox recording
Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Considerations on Representative Government by
Speaker 1: John Stuart Mill, Chapter sixteen of Nationality as connected with
Speaker 1: Representative Government. A portion of mankind may be said to
Speaker 1: constitute a nationality if they are united among themselves by
Speaker 1: common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others,
Speaker 1: which make them co operate with each other more willingly
Speaker 1: than with other people, desire to be under the same government,
Speaker 1: and desire that it should be government by themselves or
Speaker 1: a portion of themselves exclusively. This feeling of nationality may
Speaker 1: have been generated by various causes. Sometimes it is the
Speaker 1: effect of identity of race and descent, community of language,
Speaker 1: and community of religion greatly contribute to it. Geographical limits
Speaker 1: are one of its causes, but the strongest of all
Speaker 1: is identity of political antecedents, the possession of a national
Speaker 1: history and consequent community of recollections, collective pride and humiliation,
Speaker 1: pleasure and regret connected with the same incidents in the past.
Speaker 1: None of these circumstances, however, are either indispensable or necessarily
Speaker 1: sufficient by themselves. Switzerland has a strong sentiment of nationality,
Speaker 1: though the Cantons are of different races, different languages, and
Speaker 1: different religions. Sicily has hitherto felt itself quite distinct in
Speaker 1: nationality from Naples, notwithstanding identity of religion, almost identity of language,
Speaker 1: and a considerable amount of common historical antecedents. The Flemish
Speaker 1: and the Walloon provinces of Belgium, notwithstanding diversity of race
Speaker 1: and language, have a much greater feeling of common nationality
Speaker 1: than the former have with Holland, or the latter with France.
Speaker 1: Yet in general the national feeling is proportionally weakened by
Speaker 1: the failure of any of the causes which contribute to
Speaker 1: identity of language, literature, and to some extent, of race.
Speaker 1: And recollections have maintained the feeling of nationality and considerable
Speaker 1: strength among the different portions of the German name, though
Speaker 1: they have at no time been really united under the
Speaker 1: same government. But the feeling has never reached to making
Speaker 1: the separate states desire to get rid of their autonomy.
Speaker 1: Among Italians, an identity far from complete of language and literature,
Speaker 1: combined with a geographical position which separates them by a
Speaker 1: distinct line from other countries, and perhaps more than everything else,
Speaker 1: the possession of a common name, which makes them all
Speaker 1: glory in the past. Achievements in arts, arms, politics, religious primacy, science,
Speaker 1: and literature of any who share the same designation give
Speaker 1: rise to an amount of national feeling in the population, which,
Speaker 1: though still imperfect, has been sufficient to produce the great
Speaker 1: events now passing before us, notwithstanding a great mixture of races,
Speaker 1: and although they have never, in either ancient or modern
Speaker 1: history been under the same government, except while that government
Speaker 1: extended or was extending itself over the greater part of
Speaker 1: the known world, where the sentiment of nationality exists in
Speaker 1: any force, there is a primafacee case for uniting all
Speaker 1: the members of the nationality under the same government, and
Speaker 1: a government to themselves apart. This is merely saying that
Speaker 1: the question of government ought to be decided by the governed.
Speaker 1: One hardly knows what any division of the human race
Speaker 1: should be free to do, if not to determine with
Speaker 1: which of the various collective bodies of human beings they
Speaker 1: choose to associate themselves. But when a people are ripe
Speaker 1: for free institutions, there is a still more vital consideration.
Speaker 1: Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made
Speaker 1: up of different nationalities. Among a people without fellow feeling,
Speaker 1: especially if they read and speak different languages, the united
Speaker 1: public opinion necessary to the working of representative government cannot egg.
Speaker 1: The influences which form opinions and decide political acts are
Speaker 1: different in the different sections of the country. In altogether
Speaker 1: different set of leaders have the confidence of one part
Speaker 1: of the country and of another. The same books, newspapers, pamphlets,
Speaker 1: speeches do not reach them. One section does not know
Speaker 1: what opinions or what instigations are circulating in another. The
Speaker 1: same incidents, the same acts, the same system of government
Speaker 1: affect them in different ways, and each fears more injury
Speaker 1: to itself from the other nationalities than from the common arbiter,
Speaker 1: the state. Their mutual antipathies are generally much stronger than
Speaker 1: jealousy of the government. That any one of them feels
Speaker 1: aggrieved by the policy of the common ruler is sufficient
Speaker 1: to determine another to support that policy. Even if all
Speaker 1: are aggrieved, none feel that they can rely on the
Speaker 1: others for fidelity. In a joint resistance, the strength of
Speaker 1: none is sufficient to resist alone, and each may readasonably
Speaker 1: think that it consults its own advantage, most by bidding
Speaker 1: for the favor of the government against the rest. Above all,
Speaker 1: the grand and only reliable security in the last resort
Speaker 1: against the despotism of the government, is in that case
Speaker 1: wanting the sympathy of the army with the people. The
Speaker 1: military are the part of every community in whom, from
Speaker 1: the nature of the case, the distinction between their fellow
Speaker 1: countrymen and foreigners is the deepest and strongest. To the
Speaker 1: rest of the people. Foreigners are merely strangers to the soldier.
Speaker 1: They are men against whom he may be called at
Speaker 1: a week's notice to fight for life or death. The
Speaker 1: difference to him is that between friends and enemies. We
Speaker 1: may almost say between fellow men and another kind of animals.
Speaker 1: For as respects the enemy, the only law is that
Speaker 1: of force, and the only mitigation the same as in
Speaker 1: the case of other animals that of simple humanity. Soldiers
Speaker 1: to whose feelings half or three fourths of the subject
Speaker 1: of the same government, our foreigners will have no more
Speaker 1: scruple in mowing them down, and no more desire to
Speaker 1: ask the reason why, than they would have in doing
Speaker 1: the same thing against declared enemies. An army composed of
Speaker 1: various nationalities has no other patriotism than devotion to the flag.
Speaker 1: Such armies have been the executioners of liberty through the
Speaker 1: whole duration of modern history. The sole bond which holds
Speaker 1: them together is their officers and the government which they serve,
Speaker 1: And their only idea, if they have any of public duty,
Speaker 1: is obedience to orders. A government, thus, supported by keeping
Speaker 1: its Hungarian regiments in Italy and its Italian in Hungary,
Speaker 1: can long continue to rule in both places with the
Speaker 1: iron rod of foreign conquerors. If it be said that
Speaker 1: so broadly marked a distinction between what is due to
Speaker 1: a fellow countryman and what is due merely to a
Speaker 1: human creature is more worthy of savages than of civilized beings,
Speaker 1: and ought with the utmost energy to be contented. No
Speaker 1: one holds that opinion more strongly than myself. But this object,
Speaker 1: one of the worthiest to which human endeavor can be directed,
Speaker 1: can never, in the present state of civilization, be promoted
Speaker 1: by keeping different nationalities of anything like equivalent strength under
Speaker 1: the same government. In a barbarous state of society, the
Speaker 1: case is sometimes different. The government may then be interested
Speaker 1: in softening the antipathies of the races that peace may
Speaker 1: be preserved on the country more easily governed. But when
Speaker 1: there are either free institutions or a desire for them
Speaker 1: in any of the peoples artificially tied together, the interest
Speaker 1: of the government lies in an exactly opposite direction. It
Speaker 1: is then interested in keeping up and envenoming their antipathies,
Speaker 1: that they may be prevented from coalescing, and it may
Speaker 1: be enabled to use some of them as tools for
Speaker 1: the enslavement of others. The Austrian court has now for
Speaker 1: a whole generation made these tactics its principal means of government,
Speaker 1: with what fatal success at the time of the Vienna
Speaker 1: Insurrection and the Hungarian contest, the world knows too well. Haply,
Speaker 1: there are now signs that improvement is too far advanced
Speaker 1: to permit this policy to be any longer successful. For
Speaker 1: the preceding reasons, it is in general a necessary condition
Speaker 1: of free institutions that the boundaries of governments should coincide
Speaker 1: in the main with those of nationalities. But several considerations
Speaker 1: are liable to conflict in practice with this general principle.
Speaker 1: In the first place, its application is often precluded by
Speaker 1: geographical hindrances There are parts even of Europe in which
Speaker 1: different nationalities are so locally intermingled that it is not
Speaker 1: practicable for them to be under separate governments. The population
Speaker 1: of Hungary is composed of Magyars, Slovaks, Croats, Serbs, Roumans,
Speaker 1: and in some districts Germans, so mixed up as to
Speaker 1: be incapable of local separation, and there is no course
Speaker 1: open to them but to make a virtue of necessity
Speaker 1: and reconcile themselves to living together under equal rights and laws.
Speaker 1: Their community of servitude, which dates only from the destruction
Speaker 1: of Hungarian independence in eighteen forty nine, seems to be
Speaker 1: ripening and disposing them for such an equal union. The
Speaker 1: German colony of East Prussia is cut off from Germany
Speaker 1: by part of the ancient Poland, and, being too weak
Speaker 1: to maintain separate independence, must, if geographical continuity is to
Speaker 1: be maintained, be either under a non German government, or
Speaker 1: the intervening Polish territory must be under a German one.
Speaker 1: Another considerable region in which the dominant element of the
Speaker 1: population is German, the provinces of Kurland, Esthonia and Livonia,
Speaker 1: is condemned by a local situation to form part of
Speaker 1: a Slavonian state. In eastern Germany itself there is a
Speaker 1: large Slavonic population. Bohemia is principally Slavonic, Silesia and other
Speaker 1: districts parti. So the most united country in Europe, France
Speaker 1: is far from being homogeneous independently of the fragments of
Speaker 1: foreign nationalities at its remote extremities. It consists, as language
Speaker 1: and history prove of two portions, one occupied almost exclusively
Speaker 1: by a Gallo Roman population, while in the other the Frankish,
Speaker 1: Burgundian and other Teutonic races form a considerable ingredient when
Speaker 1: proper allowance has been made for geographical exigencies, another more
Speaker 1: purely moral and social consideration offers itself. Experience proves that
Speaker 1: it is possible for one nationality to merge and be
Speaker 1: absorbed in another, and when it was originally an inferior
Speaker 1: and more backward portion of the human race, the absorption
Speaker 1: is greatly to its advantage. Nobody can suppose that it
Speaker 1: is not more beneficial to a Breton or a Basque
Speaker 1: of French Navarre to be brought into the current of
Speaker 1: the ideas and feelings of a highly civilized and cultivated people,
Speaker 1: to be a member of the French nationality, admitted on
Speaker 1: equal terms to all the privileges of French citizenship, sharing
Speaker 1: the advantages of French protection and the dignity and prestige
Speaker 1: of French power, then to sulk on his own rocks,
Speaker 1: the half savage relic of past times, revolving in his
Speaker 1: own little mental orbit, without participation or interest in the
Speaker 1: general movement of the world. The same remark applies to
Speaker 1: the Welshmen or the Scottish Highlander as members of the
Speaker 1: British nation. Whatever really tends to be. The admixture of
Speaker 1: nationalities and the blending of their attributes and peculiarities in
Speaker 1: a common union is a benefit to the human race,
Speaker 1: not by extinguishing types, of which in these cases sufficient
Speaker 1: examples are sure to remain, but by softening their extreme
Speaker 1: forms and filling up the intervals between them. The United
Speaker 1: People like a crossed breed of animals, but in a
Speaker 1: still greater degree, because the influences in operation are moral
Speaker 1: as well as physical. Inherits the special aptitudes and excellences
Speaker 1: of all its progenitors protected by the admixture from being
Speaker 1: exaggerated into the neighboring vices. But to render this admixture possible,
Speaker 1: there must be peculiar conditions. The combinations of circumstances which
Speaker 1: occur and which effect the result are various. The nationalities
Speaker 1: brought together under the same government may be about equal
Speaker 1: in numbers and strength, or they may be very unequal.
Speaker 1: If unequal, the least numerous of the two may either
Speaker 1: be the superior in civilization or the inferior. Supposing it
Speaker 1: to be superior, it may either, through that superiority, be
Speaker 1: able to acquire ascendency over the other, or it may
Speaker 1: be overcome by brute strength and reduced to subjection. This
Speaker 1: last is a sheer mischief to the human race, and
Speaker 1: one which civilized humanity, with one accord, should rise in arms.
Speaker 1: To prevent. The absorption of Greece by Macedonia was one
Speaker 1: of the greatest misfortunes which ever happened to the world.
Speaker 1: That of any of the principal countries of Europe by
Speaker 1: Russia would be a similar one if the smaller nationality
Speaker 1: supposed to be the more advanced and improvement is able
Speaker 1: to overcome the greater, as the Macedonians reinforced by the
Speaker 1: Greeks did Asia and the English India. There is often
Speaker 1: a gain to civilization, but the conquerors and the conquered
Speaker 1: cannot in this case live together under the same free institutions.
Speaker 1: The absorption of the conquerors in the less advanced people
Speaker 1: would be an evil. These must be governed as subjects,
Speaker 1: and the state of things is either a benefit or
Speaker 1: a misfortune according as the subjugated people have or have
Speaker 1: not reached the state in which it is an injury
Speaker 1: not to be under a free government, and according as
Speaker 1: the conquerors do or do not use their superiority in
Speaker 1: a manner calculated to fit the conquered for a higher
Speaker 1: stage of improvement. This topic will be particularly treated of
Speaker 1: in a subsequent chapter. When the nationality which succeeds in
Speaker 1: overpowering the other is both the most numerous and the
Speaker 1: most improved, and especially if the subdued nationality is small
Speaker 1: and has no hope of reasserting its independence, then if
Speaker 1: it is governed with any tolerable justice, and if the
Speaker 1: members of the more powerful nationality are not made odious
Speaker 1: by being invested with exclusive privileges, the smaller nationality is
Speaker 1: gradually reconciled to its position and becomes amalgamated with the
Speaker 1: larger No bas Breton or even any Alsatian has the
Speaker 1: smallest wish at the present day to be separated from France.
Speaker 1: If all Irishmen have not yet arrived at the same
Speaker 1: disposition towards England, it is partly because they are sufficiently
Speaker 1: numerous to be capable of constituting a respectable nationality by themselves,
Speaker 1: but principally because until of late years they had been
Speaker 1: so atrociously governed that all their best feelings combined with
Speaker 1: their bad ones in rousing bitter resentment against the Saxon rule.
Speaker 1: This disgrace to England and calamity to the whole Empire, has,
Speaker 1: it may be truly said, completely ceased for nearly a generation.
Speaker 1: No Irishman is now less free than an Anglo Saxon,
Speaker 1: nor has a less share of every benefit, either to
Speaker 1: his country or to his individual fortunes, than if he
Speaker 1: were sprung from any other portion of the British dominions.
Speaker 1: The only remaining real grievance of Ireland, that of the
Speaker 1: State Church, is one which half or nearly half the
Speaker 1: people of the larger island have in common with them.
Speaker 1: There is now next to nothing except the memory of
Speaker 1: the past and the difference in the predominant religion to
Speaker 1: keep apart two races, perhaps the most fitted of any
Speaker 1: two in the world, to be the completing counterpart of
Speaker 1: one another. The consciousness of being at last treated not
Speaker 1: only with equal justice but with equal consideration is making
Speaker 1: such rapid way in the Irish nation as to be
Speaker 1: wearing off all feelings that could make them insensible to
Speaker 1: the benefits which the less numerous and less wealthy people
Speaker 1: must necessarily derive from being fellow citizens instead of foreigners,
Speaker 1: to those who are not only their nearest neighbors, but
Speaker 1: the wealthiest and one of the freest, as well as
Speaker 1: most civilized and powerful nations of the earth. The cases
Speaker 1: in which the greatest practical obstacles exist to the blending
Speaker 1: of nationalities are when the nationalities which have been bound
Speaker 1: together are nearly equal in numbers and in the other
Speaker 1: elements of power. In such cases, each confiding in its
Speaker 1: strength and feeling itself capable of maintaining an equal struggle
Speaker 1: with any of the others, is unwilling to be merged
Speaker 1: in it. Each cultivates with party obstinacy, its distinctive peculiarities
Speaker 1: obsolete customs and even declining languages are revived to deepen
Speaker 1: the separation. Each deems itself tyrannized over if any authority
Speaker 1: is exercised within itself by functionaries of a rival race,
Speaker 1: and whatever is given to one of the conflicting nationalities
Speaker 1: is considered to be taken from all the rest. When
Speaker 1: nations thus divided are under a despotic government, which is
Speaker 1: a stranger to all of them, or which those sprung
Speaker 1: from one, yet feeling greater interest in its own power
Speaker 1: than in any sympathies of nationality, assigns no privilege to
Speaker 1: either nation, and chooses its instruments indifferently from all. In
Speaker 1: the course of a few generations, identity of situation often
Speaker 1: produces harmony of feeling, and the different races come to
Speaker 1: feel towards each other as fellow countrymen, particularly if they
Speaker 1: are dispersed over the same tract of country. But if
Speaker 1: the era of aspiration to free government arrives before this
Speaker 1: fusion has been effected, the opportunity has gone by for
Speaker 1: effecting it from that time. If the unreconciled nationalities are
Speaker 1: geographically separate, and especially if their local position is such
Speaker 1: that there is no natural fitness or convenience in their
Speaker 1: being under the same government. As in the case of
Speaker 1: an Italian province under a French or German yoke, there
Speaker 1: is not only an obvious propriety, but if either freedom
Speaker 1: or concord is cared for, a necessity for breaking the
Speaker 1: connection altogether. There may be cases in which the provinces,
Speaker 1: after separation might usefully remain united by a federal tie.
Speaker 1: But it generally happens that if they are willing to
Speaker 1: forego complete independence and become members of a federation, each
Speaker 1: of them has other neighbors with whom it would prefer
Speaker 1: to connect itself, having more sympathies in common, if not
Speaker 1: also greater community of interest of Chapter sixteen. Recording by
Speaker 1: Bill Burst