Order and Progress.

If, then, man can exist as man only in society, we have to ascertain what kind of society is the best fitted for his development. There must be a society—we call it a state, and its preservation and defence, it has been properly said, must be every man's concern. We must have no shirkers when its existence is threatened. We speak of "civilisation" as the state of society where progress is possible. If we have a community in which there is no order, we say that that society is not civilised. There may be diverse civilisations, just as there are different races, but in every civilised society two things must be present. These are, first, "Order," and second, "Progress." Without these civilisation is impossible. What do we mean by "Order" and "Progress?" We mean by "Order" that the rights of the individual members of a society are recognised. They have rights; they have duties, they have freedom. If it should happen that members of a society differ or quarrel, then if the society is civilised these differences or quarrels must be settled by some tribunals which the society appoints. Peace must be imposed. There is no room for War in a civilised community. Order, it is said, is Heaven's first law. Without order there is no possibility of a society existing in any civilised form. If we look at the past we will find that just as society has advanced in civilisation there has necessarily been a restriction of the individual. It is not left to him to punish those who do him wrong. But though he is thus restrained, society in page 7 another way gives him freedom and liberty, for without order ho would be at the mercy of those stronger and less scrupulous than himself. We say—to take an illustration from today—that a certain nation is ruled by military autocracy. That implies that there is not equal freedom for all classes of the people that exist in that society. In the past we know that there was a so-called civilised society which permitted duels. That is, if people quarrelled they had a right to redress their grievances by combat. Indeed, at one time in England there was power to appeal from a Court to the order of battle, and that right was only abolished by law in the last century. But even when such combat was permitted it had to be conducted according to certain rules, and so even in duels there was, therefore, in a sense order. We recognise, however, now by order that no individual has a right to redress his own grievances. If the individual had such a right, then an association of individuals would have such a right, and civil war would inevitably eventuate. Civil war means that the most powerful can oppress and murder the weaker. It is true that an appeal to arms may have to be made where there is an autocracy, and where the people have no power of redressing a grievance, and where many are oppressed. That, it has been said, is the ultimate right of humanity—to defend itself against oppression, but that appeal to this ultimate law is made only where true democratic civilisation does not exist. Where civilisation exists there is order, and that necessarily implies that quarrels, disagreements, differences between members of a community must be settled by some tribunal recognised by the community. It may be well to notice that when the nations nowadays speak of a "permanent peace" the suggestion made by all those who ask for a permanent peace is that there should be some page 8 tribunal amongst the nations which will settle national disputes, and which will have the right to appeal to the force of all the parties to the international agreement, to compel the awards or decrees of the tribunal to be respected. There is no possibility of bringing about a permanent peace unless there is some power of enforcing it, first, by the decrees of tribunals, and second, by a police or military force at the back of those tribunals. What is this but applying to a series of nations the rule of a civilised nation?

In America and in England associations have been started to bring about this Enforcement of Peace, by the creation of international tribunals and the creation of an international force to see that the decrees of the tribunals are obeyed.

We thus will gather that, lying at the root of civilisation there is the need of order. Wherever in a community you find people resorting to force, punishing people without recourse to judicial tribunals by personal violence, or by destruction of personal property not their own, or preventing people having equal liberty to the rest of the community, then that society or that community which permits such actions has ceased to be civilised. To say that the world is thoroughly civilised will be to state that something had happened that has not yet been realised. Wo see in our own community instances, for example, of what are called strikes, and what are called riots. These are proof that the community as a whole is not thoroughly civilised. Strikes and riots, are, in a civilised community, outbursts of savagery, and if that community has, for example, a tribunal for the purpose of settling, say, a labour dispute, and if either employers or employees choose to flout the decisions of that tribunal, and to engage in lock-outs or strikes, and to prevent work being carried on, and to page 9 threaten or engage in personal violence, then civil order is not present. Civilisation is being destroyed and savegery reigns.