A year of prophesying

by H. G. Wells

Yet it is upon this project, doomed beforehand, that the whole forward policy of France has rested and rests to-day. Two virtual dictators, Mussolini and General de Rivera, talk quietly together and look at it, and it begins to fade.

That is the obvious significance of this recent visit of King Alfonso with his minister to Rome. But more than that one paramount question seems to have been discussed. Both Spain and Italy are still in form constitutional monarchies modelled or remodelled in the nineteenth century on the not very congenial British pattern—which in that time was the political fashion everywhere. Recent events have thrust the monarchs of both countries a little aside in favour of virtual dictators. Except for the persistence of the crown, both Italy and Spain have taken on a new resemblance to the republics of Latin America. Those countries seem to find their natural form of political expression neither in royal rule nor in parliamentary forms, but in some sort of dictator-president. The social and intellectual life and probably the political thought of Latin America may be in as close touch and may even be in closer touch with the European mother countries than is the case between Great Britain and her Dominions. There is a great Italian population in several South American States; and everywhere in Italy and the Spanish Peninsula one comes upon the houses of rich “Americanos”—from the Argentine and Brazil, and so forth. And it is quite easy to believe the rumours that the conversations in Rome went beyond the Mediterranean and considered the possibility of still greater alliances and understandings in support of the Latin idea, from which France, which is neither northern with the British and Germans nor Latin with the Italians, but half and half between them, and incurably and self-centredly France, may be excluded.

I will not write here now of how an understanding of that sort might affect the relationship of its participants to the League of Nations, nor will I speculate how the United States and the Monroe doctrine would be touched by such a coalescence of old and new world Latinism. The first, most obvious reaction of this new move towards a higher unity is upon France. I do not know how far the newspaper consortium in France will allow the news of what has happened to reach the white population of France. For long the European French have been kept in profound ignorance of the gathering British distrust of their foreign policy, and in still profounder ignorance of the reasons for that distrust. I believe attempts are now being made in France to represent this coming together of Spain and Italy as an alliance to keep Britain out of the Mediterranean. It is nothing of the sort. It is an alliance to restrain French Africa. But there have been signs since King Alfonso’s visit to Rome of a dim realisation even on the part of M. Poincaré of the circle of dismay and disapproval that is closing in slowly and steadily upon France.

I wish Frenchmen travelled more. I wish they were more receptive of unflattering news. I wish they could realise the enormous distress with which civilised men everywhere, in New York and London as in Rome and Madrid, watch their fantastic dance over the broken body of Germany to absolute isolation in the world’s affairs.

XV
LATIN AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE

22.12.23

In my previous article I discussed the visit of King Alfonso to Rome, and the profound significance to France and the world in general of the conversations that must have taken place there between the Spanish and Italian dictators. Among other issues was the possibility of a Latin League, comprehending the two European peninsulas and Latin America. I return to this idea.

At the least it is an imaginative gesture on the parts of General de Rivera and Signor Mussolini on a higher creative level than anything we have had from European statecraft for some time. At the best it may be an opening of a way towards a real league of peoples for the preservation of the world’s peace.

It is suggested that all these Latin peoples, who have so much in common, who are so admirably equipped for a common understanding and the achievement of a common destiny, should withdraw from that lamentable cul-de-sac of good intentions, the existing League of Nations, in order to group themselves together for collective action in the world’s affairs. Now that is a very hopeful idea. Let us see just how it might be extended. Suppose the British Empire also presently came out of the League in order to be free for a parallel and still more potent grouping with the United States of the English-speaking communities. It seems to me that in these rearrangements we should have two great steps made towards a real conference of the peoples of the earth.

The next step would be the entry of France into an association with these two groups. France, half northern and half Latin, would be free to relieve the world of its nightmare dream of La France Nègre, because it could find its security in a new Atlantic Association. It could deal with these two agglomerations as a necessary associate and link and intermediary; and Paris, so balanced, could remain a world centre instead of sinking to the level of a mere nationalist capital. That threefold grouping need have no fear of a Germany restored and a Russia reborn.