PDF-file (The same edition. Another cover. 2.2 Mb)

The Principle of Free Confederation 537in itself, but dominated half Asia, as it already does, and halfEurope, as it was once, even without proper organisation anddevelopment, almost on the way to do, when it interfered asarmed arbiter, here deliverer, there champion of oppression inAustro-Hungary and in the Balkans. Even the assimilation ofFinland was justified from this point of view; for a free Finlandwould have left Russia geographically and economically incompleteand beset and limited in her narrow Baltic outlet, while aFinland dominated by a strong Sweden or a powerful Germanywould have been a standing military menace to the Russiancapital and the Russian empire. The inclusion of Finland, onthe contrary, made Russia secure, at ease and powerful at thisvital point. Nor, might it be argued, did Finland herself reallylose, since, independent, she would be too small and weak tomaintain herself against neighbouring imperial aggressivenessand must rely on the support of Russia. All these advantageshave been destroyed, temporarily at least, by the centrifugalforces let loose by the Revolution and its principle of the freechoice of nationalities.It is evident that these arguments, founded as they are onvital and physical necessity and regardless of moral and psychologicaljustification, might be carried very far. They wouldnot only justify Austria’s now past domination of Trieste andher Slavic territories, as they justified England’s conquest andholding of Ireland against the continued resistance of the Irishpeople, but also, extended a little farther, Germany’s scheme ofPan-Germanism and even her larger ideas of absorption andexpansion. It could be extended to validate all that imperialexpansion of the European nations which has now no moral justificationand could only have been justified morally in the futureby the creation of supra-national psychological unities; for thevital and physical grounds always exist. Even the moral, at leastthe psychological and cultural justification of a unified Russianculture and life in process of creation, could be extended, and theEuropean claim to spread and universalise European civilisationby annexation and governmental force presents on its largerscale a certain moral analogy. This, too, extended, might justify