From Federal Union News 30, 13 April 1940
Last week on this page we expressed a firm opinion that Federal Union could, as a backing to the Allied Propaganda, win the war for three sides – Allies, Neutrals and Germany – and lose it for the Nazis alone. They could, we said, if the respective Ministries of Information were to keep up an incessant Federal Union propaganda campaign so that the whole world, including the German people, might know the purity and unselfishness of our intentions and thus lend us their wholehearted moral support. We thought this in spite of the many awkward passages in which the neutrals found themselves as a result of the Allied blockade. We knew that we were putting a severe strain on the patience of some of our oldest and best friends, but we believed these contretemps were as few and far between and as tactfully handled as to make our goodwill easily retrievable by Time if by no other agency.
But as we go to press, two great Neutrals have become belligerents willy nilly; two honest and well tried democracies have been forced under the “protective” wing of the German Eagle; seven million more people have had it proved to them that Freedom cannot be made secure within strictly defined national boundaries; that democracy and nationalism must be at cross purposes.
Rather than squealing at spilt milk we must draw the implications of this fateful development on the plan which Federal Union is preparing for Europe and the world. It is not good enough to ask how, as a result, the Allies are placed with regard to the effective prosecution of the war. There are some things in this which defy doubt. The invasion by Germany of Norway and Denmark must have taught the remaining European neutral democracies that it is indeed folly to imagine that in this war “they also serve who only stand and wait.”
We cannot and would never urge military participation on these, who still remain outside the pale; but we do urge on them that it is their duty to civilization to hammer this message into all their peoples that “Europe must Federate or Perish! Europe must Federate or Perish!” with such force that it overshoots its borders and penetrates into the nations now right in the melting pot.
Not only must the foundations of our federal structure be firm, but the bricks which are now baking in the kiln must be made of the correct composition if they are to take their integral part in the future.