z:\ ambedkar\vol 08\vol8 03.indd MK SJ+YS 28 9 2013 190
190 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
separative in character. A pact cannot produce the desire to accommodate, it cannot instil the spirit of sacrifice, nor can it bind the parties to the main objective. Instead of accommodating each other, parties to a pact strive to get, as much as possible, out of each other. Instead of sacrificing for the common cause, parties to the pact are constantly occupied in seeing that the sacrifice made by one is not used for the good of the other. Instead of fighting for the main objective, parties to the pact are for ever engaged in seeing that in the struggle for reaching the goal the balance of power between the parties is not disturbed. Renan spoke the most profound truth when he said :
“Community of interests is assuredly a powerful bond between men. But nevertheless can interests suffice to make a nation ? I do not believe it. Community of interests make commercial treaties. There is a sentimental side to nationality ; it is at once body and soul; a Zollverein is not a fatherland.”
Equally striking is the view of James Bryce, another wellknown student of history. According to Bryce,
“The permanence of an institution depends not merely on the material interests that support it, but on its conformity to the deep-rooted sentiment of the men for whom it has been made. When it draws to itself and provides a fitting expression for that sentiment, the sentiment becomes thereby not only more vocal but actually stronger, and in its turn imparts a fuller vitality to the institution.”
These observations of Bryce were made in connection with the foundation of the German Empire by Bismarck who, according to Bryce, succeeded in creating a durable empire because it was based on a sentiment and that this sentiment was fostered
“….most of all by what we call the instinct or passion for nationality, the desire of a people already conscious of a moral and social unity, to see such unity expressed and realize under a single government, which shall give it a place and name among civilized states”.
What is it that produces this moral and social unity which gives permanence and what is it that drives people to see such unity expressed and realized under a single government, which shall give it a place and a name among civilized states ?
No one is more competent to answer this question than James Bryce. It was just such a question he had to consider in discussing the vitality of the Holy Roman Empire as contrasted with the