For the third time I dedicate a third part for the same author, the others authors who deserved three parts were: Charles Dickens and Dante Alighieri. The first summary was published in 2003 at https://www.academia.edu/400254/_Human_Rights_and_Public_Accountability_in_H._G._Wells_Functional_World_State_. The second was published at http://thewire.in/67634/hg-wells-social-predictions/
As has long been acknowledge, H.G.Wells was one of the twentieth century insistent advocates of a world state. From the publication of Anticipations in 1901 to his death in 1946, Wells evolved a political vision which rejected nationalism and advanced global political institutions. In this chapter an aspect of Wells's thinking and which has been relatively neglected by scholars : the role of human rights protection and government accountability. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Wells saw an opportunity to embark in a practical way upon his project for world unity. This possibility he called the 'Rights of Man' campaign and it was first raised during the discussion of allied war aims in the first few months of the conflict. By 1939 Wells came to realise in The New World Order, when he wrote: "The more highly things are collectivised the more necessary is a legal system embodying the Rights of Man". In promoting human rights, Wells felt a part of that democratic tradition going back to the Magna Carta and Thomas Paine's Rights of Man. There would be no possibility of a static society being created because, through the charter of human rights, the actions of the world state would be constantly challenged, not only defending human rights but being used as a legal mechanism to reinterpret those rights continually in a changing world. In order to achieve the acceptance of the "Rights of Man" worldwide, the humanistic tradition of Britain, France and the U.S.A. would have to be extended to the whole world. With the outbreak of the Second World War, and particularly after 1941 when nazi-fascism and communism ranged their forces against each other, Wells realised the need for in-built guarantees which would protect the rights of individuals and minority groups throughout the world and which would allow a popular voice to directly influence the bureaucracy. Thus, in relation to his world state project, the 'Rights of Man' campaign was aimed at establishing a check to power strong enough to prevent political repression and authoritarian excesses. Wells hoped the 'Rights of Man' would be a bulwark against the totalitarian usurpation, an usurpation he saw increasing around the world: "Throughout the whole world we see variations of this subordination of the individual to the power. Phase by phase these ill-adapted governments are becoming uncontrolled absolutisms, they are killing that free play of the individual mind which is the preservative of human efficiency and happiness. The populations under their sway, after a phase of servile discipline, are plainly doomed to relapse into disorder. Everywhere war and economic exploitation break out, so that those very same increments of power and opportunity which have brought mankind within sight of an age of limitless plenty, seem likely to be lost again, or may be lost forever, in an ultimate social collapse." (Wells[1940]79-80) Wells's opposition to tyranny at this time shows a lasting interest in the protection of fundamental human rights which he demonstrated during the First War with his plea for a human rights charter for colonial peoples, and in the interwar period when, for example, he condemned censorship by the BBC, and was seen 'mingling with hunger marches during the great depression, to deter the police from baton-charging them.' Wells's 'Right of Man' aimed not only at preventing the abuses of power that had been so rifle throughout the interwar period but also at setting in place a guarantee that the world-state dogma could not be turned into a monolithic tyranny through bureaucratic unaccountability. Wells first advocate the 'Rights of Man' in a letter printed in the newspaper The Times in October 1939, he also published a version of the rights in almost all of his books between 1940 and 1944 with slight amendments from draft to draft. Education was also central to Wells's cosmopolitan philosophy. By insisting on the right to knowledge and information for all throughout life, the declaration was enshrining the principle of Wells's Permanent World Encyclopaedia, a mechanism by which all the world's citizens would have access to all knowledge through the micro-photographing of texts and objects, and universal access to microfiche machines. All registration and records about citizens shall be open to their private inspection. "All dossiers shall be accessible to the man concerned and subject to verification and correction". This clause, although greatly truncated, remains unaltered in principle and becomes merged with clause eight in the final draft. These rights were recognised as fundamental by Wells. He enshrined them in his Five Principles of Liberty as the principle of privacy. In the final charter these principles are condensed thus: 'Secret evidence is not permissible, statements in administrative records are not evidence unless they are proved. A man has the right to protection from any falsehood that may distress or injure him.'
Many of H.G.Wells's futuristic prophecies have come true, but the one on which his heart was most set, the establishment of a world state, remains unfulfilled. No writer is more renowned for his ability to foresee the future than H.G.Wells. His writing can be seen to have predicted the aeroplane, the tank, space travel, the atomic bomb, satellite TV and the worldwide web. Yet for all these successes, the futuristic prophecy on the establishment of a state world, remains unfulfilled. He envisioned a government which would ensure that every individual would be as well educated as possible, have work which satisfy them, and the freedom to enjoy their private life. His interests in society and technology were closely entwined. Wells's political vision was closely associated with the fantastic transport technologies that Wells is famous for. The Outline of History (1919) claimed to be the first transnational history of the human race, telling the story of human beings from our early evolution. In the hope that his readers would, on learning of the common origin, outgrow the idea of the nation state. While controversially received, The Outline of History was Wells's best-selling book in his own lifetime. Today, given the role that national identity continues to play in human being's efforts for greater self-determination, the prospect of Wells's world state seems even less likely. One surprising legacy remains, however, from Wells's forecasts of a better future for humankind. Letters from Wells to The Times led to the Sankey Committee for Human Rights and Wells's The Right of Man, argued that the only meaningful outcome for the war would be the declaration of human rights and an international court to enforce them. The influence of Wells's work is clear in the U.N. 1948 Declaration of Universal Human Rights. These rights now have legal force, so are perhaps Wells's most significant prophetic aim. While Wells is remembered more now for his science fiction than his ideas of world government, the political Wells still might something to teach us. While political leaders of various stripes use nationhood as a way of putting barriers between human beings, Wells's message of our shared origin, universal human rights and international co-operation might suggest to us a direction for a more hopeful future.
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