Supposing that all the ministries of education in the world issued
orders, that as from January 1, 1909, an auxiliary language should be
taught in every government school; supposing that merchants took to
doing foreign business wholesale in an auxiliary language, or that men
of science took to issuing all their books and treatises in it; whose
business would be dislocated? What literature or books would become
obsolete? Who, except foreign correspondence clerks and interpreters,
would be a penny the worse? Surely a useful reform need not be delayed
or refused in the interests of interpreters and correspondence clerks.
Even these would only be eliminated gradually as the reform spread.
There would be absolutely no general confusion analogous to that
following on a sudden change to phonetic spelling or the metric system,
because nothing would be displaced.

Look at the precedents—the adoption of an international maritime code,
and of an international system of cataloguing which puts bibliography
on an equal footing all over the world by means of a common system
of classification. Did any confusion or dislocation follow on these
reforms? Quite the contrary. It was enough for England and France to
agree on the use of the maritime code, and the rest of the nations had
to come into line. It would be the same with the official recognition
by a group of powerful nations of an auxiliary language. As soon as the
world recognizes that it is a labour-saving device on a large scale, and
a matter of public convenience on the same plane as codes, telegraphy,
or shorthand, it will no doubt be introduced. But why wait until there
are rival schemes with large followings and vested interests—in short,
until the same obstacles arise to the choice of an international,
artificial, and neutral language, as now prevent the elevation of any
national language into a universal medium? The plea of impracticability
on the score of dislocation might then be valid. At present it is not.