There is a faint possibility that the United Regions of Europe could be attained in our lifetime; but the dream does not stop there, for we may anticipate that this prototype in the manner that the polyglot cultural diversity of Europe can successfully be fused into a political whole will inspire the rest of the world to follow suit. The evolution at that stage might be quite rapid, with the United Nations Organisation transforming itself into an Assembly of Equals for the implementation of a truly democratic world order.

In 1975 I wrote A Regionalist Manifesto, in which I endeavoured to establish the form and the manner in which the federated regions of the world might operate, once this dream has been fulfilled. The principle in brief was that our lives should be regulated at three different levels of political organisation: the quality of life at the regional level, our economic life at the continental level, while the world's armed forces should be under control solely from the global level.

This would in effect be the fulfilment of the Anarchist's ideal of non-interfering government at the top level, with as much individualism as is possible encouraged down the line within a process of devolution. The specific function of the Assembly of Equals would be as the guarantors of the system where the individual cultural groups might reign supreme. But there would be other functions too for it to perform, like the promotion and supervision of all major scientific research, the promotion of regional development schemes for under-developed regions, the provision of a world budget, and the appointment of an international judiciary.

A few words might be required on the subject of the world budget. This would need to be financed from an annual world welfare tax, with each continental group of nations contributing substantially in direct proportion to the world government's assessment of their gross national product - a figure which, after gradual increase, is liable to reach some such proportion as 25% of the GNP. They would moreover make themselves responsible for the collection of these dues; and in the event of defaulting payments, this sum will be collected by armed force, as a last resort, if necessary.

On the question of representation and procedure, a minimum population should be established for any regional state to qualify for representation within this Assembly of Equals. The ambassadors who sit there should do so by the right of their annual election from the regional assembly which they represent; nor should there be more than one ambassador from each state, however large it might be; and this ambassador should cast his single vote independently from all other ambassadors. All decisions on the floor of the house should be taken by majority vote; and all proceedings within the Assembly of Equals should be open to public view.

While I recognise that there is liable to be considerable variation in size of populations between the different regions, we should still give some thought to the optimum; and the logic on this question might run as follows. The Assembly of Equals should contain less than 1,000 ambassadors, with 500 as the suggested optimum. By the next century, the world population figure will probably have passed the 5 thousand million mark. So the optimum size for any regional state can therefore be calculated by dividing 5 thousand million by 500, which gives us 10 million. For the purposes of greater flexibility however, we might fix this at a point lying somewhere between 5 and 15 million.

Regions with a population of less than 5 million would still have the right to insist that they should stand in control of their own quality of life; but in terms of representation elsewhere, such a Region would need to negotiate a shared representation either with a neighbour, or with a whole group of such small Regions which had fallen short of the 5 million mark in the established size of their respective populations. Then in the case of states with a population in excess of 15 million, they would eventually come to see that it was in their best interest to think in terms of sub-division into regional states, so as to acquire greater voting strength on the floor of the Assembly of Equals. But they should be under no compulsion to sub-divide, unless some constituent portion of that state should apply for separate representation.

Then comes the crucial question of where this Assembly of Equals should be situated, with all its implication of this site emerging as the future world capital. There are various considerations which need to be born in mind over this issue, and not least the fact that it will only come to the forefront of human concern (at the earliest) around t he turn of the 22nd century. We should also appreciate that, in tomorrow's world, technological achievement will have evolved so far that such matters as the regulation of a building's air-conditioning, irrigation and even climatic control will be within the reach of attainment. It will be competent to tackle such tasks as the transformation of desert into garden. So the consideration of an ideal site for world government is far wider than it might be today.

So there should be less surprise that I put forward the suggestion that the ultimate siting for our world capital will be the Sinai peninsular - a Region (currently so sparsely populated) which Egypt might permit to being fully internationalised and given over to these purposes, for the sheer prestige of having world government situated on their doorstep; while the rest of us will be able to rejoice in the fact that the central organisation for our global civilisation will have returned approximately to the point where it originally came into its first bloom - a site which might also be judged as lying at the pin-point centre of our planet's geographical spread of land; the natural nexus for global communications.