"The belief in the virtues of internationalism seems to me morbidly exaggerated, since it appears unlikely that the whole world would be free from the individual frailties and shortcomings of the component parts.
"Our idea (here, in Portugal) of international community has been nurtured on realities, and we desire above all to make our contribution to the concert of nations truly helpful. Therefore, with that end in view, our very first duty is to become ourselves a constructive factor and not a means of ill contagion and destruction. The order which we have established in Portugal, our modest achievement, is an appreciable contribution to the general welfare.
"All that we demand in return is that those who cannot or will not save themselves, shall refrain from trying to impose upon us their own standards of perdition.
"I merely state my sincere conviction that 20th century man is not yet capable of seeing or solving world problems except through national, free and independent entities.
"People of exalted imagination, armchair politicians engrossed in abstract solutions and unconcerned with the many realities bound up with the lives of peoples, will maintain the views that something better is possible. Nevertheless, prudent persons will agree that a national basis is still the most solid, the easiest and safest on which peoples can cooperate for their mutual well-being.
"Internationalism, concealing as it does pronounced tendencies towards national imperialism, is indeed a source of complication and danger today. The ideas of super-national organization and the tendency towards citizenship of the world are either definitely erroneous or humanly impossible. They are so far from possible under present conditions that they can only act as disturbing elements."
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