ent politically incompetent. They are rich in resources and cheap labour, poor in capital, poor in political experience, poor in the power of defence. The government of these states is the supreme problem of diplomacy.

"The plain fact is that the interrelation of peoples has gone so far that to advocate international laissez-faire now is to speak a counsel of despair. Commercial cunning, lust of conquest, rum, bibles, rifles, missionaries, traders, concessionaires, have brought the two civilisations into contact and the problem created must be solved, not evaded.

"It is essential to remember that what turns a territory into a diplomatic 'problem' is the combination of natural resources, cheap labour, markets, defencelessness, corrupt and inefficient government. The desert of Sahara is no 'problem,' except where there are oases and trade routes. Switzerland is no problem,' for Switzerland is a highly organised modern state. But Mexico is a problem, and Haiti, and Turkey, and Persia. They have the pretension of political independence which they do not fulfil. They are seething with corruption, eaten up with foreign' concessions, and unable to control the adventurers they attract or safeguard the rights which these adventurers claim.

More foreign capital is invested in the United States than in Mexico, but the United States is not a 'problem' and Mexico is. The difference was hinted at in President Wilson's speech at Mobile. Foreigners invest in the United States, and they are assured that life will be reasonably safe and that titles to property are secured by orderly legal means. But in Mexico they are given 'concessions,' which means that they secure extra privileges and run greater risks, and they count upon the support of European governments or of the United States to protect them and their property. . .

"Imperialism in our day begins generally as an attempt to police and pacify. This attempt stimulates national pride, it creates bureaucrats with a vested interest in imperialism, it sucks in and receives added strength from concessionaires and traders who are looking for economic privileges. There is no doubt that certain classes in a nation gain by imperialism, though to the people as a whole the adventure may mean nothing more than an increased burden of taxes. . . .

"The whole question of imperialism is as complex as the motives of the African trader who subsidises the African missionary. He does not know

where business ends and religion begins; he is able to make no sharp distinction between his humanitarianism and his profits. He feels that business is a good thing, and religion is a good thing. He likes to help himself, and to see others helped. The same complexity of motives appear in imperialist statesmen..

"Who should intervene in backward states, what the intervention shall mean, how the protectorate shall be conducted - this is the bone and sinew of modern diplomacy. The weak spots of the world are the arenas of friction." 1

If it be true, and apparently it is, that these sections of the world are the swamp regions in which are bred the germs that spread the disease of war, then it would seem that the most pressing task of diplomacy is the draining of the swamps. A few General Gorgases among the statesmen who would not balk at the stupendous job of initiating an international movement that would result in the cleaning up of these backward regions, would go a long way toward reducing the probability of war. 1 The Stakes of Diplomacy, Chapter VII.

CHAPTER XVI

THE FRONTIERS OF FRIENDSHIP

THE fourth article in the creed of militarism says that States are Natural Enemies; in a word, Nationality. It will not be an easy task to apportion the relative share of blame for this present war which each of the several articles in the creed of militarism must shoulder. But extravagant ideas of nationality, false doctrines of patriotism, and the theory that states are natural enemies,— these will have to carry a heavy load.

Charles Ferguson has somewhere pointed out in one of his profound and brilliant little books1 that if liberty means anything at all it means the right of a person to live his own life in his own way. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own individuality? And what shall it profit a woman if she gain a world of comfort and security and lose her own personality? And what shall it profit a nation if it gain

1 See The Religion of Democracy, The Affirmative Intellect, The University Militant and The Great News.

1

prosperity and assured peace and lose its nationality its soul? We must not permit pleasant platitudes about internationalism and the brotherhood of man to blind us to the real differences between races and peoples. However these essential differences may have come about is a speculative problem for the philosophers of history.1 Our business is to recognise the perfectly obvious fact that there are these vital differences and our pressing problem is to bring about a rapprochement, an adjustment, a modus vivendi. The poet sings that East is East and West is West and that never the twain can meet and we know that what he means is they can never mingle and fuse and amalgamate. But as for meeting,- that is precisely what is always happening and usually when they meet nowadays they clash. Something may be done, indeed something must be done, to soften the blow when they clash. But nationhood and nationalism are two quite different things. In other words, national boundaries are mostly superficial and arbitrary, and do not always or often coincide with essential racial differences. A constructive programme of international statesmanship will mini

1 See the Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of History. Also Chapter III of Bagehot's Physics and Politics.