that leads to wars. States compete for the right to exploit the weak, and
in this competition Governments are prompted or controlled by financial
interests. The British went to Egypt for the sake of the bondholders, the
French to Morocco for the sake of its minerals and wealth. In the Near East
and the Far it is commerce, concessions, loans that have led to the rivalry
of the Powers, to war after war, to "punitive expeditions" and--irony of
ironies!--to "indemnities" exacted as a new and special form of robbery
from peoples who rose in the endeavour to defend themselves against
robbery. The Powers combine for a moment to suppress the common victim,
the next they are at one another's throats over the spoil. That really is
the simple fact about the quarrels of States over colonial and commercial
policy. So long as the exploitation of undeveloped countries is directed by
companies having no object in view except dividends, so long as financiers
prompt the policy of Governments, so long as military expeditions, leading
up to annexations, are undertaken behind the back of the public for reasons
that cannot be avowed, so long will the nations end with war, where they
have begun by theft, and so long will thousands and millions of innocent
and generous lives, the best of Europe, be thrown away to no purpose,
because, in the dark, sinister interests have been risking the peace
of the world for the sake of money in their pockets.

It is these tremendous underlying facts and tendencies that suggest the
true moral of this war. It is these that have to be altered if we are to
avoid future wars on a scale as great.



18. _The Settlement_.