that disputes between States can find a peaceful solution on the basis
of justice without clearly realizing what _international_ justice is.

An additional cause of the love of peace, besides those which are rooted
in the very soul of the German people, is the wish not to be disturbed
in commercial life.

The Germans are born business men, more than any others in the world.
Even before the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, Germany was perhaps
the greatest trading Power in the world, and in the last forty years
Germany's trade has made marvellous progress under the renewed expansion
of her political power. Notwithstanding our small stretch of coast-line,
we have created in a few years the second largest merchant fleet in the
world, and our young industries challenge competition with all the great
industrial States of the earth. German trading-houses are established
all over the world; German merchants traverse every quarter of the
globe; a part, indeed, of English wholesale trade is in the hands of
Germans, who are, of course, mostly lost to their own country. Under
these conditions our national wealth has increased with rapid strides.

Our trade and our industries--owners no less than employés--do not want
this development to be interrupted. They believe that peace is the
essential condition of commerce. They assume that free competition will
be conceded to us, and do not reflect that our victorious wars have
never disturbed our business life, and that the political power regained
by war rendered possible the vast progress of our trade and commerce.

Universal military service, too, contributes to the love of peace, for
war in these days does not merely affect, as formerly, definite limited
circles, but the whole nation suffers alike. All families and all