this struggle. Great commercial countries will, on the one hand, shut
their doors more closely to outsiders, and countries hitherto on the
down-grade will develop home industries, which, under more favourable
conditions of labour and production, will be able to supply goods
cheaper than those imported from the old industrial States. These latter
will see their position in these world markets endangered, and thus it
may well happen that an export country can no longer offer satisfactory
conditions of life to its workers. Such a State runs the danger not only
of losing a valuable part of its population by emigration, but of also
gradually falling from its supremacy in the civilized and political
world through diminishing production and lessened profits.

In this respect we stand to-day at the threshold of a development. We
cannot reject the possibility that a State, under the necessity of
providing remunerative work for its population, may be driven into war.
If more valuable advantages than even now is the case had been at stake
in Morocco, and had our export trade been seriously menaced, Germany
would hardly have conceded to France the most favourable position in the
Morocco market without a struggle. England, doubtless, would not shrink
from a war to the knife, just as she fought for the ownership of the
South African goldfields and diamond-mines, if any attack threatened her
Indian market, the control of which is the foundation of her world
sovereignty. The knowledge, therefore, that war depends on biological
laws leads to the conclusion that every attempt to exclude it from
international relations must be demonstrably untenable. But it is not
only a biological law, but a moral obligation, and, as such, an
indispensable factor in civilization.

The attitude which is adopted towards this idea is closely connected
with the view of life generally.