NATIONALISM AND FINANCE

So far we have considered the working of International Finance chiefly
from the point of view of its effects upon the prosperity and comfort of
mankind as a whole and on this country, as the greatest trader, carrier,
and financier of the world. We have seen that the benefit that it works
is wrought chiefly through specialization, that is, through the
production of the good things of the earth in the lands best fitted, by
climate or otherwise, to grow and make them. By lending money to other
lands, and the goods and service that they have bought with it, we have
helped them to produce things for us to consume, or to work up into
other things for our consumption or that of other peoples. Thereby we
have enriched ourselves and the rest of mankind. But the question still
arises whether this process is one that should be left altogether
unchecked, or whether it involves evils which go far to modify its
benefits. In other words is it a good thing for us, socially and
politically, to enrich ourselves beyond a certain point by a process
which involves our dependence on other countries for food and raw
material?

Analogy between a State and a man is often useful, if not pushed too
far. The original man in a primitive state is always assumed to have
been bound to find or make everything that he wanted by his own
exertions. He was hut builder, hunter, cultivator, bow-maker,
arrow-maker, trapper, fisherman, boat-builder, leather-dresser, tailor,
fighter--a wonderfully versatile and self-sufficient person. As the
process grew up of specialization, and the exchange of goods and
services, all the things that were needed by man were made much better
and more cheaply, but this was only brought about at the expense of each