came that curious chorus of challenges, those leaping suspicions, raking
all causes for distrust and rivalry and hatred, but saying little of the
real and greatest cause.

Each nation felt its deep interests involved. But how? Not, surely, in
the death of Ferdinand the Warlike; not, surely, in the old,
half-forgotten _revanche_ for Alsace-Lorraine; not even in the
neutrality of Belgium. No! But in the possession of land overseas, in
the right to colonies, the chance to levy endless tribute on the darker
world,--on coolies in China, on starving peasants in India, on black
savages in Africa, on dying South Sea Islanders, on Indians of the
Amazon--all this and nothing more.

Even the broken reed on which we had rested high hopes of eternal
peace,--the guild of the laborers--the front of that very important
movement for human justice on which we had builded most, even this flew
like a straw before the breath of king and kaiser. Indeed, the flying
had been foreshadowed when in Germany and America "international"
Socialists had all but read yellow and black men out of the kingdom of
industrial justice. Subtly had they been bribed, but effectively: Were
they not lordly whites and should they not share in the spoils of rape?
High wages in the United States and England might be the skilfully
manipulated result of slavery in Africa and of peonage in Asia.

With the dog-in-the-manger theory of trade, with the determination to
reap inordinate profits and to exploit the weakest to the utmost there
came a new imperialism,--the rage for one's own nation to own the earth
or, at least, a large enough portion of it to insure as big profits as
the next nation. Where sections could not be owned by one dominant
nation there came a policy of "open door," but the "door" was open to