It may be said, however, that no greater menace to democracy could have
arisen than the one we seem barely to have escaped--the control of
politics and government by the capitalistic interests of the nation.
What seems very clear is that an evolutionary drift toward the national
control of industry has for many years been going on, and that the war
has tremendously speeded up the tendency. Government has stepped in to
protect the consumer of necessities from the profiteer, and is beginning
to set a limit upon profits; has regulated exports and imports;
established a national shipping corporation and merchant marine, and
entered into other industries; it has taken over the railroads at least
for the duration of the war, and may take over coal mines, and metal
resources, as well as the forests and water power; it now contemplates
the regulation of wages.

The exigency caused by the war, moreover, has transformed the former
practice of international intercourse. Co-operation has replaced
competition. We are reorganizing and regulating our industries, our
business, making sacrifices and preparing to make more sacrifices in
order to meet the needs of our Allies, now that they are sore beset.
For a considerable period after the war is ended, they will require our
aid. We shall be better off than any other of the belligerent nations,
and we shall therefore be called upon to practice, during the years of
reconstruction, a continuation of the same policy of helpfulness.
Indeed, for the nations of the world to spring, commercially speaking,
at one another's throats would be suicidal even if it were possible.
Mr. Sidney Webb has thrown a flood of light upon the conditions likely
to prevail. For example, speculative export trade is being replaced by
collective importing, bringing business more directly under the control
of the consumer. This has been done by co-operative societies, by
municipalities and states, in Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom,