opinion in a most intricate way. Each is itself affected by technical,
by economic, by political conditions. Every time a government relaxes
the passport ceremonies or the customs inspection, every time a new
railway or a new port is opened, a new shipping line established,
every time rates go up or down, the mails move faster or more slowly,
the cables are uncensored and made less expensive, highways built, or
widened, or improved, the circulation of ideas is influenced. Tariff
schedules and subsidies affect the direction of commercial enterprise,
and therefore the nature of human contracts. And so it may well
happen, as it did for example in the case of Salem, Massachusetts,
that a change in the art of shipbuilding will reduce a whole city from
a center where international influences converge to a genteel
provincial town. All the immediate effects of more rapid transit are
not necessarily good. It would be difficult to say, for example, that
the railroad system of France, so highly centralized upon Paris, has
been an unmixed blessing to the French people.

It is certainly true that problems arising out of the means of
communication are of the utmost importance, and one of the most
constructive features of the program of the League of Nations has been
the study given to railroad transit and access to the sea. The
monopolizing of cables, [Footnote: Hence the wisdom of taking Yap
seriously.] of ports, fuel stations, mountain passes, canals, straits,
river courses, terminals, market places means a good deal more than
the enrichment of a group of business men, or the prestige of a
government. It means a barrier upon the exchange of news and opinion.
But monopoly is not the only barrier. Cost and available supply are
even greater ones, for if the cost of travelling or trading is
prohibitive, if the demand for facilities exceeds the supply, the
barriers exist even without monopoly.