moment permit within their own legal jurisdiction. Were a similar organization formed within their own borders, adopting as its principles of action the privileges usually claimed by sovereign states, it would be promptly and ruthlessly suppressed as a dangerous bandit.

This statement implies no reflection upon any particular nation, for all to some extent share in the responsibility. What is here condemned as essentially unsocial and anarchic is the indifference of these great national economic corporations to one another's rights, and above all the absence in the law of nations, as it is now understood, of any accepted regulations such as the lesser constituent elements of the business world are required by these very states to obey under their authority. If civilization is to endure, and nations are not to become privileged highway robbers on the land and pirates on the sea, this part of the law of nations must be revised not only as respects the rules of war, but the rules of peace. In so far as a nation is a business entity it should be governed by the same principles in its dealings with other nations as civilized states apply to business within their own limits. But international law has not yet reached the stage of formal development where this is recognized. It is still under the influence of the inherited customs of the past, the baneful fiction of an absolute sovereign prerogative. Just as Christendom found that it was not in fact so organized as to restrain the Hun and the Tatar, so we are discovering that civilization is not yet so organized as to restrain their modern counterparts. So long as international business is controlled by an absolute conception of sovereignty, and sustained by military force, there will be no prospect of peace or equity in the world.

Let us not here undertake to speak of remedies. We must first comprehend the nature of the disease. Nor should we here attempt to apportion blame, which would end only in bitter controversy. If the evil is in the system, then it is the system that must be changed; and it will be time enough to inquire how to change it and

to pronounce specific condemnations when we know what change is required and who may refuse to participate in making it.

Undoubtedly, we have all of us been cherishing illusions. Let us, then, endeavor to dissipate them.

We have assumed that in some mystical manner progress is inherent in society; that it is necessarily produced by natural laws; that the mere duration of time carries us forward to perfection; and that the older civilization becomes, the wiser it tends to be. Trusting to these baseless generalities, we have in a spirit of optimism forgotten that we have duties to perform, renunciations to make, and sacrifices to offer if the state, or the so-called society of states, is to prosper. We have formed the habit of looking to the state. as a source of personal benefit to ourselves, which calls for only the smallest contributions from us in return. We have made exorbitant demands upon it, as undisciplined children extort gifts from overindulgent parents. We have wanted better wages, better prices for our commodities, better opportunities of trade, better conditions of life, free schools, free books, playgrounds, public provisions of every kind at the expense of the state. In order to obtain these benefits, we have desired that the state should become omnipotent, seeking to augment its resources by despoiling the rich within its limits, and exploiting or even conquering foreign territory wrested from other peoples, in the belief that this would render it easier to meet all our necessities, and through its increased power become the dispenser of happiness. When for this purpose armies and navies have been required, it has been easy to obtain them; for may not the state, being a sovereign power, do all things necessary for its own interest? Thus our consciences have been put to rest.

This tendency of modern states and the sudden revelation of its meaning have been forcibly expressed by a recent writer. He says:

A few more teasings, a few more pistols held at the head of the state, and a scheme,

that would render us all happy in spite of ourselves. Then, one fine morning in August, there came a rude awakening. We got a message from the state couched in language we had never heard before. "I require you," said the state, "to place your property and your lives at my service. Now, and for some time to come, I give nothing, but ask for everything. Arm yourselves for my defense. Give me your sons, and be willing that they should die for me. Repay what you owe me. My turn has come."

And thus Europe is called upon to pay the debt its theory of the state and of the state's omnipotence has incurred. We, too, in America may sometime be called upon to pay the debt if we are not wise.

We have trusted blindly to the process of social evolution. Industrialism and commerce, we have assumed, will automatically bring in a new era. Before it militarism, the grim relic of the old régime, will disappear. There will soon be no need for fighting. Wher. all the world turns to industry, as it will, wars will cease. Commerce will cement the nations together and create a perfect solidarity of interests.

But the present war has thrown a new light on the relations of militarism and industry. Forty years ago, Herbert Spencer, with his strong proclivity for brilliant generalization, fancied that the age of militarism was soon to be superseded by an age of universal industrialism. He described their opposite polities, the conditions of the gradual transition, and the final triumph of industry over militancy. But what do we now behold? Has militarism diminished with the growth of industry? Has not militarism simply become more titanic and even more demoniacal by the aid of industry, until war has become the most stupendous problem of modern mechanics? And now we see militarism wholly absorbing industry, claiming all its resources, and even organizing and commanding it.

And why is this? It is because the state as a business corporation is employ

struggling for the control of markets and resources, and the command of new peoples who are to feed and move the awful enginery of war.

And this condition of the world is the logical outcome of the inherited theory of the state. This fact is now beginning to be recognized, and recently there has been much said regarding imperialism and democracy, often assuming that the mere internal form of government is responsible for the international situation in Europe. But it is not the form, it is the spirit, and above all the postulates, of government that are at fault. If democracies may act according to their "good pleasure," if the mere power of majorities is to rule without restraint, if there are no sacred and controlling principles of action, in what respect is a multiple sovereign superior to a single autocrat? If the private greed of a people is sustained by the pretensions of absolutism in international affairs, democracy itself becomes imperial, without accepting the principles of equity which give dignity to the imperial idea. In truth, the most dangerous conceivable enemy to peace and justice would be a group of competitive democracies delirious with unsatisfied desires.

If there is to be a new Europe, it will be far less the result of new forms of organization than of a new spirit of action. Europe must renounce altogether its evil heritage. It must reconstruct its theory of the state as an absolutely autonomous entity. If the state continues to be a business corporation, as it probably in some sense will, then it must abandon the conception of sovereignty as an unlimited right to act in any way it pleases under the cover of national interests and necessity. It must consent to be governed by business rules. It must not demand something for nothing, it must not make its power the measure of its action, it must not put its interests above its obligations. It may plead them, it may argue them, and it may use its business advantages to enforce them; but it may not threaten the life or appropriate the property of its neighbors

or insist upon controlling them on its own terms. It may display its wares, proclaim their excellence, fix its own prices, buy and sell where it finds its advantage; but it must not bring to bear a machine-gun as a means of persuasion upon its rival across the street.

No one can make a thorough and impartial inquiry into the causes of the present European conflict without perceiving that their roots run deep into the soil of trade rivalry. Beneath the apparent political antagonisms are the economic aspirations that have produced them. In the light of history we can no longer accept the doctrine that industrialism and commercialism by a process of natural evolution automatically supersede militarism. On the contrary, we perceive that militarism on the one hand, and industry and commerce on the other, are at present partners rather than antagonists. They are different, but closely associated, activities of modern business policy as conducted by the state. If there were no economic questions involved, the conflict. of nationalities could soon be ended. Modern wars are trade wars. Modern armies and navies are not maintained for the purpose of ruthlessly taking human life or of covering rulers with glory. They are, on the one hand, armed guardians of economic advantages already possessed; and, on the other, agents of intended future depredation, gradually organized for purposes alleged to be innocent, and at what is esteemed the auspicious moment despatched upon their mission of aggression. Mere international misunderstandings are readily adjusted where there is the will to adjust them; but against the deliberately formed policies of national business expansion—the reaching out for new territory, increased population, war indemnities, coaling-stations, trade monopolies, control of markets, supplies of raw materials, and advantageous treaty privileges, to be procured under the shadow of the sword-there is no defense except the power to thwart or obstruct them by armed resistance.

We must, then, definitively abandon the

thesis that industrialism is essentially pacific, and will eventually automatically disband armies and navies, and thus put an end to war. On the contrary, modern armies and navies are the result of trade rivalry, and are justified to those who support them on the ground that there. are national interests to be defended or advantages to be attained by their existence. So long as even one powerful nation retains its heritage of evil and insists that it may employ its armies or navies aggressively as an agency in its national business; so long, to put the matter directly, as the nations must buy and sell, travel and exchange, negotiate and deliver, with bayonets at their breasts, so long defensive armies and navies will be necessary, and the battle for civilization must go on.

Strange as it may seem, it is not the poorest nations, but the richest, where discontent is deepest and most wide-spread. It is the great powers that are most inclined to war, and are most fully prepared to make it; and the reason is not difficult to discern. The greater the state, the greater its ambitions. It is easily within the grasp of five or six great powers to secure the permanent peace of the world, and, far more important than that, to secure the observance of just laws by all the nations. But, unfortunately, governments, feeling themselves charged with the duty of augmenting the resources of the state, find no limit to their ambitions except in their powers of action, which are great. The whole future of the world has in the past virtually lain in the hands of a small number of men, not all of them monarchs, but the recognized leaders of public thought and action in their respective nations.

This order of things is less likely to continue in the future than at any time in the past. Far less frequently than in former times will individual men shape the destinies of nations. No man, probably, will ever do for Great Britain what was done for it by William Pitt, and no man will ever do for Germany what Bismarck did. And this is an important augury for

the new Europe. Only a few men, and they but temporarily, framed and executed the policies that have, for example, created the British Empire. As the historian Seeley said, "We have conquered half the world in a fit of absence of mind." And in all this process the British people have never been consulted, just as the German people were not consulted in the two critical moments of their existence; for in the past peoples were seldom consulted regarding their national destiny. But that time has passed forever. Henceforth no intelligent people will ever be led into the shambles of modern warfare without being in some sense consulted. That is the first mark of difference that will distinguish the new Europe from the old. And, being consulted, will they not ask with increas

ing earnestness why nations cannot duct their business as the state gene requires private business to be condu in accordance with reasonable rules of cedure? Many negative answers no doubt, be given, for governments tenacious of their traditions; but, n theless, there will be a general revisio the inherited conception of the natur the state, and a perception that w dominion is not the prerogative of single nation. States, like individual must henceforth admit their responsibi to one another, accept the obligatio obey just and equal laws, and take respective places in the society of stat a spirit of loyalty to civilization human and not an exclusively nat ideal.

WE

KAPUT!

September 2, 1914.

HERE I am a prisoner.

What a journey! I am bitter at soul; it makes me şick to think of it. Across Rhenish Prussia, the Palatinate, the grand duchy of Baden, Würtemberg, and Bavaria, for three days and three nights, at every station, and even as we pass through the country-side, groups of peasants and gloomy crowds of citizens hurl execrations at us,

stamp, and shake their fists,

making signs that they

would like to cut our

throats and tear out our

eyes. From the streets of country towns, lost amid the sweltering plains, troops of children assemble, waving flags. They form in line beside the track. When the train comes in, moving slowly like a funeral convoy, the people beg for our kepis; they vociferate in their own language: "Paris kaput! 1 Death to the French!" The sight of our Red Cross armlets produces paroxysms of fury. "Death," they scream-"death to the

Red Cross men! These are they who finish off our wounded!" The shouting be

1 A slang word, generally employed, meaning "smashed" "r" ruined." Accent on second syllable.

comes strident, terrible, mad. Sometimes they try to take the train by storm, and are stopped only by the bayonets of the German soldiers on guard in each compartment, who growl threats.

The women are even more horrible than the men. The murderous glance, the clawed fingers working and tearing as if in the dream of a tigress, the nostrils dilated and twitching, the lips cyanosed, grimacing hatred -never before have I seen such faces of damned souls,

such Medusa heads. Who could believe that women could appear so horrible! When the train stops for any time, richly dressed matrons parade beside it, offering our guards mugs of beer, cigars, and cigarettes, bread and butter and jam, steaming sausages. Sick with hunger and fatigue, we look on at this prodigality. "Above all," they say, "give nothing to these French! Let them starve!" We are offered water.

Everywhere, at the stations, from the steeples, the factories, the inns, huge flags are waving. Chime answers chime across the rivers. The big cathedral bells make the hills reëcho. All Germany is holidaymaking, drunk with blood, thrilling with