of prey is in our social life but thinly
veiled--thinly veiled indeed by a wash of "Christian" sentiment and by a
network of philanthropic institutions for the supposed benefit of the
very victims whom we have robbed.

Is it any wonder that this principle of internecine warfare and rapacity
which rules in our midst, this vulgar greed, which loads people's bodies
with jewels and furs and their tables with costly food, regardless of
those from whom these comforts are snatched, should eventuate ultimately
in rapacity and violence on the vast stage of the drama of nations, and
in red letters of war and conflict written across the continents? It is
no good, with a pious snuffle, to say we are out to put down warfare and
militarism, and all the time to encourage in our own lives, and in our
Church and Empire Leagues and other institutions, the most sordid and
selfish commercialism--which itself is in essence a warfare, only a
warfare of a far meaner and more cowardly kind than that which is
signalized by the shock of troops or the rage of rifles and cannon.

No, there is no other way; and only by the general abandonment of our
present commercial and capitalist system will the plague of war be
stayed.[23]

FOOTNOTES:

[23] When these hundreds and hundreds of thousands of men return home
after the war is over, do we expect them to go meekly back to the
idiotic slavery of dingy offices and dirty workshops? If we do I trust
that we shall be disappointed. These men who have fought so nobly for
their land, and who have tasted, even under the most trying conditions,
something of the largeness and gladness of a free open-air life, will, I
hope, refuse to knuckle down again to the old commercialism. Now at last
arises the opportunity for our outworn Civilization to make a fresh
start. Now comes the chance to establish great self-supporting Colonies
in our own countrysides and co-operative concerns where real Goods may
be manufactured and Agriculture carried on in free and glad and healthy
industry.

XI

COMMERCIAL PROSPERITY THE PROSPERITY OF A CLASS

The economics of the statement that "commercial prosperity means little
more than the prosperity of a _class_"[24] may be roughly indicated by
the following considerations: International trade means division of
labour among the nations. There is certainly a gain in such division, a
margin of advantage in production; and that gain, that margin, is
secured by the trading