Sec.2. _Foreign Policy and Popular Forces._--The above considerations will
help us to appreciate at its true value the second main assumption which
lies behind the demand for increased democratic control of foreign
policy--namely, the assumption that the stuff of international politics
is at present spun from the designs of individual statesmen, and has no
relation to the needs of the peoples they govern. Stated thus, this idea
will not bear examination for a moment. The doctrine of the "economic
interpretation of history," which has received perhaps its most emphatic
expression in the teaching of Marxian socialists, is now in one form or
another accepted by all thinking men. But "economics" is after all a rough
name for the sum of the ordinary needs and efforts of every single human
being, and the economic interpretation of history means that the history of
the world is in the long run determined by the cumulative force of these
humble needs and efforts. This and this alone is the real stuff of
international politics. Statesmen may attempt to found systems, but the
only real force in international as in domestic politics is the education
of the individual man's desires. It is indeed open to any critic to say
that our present capitalist economic system is responsible for war because
it dams up and diverts from their true channels the needs and the efforts
of the mass of mankind. But to this an Englishman may fairly answer that
the free trade system under which our capitalist organisation has reached
its greatest development was built up by the Manchester School with the
sincere and avowed object of introducing universal peace. Cobden avowed
this object clearly:

"I see," he said, "in free trade that which shall act on the moral world
as the law of gravitation in the universe, drawing men together, thrusting
aside the antagonism of race and creed and language and uniting us in the
bonds of eternal peace... I believe that the desire and motive for large
and mighty empires, for gigantic armies and mighty navies ... will die
away."

Yet, in spite of these aspirations, great wars have come to England,
not once, but at least three times, since these words were spoken, and
armaments are immeasurably larger than ever before.

Let us understand one thing clearly in connection with the present war. Mr.
Ponsonby, in the words already quoted, implored Sir E. Grey to "look to the
great central interests of humanity and civilisati