s its separate national ambitions. At the
same time all the industrial nations have a common interest in
maintaining themselves upon the resources of the agricultural
countries, and in building up a vast system, in which the world's
resources will be utilised most efficiently for the benefit of the
world inhabitants.

The problem, therefore, is to promote this economic internationalism
and to limit as far as possible the disturbing influence of the
divisive national interests. We cannot destroy and we cannot ignore
nationalism. We cannot resolve humanity into a mass of denationalised
atoms, citizens of the world with no economic or political allegiance
to any state. All we can do is so to compromise and adjust strong and
vital national claims, as to permit the growth of the international
interest. The progress of economic internationalism, without which a
permanent peace cannot be maintained, is to be furthered only as each
nation attains to a political and economic security, both in the
present and for the future. If a reasonable degree of industrial,
commercial and colonial progress can be guaranteed, so that the great
industrial nations do not live in constant peril, the vast forces which
make for an international exploitation of the world's resources will be
unchained. A common right to the use of the highway of the sea, a
joint imperialism, an international development of commerce and of
industry, a mutual insurance of the nations against war, and against
national aggression likely to lead to war, will be factors in the
establishment of an economic {162} internationalism, which is the next
stage in the economic development of the world.

The United States cannot by itself create a new economic world system;
all that it can do is to contribute with other nations to the removal
of obstacles that retard the coming development. The opportunity to
advance this movement, however, is greater in the case of the United
States than in that of the nations of Europe. A nation tends to prefer
its immediate national interest to its larger but more distant
international interest directly in proportion to the economic or
political danger in which it lives. Because of our wealth, our sparse
population and our relative immunity from attack, it devolves upon us
to be the leader in the promotion of an economic internationalism.

This potential leadership of ours, however, may be lost as a result of
an unfavourable economi