onial free trade and internationalise the export of
capital."[3]

Both the plans mentioned are limited in scope and difficult of
application, but each contains the germ of a possible development.
That of Mr. Brailsford seems on the whole the more promising. It is
likely that a senate such as is proposed by Mr. Lippmann would go to
pieces over the question whether a certain valuable and exclusive
concession should go to a French or to a German syndicate or whether a
punitive expedition should or should not be sent against the tribes in
the interior. On the other hand the plan of Mr. Brailsford, which by
no means excludes the other, has the advantage of making once and for
all a fixed and certain distribution of all eventual profits and thus
effecting a real community of interest among the promoters and
investors of all nations. It is an economic rather than a political
solution, and it is along the line of a present trend, the evolution of
international investment and of economic internationalism generally.
It would seem easier for the capitalists of six great nations to form a
great international trust for specific purposes than for an
international senate to make a multitude of decisions each affecting
strong national interests.

A difficulty, inhering in all plans, is that there is no rule of law or
morals that will decide how much each {267} nation should secure from
the profits of exploitation. To what extent shall American, Dutch,
Belgian, Austrian or Japanese capitalists contribute to the
international syndicate which is to exploit the backward countries?
But this problem, though difficult, is less hopeless than that of
equitably distributing colonies _en bloc_. For there is no principle
on which to divide such colonies. Neither national wealth nor
population nor the strength of the national army and navy will serve as
a criterion, though all perhaps would be factors in determining the
shares of the different countries. A still greater difficulty however
arises from the fact that the most valuable colonies are already
distributed. Even if Germany were to receive a share in Moroccan
opportunities, might she not still seek by war to obtain the exclusive
possession of the immense French colonial empire. Perhaps no
arrangement for a joint exploitation of new and presumably less
valuable colonies would wholly satisfy the imperialists of great
European powers, so long as the old colonies are so unevenly divid