pean customs barriers, which the
express train strikes every few hours, and associate national greatness
with territorial size. Even Great Britain, France, Germany and Austria
are ignorantly regarded as "little nations," which would be all the
better for a wholesome amalgamation. The frontier mind believes
stubbornly that short of such a union, these "little" peoples should
develop their own resources in peace. In other words, our attitude
towards Europe, which is a result of our elbow room and our economic
self-sufficiency, is vaguely missionary, with not the slightest tinge
of hypocrisy. We have no concern with Europe and no duty to interfere,
beyond expressing our belief in our own superior institutions and the
hope that Europe will learn by our example.

The development of our manufacturing industries, until recently at
least, did not alter these views concerning our proper attitude to
Europe. The new industries, chiefly designed for a home market, made
on the whole for peace. Nor did we need a foreign outlet for capital.
No one wished to go to war for the dubious privilege of investing in
Peru or China when our own iron mills, cotton factories and railroads
were clamouring for capital, to say nothing of our farmers in Oklahoma
and the Dakotas.

Psychologically, also, this self-poised industrialism, this domestic
stay-at-home business of ours, which prevailed until a few decades ago,
worked powerfully for peace. {43} We became a highly individualistic
manufacturing nation, composed of millions of self-seeking,
money-making men. As "business men" we hated wars as we hated strikes
and whatever else "interfered with business." Our ideal was a
strenuous life of acquisition, in which dollars were added to dollars,
and the prosperity of all depended upon the bank account of each. Wars
were like earthquakes and other interruptions of the ordained process
of accumulation; you could no more win a war than you could win an
earthquake. America's manifest destiny was to multiply and increase.
We were to mind our own business and live in peace with neighbours,
whom we did not know and rather despised. Since everything worth
exploiting was in our own country, since Europe left us alone and had
nothing that we were willing to fight for, we were free to ignore all
foreign relations.

The diplomacy which accompanied and aided this development, though not
heroic, was at least successful. It enabled us to grow strong a