ere only
moderate, just over 2000 copies to the end of the year. Some time later
the Society purchased the remainder of 1500 copies at 1d. and since sold
them at prices, rising as the stock declined, up to five shillings a
copy!

The theme of the manifesto is the overriding claim of efficiency not
only in our own government, and in our empire, but throughout the world.
The earth belongs to mankind, and the only valid moral right to national
as well as individual possession is that the occupier is making adequate
use of it for the benefit of the world community. "The problem before us
is how the world can be ordered by Great Powers of practically
international extent.... The partition of the greater part of the globe
among such powers is, as a matter of fact that must be faced approvingly
or deploringly, now only a question of time" (p. 3). "The notion that a
nation has a right to do what it pleases with its own territory, without
reference to the interests of the rest of the world is no more tenable
from the International Socialist point of view--that is, from the point
of view of the twentieth century--than the notion that a landlord has a
right to do what he likes with his estate without reference to the
interests of his neighbours.... [In China] we are asserting and
enforcing international rights of travel and trade. But the right to
trade is a very comprehensive one: it involves a right to insist on a
settled government which can keep the peace and enforce agreements. When
a native government of this order is impossible, the foreign trading
power must set one up" (pp. 44-5). "The value of a State to the world
lies in the quality of its civilisation, not in the magnitude of its
armaments.... There is therefore no question of the steam-rollering of
little States because they are little, any more than of their
maintenance in deference to romantic nationalism. The State which
obstructs international civilisation will have to go, be it big or
little. That which advances it should be defended by all the Western
Powers. Thus huge China and little Monaco may share the same fate,
little Switzerland and the vast United States the same fortune" (p. 46).

As for South Africa, "however ignorantly [our] politicians may argue
about it, reviling one another from the one side as brigands, and
defending themselves from the other with quibbles about waste-paper
treaties and childish slanders against a brave enemy, the fact remains
t