, for empire--we have no purposes of aggression; we have
quite enough to do to develop our resources and our as yet great
undeveloped areas.

A few months before the war broke, I had conversations with the heads or
with the representatives of leading publishing houses in several
European countries. It was at a time when our Mexican situation was
beginning to be very acute. I remember at that time especially, the
conversation with the head of one of the largest publishing houses in
Italy, in Milan. I could see plainly his scepticism when, in reply to
his questions, I endeavoured to persuade him that as a nation we had no
motives of conquest or of aggression in Mexico, that we were interested
solely in the restoration of a representative and stable government
there. And since that time, I am glad to say that our acts as a nation
have all been along the line of persuading him, and also many other
like-minded ones in many countries abroad, of the truth of this
assertion. By this general course we have been gaining the confidence
and have been cementing the friendship of practically every South
American republic, our immediate neighbours on the southern continent.
This has been a source of increasing economic power with us, and an
element of greatly added strength, and also a tremendous energy working
all the time for the preservation of peace.

One can say most confidently, even though recognising our many grave
faults as a nation, that our course along this line has been such,
especially of late years, as to inspire confidence on the part of all
the fair-minded nations of the world.

Our theory of the state, the theory of democracy, is not that the state
is above all, and that the individual and his welfare are as nothing
when compared to it, but rather that the state is the agency through
which the highest welfare of all its subjects is to be evolved,
expressed, maintained. No other theory to my mind, is at all compatible
with the intelligence of any free-thinking people.

Otherwise, there is always the danger and also the likelihood, while
human nature is as it is, for some ruler, some clique, or factions so to
concentrate power into their own hands, that for their own ambitions,
for aggrandisement, or for false or short-sighted and half-baked ideas
of additions to their country, it is dragged into periodic wars with
other nations.

Nor do we share in the belief that the state is above morality, but
rather that ide