e struggle for foreign markets been sharper than at the
present. They are the one great outlet for congested accumulations.
Predatory capital wanders the world over, seeking where it may establish
itself. This urgent need for foreign markets is forcing upon the
world-stage an era of great colonial empire. But this does not stand, as
in the past, for the subjugation of peoples and countries for the sake of
gaining their products, but for the privilege of selling them products.
The theory once was, that the colony owed its existence and prosperity to
the mother country; but today it is the mother country that owes its
existence and prosperity to the colony. And in the future, when that
supporting colony becomes wise in the way of producing surplus value and
sends its goods back to sell to the mother country, what then? Then the
world will have been exploited, and capitalistic production will have
attained its maximum development.

Foreign markets and undeveloped countries largely retard that moment.
The favored portions of the earth's surface are already occupied, though
the resources of many are yet virgin. That they have not long since been
wrested from the hands of the barbarous and decadent peoples who possess
them is due, not to the military prowess of such peoples, but to the
jealous vigilance of the industrial nations. The powers hold one another
back. The Turk lives because the way is not yet clear to an amicable
division of him among the powers. And the United States, supreme though
she is, opposes the partition of China, and intervenes her huge bulk
between the hungry nations and the mongrel Spanish republics. Capital
stands in its own way, welling up and welling up against the inevitable
moment when it shall burst all bonds and sweep resistlessly across such
vast stretches as China and South America. And then there will be no
more worlds to exploit, and capitalism will either fall back, crushed
under its own weight, or a change of direction will take place which will
mark a new era in history.

The Far East affords an illuminating spectacle. While the Western
nations are crowding hungrily in, while the Partition of China is
commingled with the clamor for the Spheres of Influence and the Open
Door, other forces are none the less potently at work. Not only are the
young Western peoples pressing the older ones to the wall, but the East
itself is beginning to awake. American trade is advancing, and Br