al, military, consular and diplomatic establishments, at
the common expense. The total gains derivable from these commercial and
investment interests abroad, under favorable circumstances, will never
by any chance equal the cost of the governmental apparatus installed to
further and safeguard them. These gains, such as they are, go to the
investors and businessmen engaged in these enterprises; while the costs
incident to the adventure are borne almost wholly by the common man, who
gets no gain from it all. Commonly, as in the case of a protective
tariff or a preferential navigation law, the cost to the common man is
altogether out of proportion to the gain which accrues to the
businessmen for whose benefit he carries the burden. The only other
class, besides the preferentially favored businessmen, who derive any
material benefit from this arrangement is that of the office-holders who
take care of this governmental traffic and draw something in the way of
salaries and perquisites; and whose cost is defrayed by the common man,
who remains an outsider in all but the payment of the bills. The common
man is proud and glad to bear this burden for the benefit of his
wealthier neighbors, and he does so with the singular conviction that in
some occult manner he profits by it. All this is incredible, but it is
everyday fact.

In case it should happen that these business interests of the nation's
businessmen interested in trade or investments abroad are jeopardised by
a disturbance of any kind in these foreign parts in which these
business interests lie, then it immediately becomes the urgent concern
of the national authorities to use all means at hand for maintaining the
gainful traffic of these businessmen undiminished, and the common man
pays the cost. Should such an untoward situation go to such sinister
lengths as to involve actual loss to these business interests or
otherwise give rise to a tangible grievance, it becomes an affair of the
national honour; whereupon no sense of proportion as between the
material gains at stake and the cost of remedy or retaliation need
longer be observed, since the national honour is beyond price. The
motivation in the case shifts from the ground of material interest to
the spiritual ground of the moral sentiments.

In this connection "honour" is of course to be taken in the euphemistic
sense which the term has under the _code duello_ governing "affairs of
honour." It carries no connotation o