working for its
own direct benefit, while striving at all times to destroy the power of
its neighbours and get hold of their treasures. It laid so much stress
upon the importance of owning wealth that "being rich" came to be
regarded as the sole virtue of the average citizen. Economic systems
come and go like the fashions in surgery and in the clothes of women,
and during the nineteenth century the Mercantile System was discarded in
favor of a system of free and open competition. At least, so I have been
told.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

AT THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EUROPE HEARD STRANGE REPORTS OF
SOMETHING WHICH HAD HAPPENED IN THE WILDERNESS; OF THE NORTH AMERICAN
CONTINENT. THE DESCENDANTS OF THE MEN WHO HAD PUNISHED KING CHARLES FOR
HIS INSISTENCE UPON HIS "DIVINE RIGHTS" ADDED A NEW CHAPTER TO THE OLD
STORY OF THE STRUGGLE FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT

FOR the sake of convenience, we ought to go back a few centuries and
repeat the early history of the great struggle for colonial possessions.

As soon as a number of European nations had been created upon the new
basis of national or dynastic interests, that is to say, during and
immediately after the Thirty Years War, their rulers, backed up by the
capital of their merchants and the ships of their trading companies,
continued the fight for more territory in Asia, Africa and America.

The Spaniards and the Portuguese had been exploring the Indian Sea
and the Pacific Ocean for more than a century ere Holland and England
appeared upon the stage. This proved an advantage to the latter. The
first rough work had already been done. What is more, the earliest
navigators had so often made themselves unpopular with the Asiatic and
American and African natives that both the English and the Dutch were
welcomed as friends and deliverers. We cannot claim any superior virtues
for either of these two races. But they were merchants before everything
else. They never allowed religious considerations to interfere with
their practical common sense. During their first relations with weaker
races, all European nations have behaved with shocking brutality. The
English and the Dutch, however, knew better where to draw the dine.
Provided they got their spices and their gold and silver and their
taxes, they were willing to let the native live as it best pleased him.

It was not very difficult for them therefore to establish themselves
in the richest parts of the world. But as soo