ENDS AND MEANS
with their goods. Most of the industrially backward
countries have been equipped to provide for themselves,
and even to export a surplus, by those very capitalists who
originally used them as markets for their own productions.
Such a policy seems and, on a long view, actually is com-
pletely lunatic. On a short view, however, it is sensible
enough. Capitalists are concerned not only to sell their
production, but also to invest their savings. Savings
invested in industrial concerns newly established in back-
ward countries, where the standard of living is low and
labour can be sweated, generally bring enormous returns,
at any rate during the first years. For the sake of these
huge temporary profits capitalists are prepared to sacrifice
the smaller but more lasting profits to be derived from
using these same backward countries as markets for their
productions. In course of time the profits of oversea
investment diminish, and meanwhile the markets have been
lost for ever. But in the interval capitalists have earned a
huge return on their investments.
(ix) This brings us to an extremely important cause of
war—the pursuit by politically powerful minorities within
each nation of their own private interests. The worst, or
at any rate the most conspicuous, offenders in this respect
are the manufacturers of armaments. It is unnecessary for
me to cite facts and figures; they are available in a number
of well-documented, easily accessible books and pamphlets.1
It is enough to state the following simple generalizations.
War and the preparation for war are profitable to the arms
manufacturer. The more heavily die nations arm, the
greater his profits. This being so, he is tempted tp foment
war scares, to pit government against government, to use
every means in his power, from bribery to * patriotic*
propaganda, in order to stultify all efforts at disarmament.
1 See the relevant works of Seldes and Noel Baker, and the pamphlets
published by the Union of Democratic Control.
IO4