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Prof.W.H.Hobbo

Pax Economica

FREEDOM OF INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE

The Sole Method for the
PermaDeDt and Universal AboIitioD of War,

with
A Statement of the Cause and the Solution of the European Crisis,

and an outtine of a

TREAH OF ECONOMIC PEACE

Bein^ a Sketch of the Only Possible Conclusive Settlement
of the Problem Confronting the World

HENRI Lambert

Manufacturer in Charleroi (Belgium)
Titular Member of the Soci6t6 d'ficonomie Politique, of Paris

"No Treaty of Peace Is worthy of its name, if contained
tlierein are tlie tiidden germs of a future War.*'

KANT, Essay on Perpetual Peace

'*Pax Economica! soiving word, saving trutii, necessary
asset of Democracy , new departure in tiie History of
Manicind!'*

THB 8BCOND EDITION

NEW YORK:

JOHN C. RANKIN COMPANY

216 WILLIAM STREET
AUGUST 1917

PAX ECONOMICA

^
/«

l9i 7

FOREWORD

June, 1917.

Three years of a war more murderous, ruinous and hideous
than hxmian imagination ever could have conceived, the un-
expected duration and the continuous aggravation of the most
perilous crisis which could confront the world, the impending
menace of a break-down of civilization, to which some grave
symptoms already point, do not appear to have brought the
governments, statesmen and leaders of thought any nearer to the
conception of a settlement that a civilized mind could call a
"solution" of the international situation.

Very few among our contemporaries seem yet to realize that
Force cannot "solve" international problems any more than
other problems, cannot make the world more secure in the future
than it has made it in the past, cannot establish a peace worthy
to be lived, cannot save civilization — ^that these results can be
attained only by justice and morality in international relations.

Many indeed speak of "international justice." But these
are words without significance, if they are not in accordance with
international truth. Though truth always is justice, and they are
inseparable, what we call and think to be justice often is not truth.

Cognition of international truth must be sought through a
statement of facts and the formation of a sound theory to be
derived therefrom; the advent of international jtistice and of a
lasting peace can be expected only through the expression of a
practical proposal responding to facts and theory.

We are confident that we offer such a proposal to our fellow-
men in the conclusion of the following study of the world's
problem. We do not propound new ideas; for more than six
years before the outbreak of the war we have contended, wherever
we have been able to do so, that only an understanding proceeding
from a high and broad principle of freedom and equity applied to
the economic relations of the nations — ^which are their funda-
mental relations — could avert from humanity the catastrophe
of a European conflagration; since the very first day of the war
we have maintained, not only that a "Pax Economica" can be a
permanent peace, but also that no other line of settlement ojffers a
means and a prospect of putting an end to the process of mutual eX" . A f<.
termination and ruin of the nations, "^

Prof.W.H.Hobb»

CONTENTS

PART I

The Economic Cause and Solution of the European

Crisis. A Statement of Facts 9

I. The economic condition of international harmony and security.
2. The ethics of international trade. 3. Pair play to be substituted
for privil^e in international trade relations. 4. The cause of the
European conflict. 5. The only farsighted policy: to live and let live.
6. The solution of the European problem. 7. The case of Belgium,
Alsace-Lorraine, and other nationalities. 8. The logical treatment of
the questions of disarmament and of international arbitration. 9.
Conclusion: a natural and stable peace must be a "Pax Economica."

PART II

International Morality and Exchange. Considerations

upon the basic condition of permanent and universal

peace 33

I. The economic fundamentals of international morality. 2.
International economic justice. 3. International law. 4. The "laws
of civilized warfare." 5. Disarmament and "freedom of the seas."
6. Diplomacy, Democratic Control, International Arbitration and the
"Supemational Grand Council." 7. The problem of nationalities.
8. Modem wars and peace. 9. The international morality of
exchange. 10. Conclusion: the natural and fateful necessity of
international exchange.

PART III

After three years of war: Quo vadis ? genus hominum !

The Way of Salvation: an Economic Peace 65

I. Fundamental Justice. 2. Free Trade, the only possible
peacemaker. 3. "Reductio ad absurdum." 4. Past failures and
present duty. 5. The Democratic Peace. 6. Armageddon and
Madness. 7. The Revolt of truth against error. 8. The peace of
wisdom and love. 9. The whole pacifist "secret." 10. Article First
of the Treaty of Economic Peace.

Two Protectionist Fallacies 73

PART IV

The Treaty of Economic Peace, being a sketch of the

concltisive settlement of the international problem. . 79

APPENDIX

x) An Open Letter to Mr. Woodrow Wilson, President
07 the United States of America, published by the
Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, the 8th of October,
1914 89

2) A Message on Free Trade and Peace, to the Society

of Friends and other Christians 95

3) The World at War (conclusion) by Georg Brandes 99

Part I

The Economic Cause and Solution of the

European Crisis

A Statement of Facts

"Ff^ Trade is the best peacemaker.*' — ^Richard Cobden.

Should this not read: Free Trade is the only peacemaker? —

The Author.

THE ECONOMIC CAUSE AND SOLUTION OF THE

EUROPEAN CRISIS*

In the present circumstances it is very difficult to lay aside
the passions and prejudices that are inseparable from the particu-
lar interests ci nationalities and to r^;ard the questions at issue
solely from the point of view of the general interests of Europe
and of the World. And yet such a frame of mind is indispensable
for one who wishes to find a just and permanent solution of the
European problem. Nor is this international attitude any the
less necessary if we restrict our aim to the search for a specific
adjustment which, by securing the good-will of all the parties
interested, will invite their careful consideration of the proposal.

The international situation of to-day is due to a series of
dicumstances a£Eecting the particular interests of nations and
in which national psychological factors have played a part which
is neither contested nor contestable. But the real ''causes," the
original and deep seated causes, are of a far more general char-
acter, connected with the very nature and necessity of things.
Any "padfilst" conception that offers, side by side with the
theoretic principles of a final and complete human agreement, a
practical means of putting an end to the international hostility
that threatens European civilization with ruin and extermination
must consider these ultimate causes. Standing aloof from all
particular national interests such consideration belongs to the
sphere rather of philosophy than of politics.

The war will of necessity be followed by a peace, but the
universal and permanent peace that each of the belligerents
declares to be its supreme purpose will not be the achievement of
superiority of arms, nor of skilful strategy, nor, alas I of the bravery
of soldiers: these forces will be capable only of imposing a tempor-
ary peace, consisting in the subjection and oppression of the
conquered. A peace worthy of the name, worthy of true civiliza-
tion, will be the achievement of the thought of those who shall
secure the acceptance of a just conception of the mutual rights
of nations. Universal and permanent peace will be established
upon the basis of justice — or never at all.

^November, 1914. Translated from the French for and published by
the Papers for War Time (Oxford University Press) edited by the Reverend
William Temple. Also translated into Italian and into German and admitted
to free circulation and sale in all belligerent coimtries.

I. The Economic Condition of International Harmony

AND Security

True justice in international relations is before all and beneath
all a policy that favors the economic development of all nations,
without excluding any. While the production of wealth is not
the supreme aim and object of humanity, and economic prosperity
can never complete and consecrate the temple of htunan progress,
it does nevertheless provide its material structure, and the right
of every nation freely to build up this edifice according to its
national needs and ideals is inalienable. And, since the growth
of the material prosperity of nations is the necessary and funda-
mental condition of their intellectual and moral advance — ^for
we cannot conceive of true civilization as a product of poverty —
their right to the fullest economic development compatible with
the wealth of their soil and their own capacity for useful effort is
natural and indefeasible — a divine right in the holiest sense of
the term. Now the economic development of a nation is in-
separable from the constantly extending operations of its exchanges
with other nations. Exchange is thus seen to be the fundamental
fact and the essential right in international relations. Every
political hindrance to exchange is a blow dealt to international
rights. Freedom of exchange will be the tangible manifestation
and the infallible test of a condition of true justice in the relations
between different peoples. And in default of this, international
right — and peace, which stands or falls with it — ^will continue to
lack a real and solid foundation.

Peace will be assured by law when nations realize and put
into practice true international law, fundamentally characterized
by freedom of trade, and susceptible of recognition by all because
respecting the primary interests of all. As we shall indicate later,
freedom of trade will gradually simplify and facilitate, to the
extent of making them at last perfectly natural, the solutions
of the difficult, and probably otherwise insoluble, problems that
arise either from the affinities or from the diversities of nationalities
in race, character, and language.

Until international law and international justice are thus
made one and inseparable, humanity will continue to experience
only periods of more or less precarious peace, necessarily dependent
upon the will and the interests ol those nations that have the
greatest force at their disposal.

We must not lose sight of the fact that, tinder modem con-
ditions of war, only those nations that can command great eco-
nomic resources can be very powerful in arms. Now it is certain
that these nations will finally come to insist upon freedom of trade.
Progress cannot be coerced; failing of its normal fulfilment through
the agency of ideas, it would attain its realization by force.

Moreover, it is freedom of international trade which alone
can give to a nation's industries that stability and security of
imports and exports which is indispensable to them; whilst in the
absence of such security powerful nations that are careful of their
future neither can, nor should, consent to abandon the conception
of economic prosperity guaranteed or protected by military power.
Whatever objections may be urged to this conception, there is no
doubt that the great nations and their governments will never
consent to abandon it until international economic liberty and
security are finally established. TarifE restrictions are the worst
obstacles to the advent of that true civilization which will be
marked by peace with disarmament. Such a civilization and such
a peace will be possible only under the conditions of economic
justice and security that will result from free trade.

Richard Cobden said: "Free trade is the best peacemaker."
We may confidently afiirm: "Free trade is the peacemaker."

2. The Ethics of International Trade

The pacifists have not sufficiently insisted upon this truth,
of primary importance, that economic interests are, to an ever-
increasing extent, the cause and the aim of international politics,
and that protection separates these interests and brings them
into mutual opposition, whereas free trade would tend to unite
and consolidate them.

For the vast majority of individuals, harmony of sentiment
can arise only from harmony or solidarity of interests, and what-
ever unanimity may exist between them, harmony of sentiment
will not withstand for long the shock of antagonistic interests.
Is it not inevitably the same with national sentiment?

"Immediately after the War of Independence, the thirteen
United States of America indulged themselves in the costly
luxury of an internecine tarifE war . . . and, at one time,
war between Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York seemed
all but inevitable. " * Rhode Island's controversy with the other

^Mr. Oliver, quoted by Lord Cromer in a report to the International
Free Trade Congress, of Antwerp (August, igio)*

States created the same danger. But soon after the founders of
the American Republic recognizing the mischievous possibilities
of "intercolonial" tariffs wisely took from the newly established
States of the Union the power to levy tariffs against one another's
goods. When the Swedes established restrictive tariffs against
the products of Norway, the dissolution of the imion of the two
countries was predicted by Norwegians of high scientific and
political standing; ten years later this prediction was confirmed
by the event. And some years ago, the vine-growers of the Aube
determined to declare civil war upon those of the Mame because
an attempt had been made to establish economic and protective
frontiers between these two districts. Is it conceivable that, in
the present industrial epoch, peace should continue, even for so
long as one generation, between the English and the Scotch,
between the Italians of the north and those of the south, between
the Prussians and the southern Germans, between the Austrians
and the Hungarians, between the French of the north and the
French of the south, between the States of the American Union,
if tariff frontiers were re-established between these groups?

It is the adoption of free trade within a nation's own borders
that, by consolidating and unif)dng its economic interests,
furnishes the real support and solid foundation of national concord
and unity; it will be the adoption of free trade between nations
that will have to accomplish the same work in the wider interna-
tional sphere. We must, then, consider as a fatal error the too
widely spread idea that free trade can only be the ultimate result
of a good understanding between the nations: the truth is that
free trade is the indispensable preliminary condition of any good
understanding that is to be permanent.

Yet the predominant importance of the choice between
protection and free trade in international relations lies rather in
moral considerations than in material interests. This is due
particularly to the fact that whilst protection, which means privilege
tending to monopoly, is a manifestation of international injustice,
free trade, which means equality of opportunities offered by and
afforded to all nations, is the very embodiment of international
justice. And such justice and injustice arefundamefUdlf since they
apply to the basic relations between nations, bearing upon their
vital, material necessities. And further, the material interests of
nations, in other words their physical interests, form the concrete
substratum, indispensable and natural, for their intellectual and
moral interests.

In order that international politics should be controlled
advantageously, no longer by the material interests of men, but
by their intellectual and moral aspirations, it would first of all
be requisite that international methods of dealing with material
interests should be at least tolerable. If men are incapable of
dealing successfully with their international material interests,
how can they be competent to deal successfully with their inter-
national intellectual and moral interests, which are so far more
complex!

The pacifists have far too much neglected in the past, and they
continue to neglect, these realities of the ideal with which they are
inspired, and it is this that explains, to a great extent, the in-
effectiveness of their noble efforts. They have preached the spirit
of conciliation in the policy of States toward one another, interna-
tional arbitration, disarmament; but in so doing they have not
attacked the cause of all the evil. Militarism, international
quarrels, bellicose spirit, armaments, and even "race hatred"
are in our day, and particularly amongst the great European
nations, merely effects, of which the cause is to be sought in
antagonism of economic interests, due in the great nmjority of
cases to Protection.

3. Fair Play to be Substituted for Privilege in
International Economic Relations

It will not, however, be necessary, in order to bring about
the beginnings of an era of universal and permanent peace,
that every nation should embrace the policy of ideal economic
justice that would be realized in complete free trade: it will be
enough that three, or perhaps two only, of the most advanced and
most powerful nations — ^England and Germany, with France or the
United States — realizing at length their true general interests,
economic, social, and political, and drawing their inspiration from
the principles of free trade, should adopt "tendencies" defimitely
directed towards commercial liberty, and should impress sinwlar
tendencies upon the policy of secondary nations, by example,
by influence and, if need be, by legitimate pressure in the form of
withdrawal of commercial privileges.

Hitherto, and especially dtaring the last thirty years or so,
the policy of the great nations, with the exception of England,
has followed a course diametrically opposed to this. Taking as
their guiding principles ill-will, jealousy, and self-interest — a,

self-interest, be it noted, grotesquely misunderstood, revealing
an inconceivable misconception of economic truth and a no less
incredible folly — ^the great nations have not ceased to increase their
efforts to secure isolation, mutual exdusiveness and mutual
constraint by means of protective tariffs and of privileges and mo-
nopolies. The economic foreign policy of each nation has consisted
above all else in the attempt to apply to other nations a treatment,
in the matter of tariffs and of opportunities, against which it
itself would hasten to protest energetically and even, if need be,
by force of arms, were there any suggestion of the application to
itself of such a treatment. Such a policy, as logically inconsistent
as it was unjust, was bound sooner or later — especially as it was
applied in an epoch marked by an inamense development of
indtistries — ^to lead to a catastrophe. Could the continuation
of such a policy leave room for any hope of the advent of that
reign of peace and goodwill among nations to which humanity
aspires? It is at once logical and obvious that mankind can never
hope for such a reign of peace until some at any rate among the
great nations resolve, in their economic relations with other States,
to conform to the maxim which sums up aU rules of conduct,
and to obey the Golden Rule at least in this implication: do not
do to others what you would not that they should do unto you.

Moreover, it must not be forgotten that, in the sphere of
domestic policy, protection is a system of robbery and impoverish-
ment of the masses of consumers for the benefit of privileged
minorities of producers; that it is thus based upon the spirit of
injustice within the State, as well as toward other States; and that
it would be contrary to the sound nature and sacred logic of facts,
and almost blasphemous, to expect from such a political system
that it should produce anything else but evil and disorder wherever
it is put into practice.

Because she has failed, or perhaps because she has not suffi-
ciently sought, to induce other nations to adopt the policy of
economic liberty and equality of opportimities, to which she
herself adhered. Great Britain suffers with them the consequences
of their errors; for not only the sowers of the wind of discord, but
they who made no. strenuous and effective efforts to stop them
must share in the reaping of the flaming whirlwind that follows.

But the storm is one that never should have burst: it could
have been, and ought to have been, prevented.

4. The Cause of the European Conplict

The United Kingdom comprises 45,000,000 inhabitants,
and their industries and their trade have at disposal the markets
of colonies which extend over a fourth of the sur&u^ of the globe,
are capable of supporting several thousand million inhabitants,
and are now occupied by about 400 millions. The British people
send out their sons aad export their products, in complete security
and stability, into these possessions, of which some, and those not
the least important, give a privileged position to British products
by means of differential tariffs.

Prance, especially if due allowance is made for her limited
needs, desires, and capacity for outward expansion, is in an
analogous position. Moreover, she introduces, for the benefit
of her producers, a highly privileged system of tariffs wherever
she establishes her mle.

Rtissia and the United States have vast territories with great
natural resources, far exceeding the needs of their populations.

The Empire of Germany has a population of approximately
70,000,000, constantly growing at the rate of nearly a million a
year. Their industries and their trade are assured only of their
home markets and of certain colonial markets of relative insignifi-
cance. The territory of European Germany is less than four-fifths
that of Texas and the area of the whole German Empire is exactly
one-tenth of that of the British Empire, and will be capable of
occupation in the future only by a very limited number of additional
inhabitants and additional consumers of German products.

So far as her outlets of population and her markets are
concerned, <jermany, with her very considerable — and entirely
legitimate — needs, desires, and capacity for outward expansion,
is placed, it must be admitted, in a position which is not only an
inferior, but also a precarious one. For the idea of protection
places all intercourse between nations upon a footing of mere
tolerance, which may at any time be transformed into complete
intolerance, extending as well to human beings as to merchandise.

Assuredly it is not one of the least disadvantages of Protection
that it involves a general instability and insecurity, both for those
who adopt it and for those against whom it is directed. Germany,
by her adherence to Protection, caused to others and suffered
herself these disadvantages. Did not Russia annoimce, in July
1914, that she was contemplating radical alterations in the Russo-
German commercial treaty expiring in 1916? Was not Prance

preparing to secure, by means of fresh additions to her tariffs,
the resources reqtdred for the application of the three-year service
law? Is there an assured majority of citizens in the United States
converted to the policy of freer imports? And can we exclude the
possibility that in a few years* time England may have a majority
of electors favoring proposals of tariff reform and the formation
of a vast economic empire of closed markets?

It cannot then be contested that, so far as her outlets and
foreign markets were concerned, Germany's economic position
was tmstable, uncertain.

It is true that an elementary understanding of her true
interests, both economic and political, ought long ago to have
induced her rulers to adopt a free trade policy, by gradually
reducing the barriers of her Zollverein, and inviting other cotmtries
to extend to her a similar treatment. Had these rulers done this,
how easy it would have been for them and how advantageous, in
answer to the proposals for disarmament made to them &om time
to time, to insist that a great industrial nation cannot rest satisfied
with precarious markets, and that there can be for it no disarma-
ment failing economic security, the primary element of national
security. Germany would thus have won the sympathy, the
support and the eager co-operation of free trade England, as well
as of Holland, Belgiimi, Denmark, Switzerland, and the majority
of enlightened public opinion in all the nations of the world.

But Gennany and her rulers have not chosen such a policy
of truth, progress, justice, and peace. They have been subservient
to the particular interests of narrow or unscrupulous agrarians
and manufacturers; they have accepted the disinterested but false
theories of their professors of "Nationale Wirtschaft"*; they
have been fascinated too by the idea of an economic and military
imperialism of the German race, and they have preferred the atti-
tude of conquerors, who fail to understand and refuse to recognize
any other advantages than those which may be secured by force.

Did this attitude of Germany, clumsy and pitiful as it has

been, make it any the less foolish and impolitic of other nations

to expect her to accept as final the inadequate and precarious

position created for her by her past history and by that of other

^How can it be explained that the Gennan savants and leaders have not
realized that Germany owes her powerful economic development not to the
system of protection, but in great part to the system of free trade established
between twenty-nine States formerly separated by customs frontiers, number-
ing half a century ago less than 40,000,000 inhabitants, and to-day nearly
70,000,000 free trade producers and consumers?

nations, as well as by her own political mistakes in the present
day? Should not a true political wisdom, revealed in foresight
and justice, have prescribed one of two courses: either that the
other nations should agree to facilitate the formation by Germany
of colonial dominions of her own, which a very intelligible pride
and economic necessity alike prompted her so eagerly to desire,
or that they should offer her stable assurances and compensations,
capable of satisfying both her pride and her interests, by under-
taking to throw open to her, if not their home markets, at any
rate those of their colonies? It would, of course, have been
understood that the German colonies should also be thrown open
to free international intercourse.

Nothing was done in this direction, indeed quite the contrary
policy was pursued. The plutocrats, the militarists, and the war
party in Germany were left in possession of an abnost imperative
argument in their favor, and thus the other nations helped to
maintain and embitter the spirit of conquest in the German people.

Economic mistakes, political blindness and rashness, an
inadeqtiate conception of international justice on the part of all
the nations and their governments, such were the real causes of
the cataclysm that is now overwhelming Europe and all mankind.

S. The Only Farsighted Policy: To Live and Let Live

Is it too late, or can it be too soon, for a general admission
of guilt? Errare humanum, perseverare diabolicum. Instead of
allowing the abominable and wicked work of rxain and extermina-
tion to continue, is it not the duty of the rulers of all nations,
toward God and mankind alike, to use their best efforts for a
reconciliation based upon truth and justice?

It is their duty toward God, for the Providential design to
perfect human progress obviously involves the association and
co-operation of peoples as well as individuals by means of exchange
of services, and not their isolation, mutual exclusion, suppression
or subjection. Is not the interchange of the products of labor the
natural primary fact from which all progress, all civilization
directly or indirectly originates? It is their duty toward man-
kind, becatise men will become worthy to enjoy the peace of
nations to which they aspire, when, under the guidance of en-
lightened and conscientious leaders, they have been permitted
to grasp the idea of human solidarity by the primary means of
exchange, from which will spring the infinite ramifications of
mutual service. And it is their duty toward mankind again,

because this is threatened in all that is noblest, strongest and
best in humanity and all that is most valuable and most useful
in things, that is to say in the objects of its worthiest pride, its
dearest affections and its highest hopes.

And besides, why continue the sacrifice of countless victims
and the adding of ruin to ruin? It is highly probable that, in
spite of incalculable sacrifices of men and wealth on both sides,
there will be in this war neither conquerors nor conquered: Ger-
many will be restrained, she will not be crushed. There will
have to be "an adjustment."

And it is better that it should be so, for war can no more be
definitely conquered by war than oppression by oppression,
injustice by injustice, evil by evil.

There will have to be an adjustment: it will be necessary to
agree to mutual concessions in satisfaction of the n:iain legitimate
demands. And there will have to be an effort to make this
adjustment final, with a view to a universal and lasting peace.

The writer of these lines believes that he has shown that
it would be advantageous and politic to assure to Germany
a more stable economic position. He believes, also, that he
has proved that there can be no permanent peace failing the
adoption of a policy inspired by justice in international economics,
and thtis " tending " toward freedom of commerce, to find its
consummation in universal free trade.

A final adjustment that will make for permanent peace
involves, then, in the first place, agreements sanctioning the
removal of tariff restrictions between the belligerent countries —
or at any rate the gradual lowering of tariffs with a guaranty to
all of equal and reciprocal treatment. All other reforms that are
the objects of legitimate national hopes or intents must, in order
to be profitable, be the consequences or corollaries of this equitable
economic adjustment.

Such an adjustment of tariffs would also be imperative if,
contrary to all probability, this war should end in crushing defeat
for one or other of the adversaries — a supposition necessarily
involving the sacrifice of twenty, thirty, fifty millions of human
lives, on the field of battle, in towns and country districts, by
wounds, by sickness, and by privation — involving too the destruc-
tion of incalculable artistic and economic wealth, and probably
alast the annihilation of innocent Belgium, which wiU not be the
least of European crimes.

Let us suppose, indeed, that the victors impose upon the

vanquished an inequality of tariiSs that places them in a position
of economic inferiority, and that mankind thus reverts to the
system of national servitude in a modem guise. Is there any
man of foresight or indeed of simple common sense who thinks
that it is possible to reduce to servitude and keep in that condition,
under whatever form or by whatever means, nations of which some
comprise even now and the others will comprise within a century
hundreds of millions of individtials? Certainly not half a century
would elapse before, the whirligig of time bringing its revenges,
the oppressed would take advantage of fatal dissensions among
their oppressors — ^for how many alliances last half a centtuy? —
and reverse the positions with the acclamation of all the peoples
that have remained outside the present conflict and its results.

Looking at the matter exclusively from the point of view of
the victors, whoever they may be, the only wise and far-sighted
policy will be that which has ever been the best: to be just, to
live and let live. Apart from the imposition of equitable
indemnities, nothing durable and advantageous and compatible
with subsequent peace could be done -beyond imposing upon the
vanquished the obligation to abolish or reduce considerably their
customs duties, while granting them fair reciprocal treatment. It
is worth while to emphasize here the fact, too much overlooked by
manufacturers and merchants, that such abolition of customs duties
wotild be the only reasonable and efiEective method of suppressing
that act of war applied to industrial competition, known as
"dumping," for which German industries have been justly blamed.

If we have proved that the original cause of the present
war was economic, that it can be ended satisfactorily only by
an economic adjustment, and that such an adjustment could be
introduced at once, have we not also proved that it would be
criminal to continue the work of ruin and massacre? Is it con-
ceivable that for the sake of securing financial ''war penalties"
the English, Germans, and French should demand the sacrifice
of countless more lives of their sons and their brothers?*

^It is not unreasonable to suppose that if the war were to end by the
crashing of one or other of the two sides, it would last for at least three more
years; it would absorb almost all the available capital of Europe; and from it
would result unutterable suffering and destitution. No doubt it would be an
iosolt to the intelligence of our statesmen to suppose that they do not under-
stand that the result would be, at no distant date, the social revolution of
Bttxope — unless, indeed, not enough men were left to carry it out. But there
would always be electors enough left to deprive of power the incompetent
repre s e ntatives of imbecile ruling classes. (November 14.)

6. The Solution of the European Problem

The system, no less absurd and inconsistent than unjust,
of mutual economic isolation and exclusion between nations,
vigorously and widely adopted in the last thirty years or so amid
the utmost development of industrialism, was the substantial,
deep-rooted, and ever-present cause of European dissensions and
of the terrible conflict of the present time.

A really effective peace movement must undertake to remove
this disturbing cause.

But no doubt it would be a task impossible of realization,
especially in the midst of the struggle, to rid Europe, at a blow,
of the whole mass of obstacles, consisting of tariff laws, restrictions,
and prohibitions, which make it impossible for her peoples to be
united and consoUdated (even in spite of themselves) by an
indestructible network of economic interests. Besides, every
undertaking must have a beginning.

Now despite appearances and superficial incidents, the
question of colonial outlets — of 'a place in the sun' — ^has hardly
ever ceased to be the central factor in Germany's legitimate
anxieties and the nodal point of all complications that have arisen.

It is then the colonial system that should be the first object
of reform — ^not only because we shotild then be dealing with the
real cause of the diflSculty, but because it is precisely on the
question of the reform of their colonial administration that the
nations wotild soonest and most easily come to an tmderstanding.

Among the politicians of Prance, among the economists
of that country, and also in industrial and commercial circles,
the idea has grown up, tmder the stimulus of facts, that the
Prench colonies are suffering from the narrowness of the economic
system resulting from their "protective" tariff. On several oc-
casions this opinion fotmd expression in the Chamber of Deputies,
and a Premier was able to assert, without raising a protest or a
denial, that the sj^tem of the "open door" ought to be applied
to all the Prench colonies, because it is apparently the indispensable
condition of their prosperity. What is true of the Prench colonies
is true of all other "protected" colonies.

A CONTERENCE, IN WHICH ALL THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD
SHOULD BE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE, SHOULD BE SUMMONED AT

ONCE (in a neutral country and under favor of an armistice which
appears to be possible for such a purpose), entrusted with the

TASK 07 MAKING AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN ALL COLONY-HOLDING
NATIONS THROWING OPEN THE COLONIES 07 ALL TO THE 7REE
TRADE 07 ALL.l

This conference would further set before itself the object of
reaching a second agreement, by which as large a rmmber of naUons
as possible would bind themselves gradually to reduce the tariffs
of the mother countries.

(This reduction might, for example, take place at the rate
of 5 per cent, per annum, without, however, any 'obligatory'
fall in import duties below 50 per cent, of what they are at present.
Example and results would be responsible for the rest. We
suggest here that no measure would be better calculated for creat-
ing international goodwill and good faith, for arriving at an early
and ensuring a durable peace, for giving a certain guarantee for
the future welfare and progress of mankind, than would be an
immediate reduction by Germany of 50 per cent, of her customs
duties in agreement with Great Britain for the continuation
of her Free Trade Policy. Is it too much to expect from the
United States that they should in conjunction therewith adopt
an international economic poUcy more worthy of a truly human
and Christian civilization as well as of a young, vigorous and great
nation endowed with the largest, richest and most generous
territory of the world?)

Both agreements — ^that affecting the colonies and that
affecting the mother countries — should be concluded for a period
of fifty years. It is extremely irrational and dangerous and
moreover contrary to sound law to conclude international agree-
ments ad aeternum, that is to say, without any limit. Such
agreements, like all contracts, should be made for a definite period
and renewable. They would thus have a greater precision of
meaiiing and would involve a more formal moral obligation. An
international treaty without the stipulation of a period involves
the mental reservation rebus sic stantibus.

The colonial agreement would apply not only to present,
but also to future colonies; this would give it its full value and
would remove a great danger of subsequent dissension.

The throwing open of the colonies to international free-
dom of trade would not necessarily mean the immediate abolition
of all colonial tariffs, but it would imply the immediate extension
io the commerce of all nations of identical economic treatment in all

^The British autonomous colonies should necessaxily participate in a
conference and in any a^ireements as independent states.

colonial markets, that is to say, the suppression of exclusive and
privileged ^spheres of influence^ and the adoption of equality of
general economic opportunities or the system of the ^Open-Door J
England wotild thus have to surrender and refuse for the future
the preference granted her in Australia, Canada, and South
Africa; in doing this she would only be following the example of
Holland, which has refused any preference in her colonies for her
home products. On the other hand, France, Germany, and the
other nations would throw open to British activities their colonial
territories — and this applies to territories which are four times as
large as Europe, and in which trade and industry are all the more
capable of development, because, under the restrictions of privilege,
they are at present relatively insignificant.

The objection may be urged to the system of freedom of
trade — and also to that of equality of treatment in the matter
of taxiflEs and economic opportunities — ^that these sjrstems might
prove unfavorable to the interests of poor or less wealthy colonies,
some of which necessitate constant sacrifices on the part of their
mother countries: for if the latter no longer derived any direct
advantages or compensations in return for their sacrifices, they
might neglect such colonies. But it is easy to conceive some
clause in the colonial agreement, stipulating that the whole
or some part of the expenses of the mother country should be
redistributed among the nations in proportion to the amount
of their respective trade with the colony concerned. The natural
result of this would be a system of co-operation, with a control
which would be the best guarantee for the profitable employment
of the money spent and for the good administration of the less
prosperous colonies.

Such a system would in every respect be the equivalent of the
ifUernaUonalizaHon of the colonies — ^without its disadvantages
and its difficulties — ^and it may be proposed as a method of just
and loyal association or co-operation of all nations in the universal
work of colonization. 1

^As early as 1908, on the occasion of the discussions on the annexation,
the author had suggested the internationalization of the whole "Conventional
Basin" of the Congo (comprising the Belgian, French, British, German and
Portuguese Congo colonies), together with the application of the system of
free trade (or of the "Open Door") in all other colonies of the world as the
only means of dispersing the heavy clouds that threatened Europe. He
again proposed this solution of the European difficulties in 19 10, in a study
on "La Belgique et le Libre Echange," in 191 3 tmder the title "Pax
CEconomica," in a pamphlet published by the Ligue du Libre Echange of

Finally, these two agreements — aSecting respectively the
colonies and the mother countries — ^would be the decisive step
in the direction of tmiversal free trade and peaceful industrial
civilization.

Need it be pointed out that the great lesson in justice and
civilization that would result from such an adjustment on pacifist
lines, would be calculated to make a profound impression in
Germany, where, after all, men with minds capable of embracing
anew ideas of liberty and justice remain in a vast majority? And
it would be calculated to detach, in her foreign and domestic
policy alike, the liberal and democratic parties, as well as the most
dear-sighted of her manufacturers and merchants, from the
parties of plutocratic reaction and militant imperialism.

We have said over and over again, but we do not hesitate to
repeat once more, that it is not by force that the spirit of militarism
and of conquest can finally be overcome: It can only be by the
adoption of the principles of truth and justice in international
politics.

7. The Case of Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine and

OTHER Nationalities

The author of the present paper has had two objects in view:
to provide a theoretic formtila for tmiversal and permanent
peace — ^that is summed up in the term free trade — and also a
practical formula, resulting from it, for the adjustment on pacifist
lines that is desirable at the present time and that is capable of
leading up to such a peace.

But he cannot allow himself to be reproached with having

apparently overlooked or neglected the question that has the

most powerful, the most legitimate and the most sacred hold

upon the hearts of his compatriots and their friends: the question

of the fate of Belgium.

Paris, and in October, 1914, in an "open letter to Mr. W. Wilson, President
of the United States, " which appeared in the Nieuwe RoUerdatnsche CouratU.

Simultaneously, in England, the idea of free trade in all colonies of the
world as an essential condition of a complete and definitive solution of the
European problem was propounded in a masterly way in several books by
E. D. Morel.

Contemporaneously, similar ideas (inspired as it seems by the Morocco
incident) were put forward by two prominent Americans, Mr. Jacob Schiff,
in several important public utterances, and by Rear Admiral F. E. Chadwick,
in two prophetic writings: "The Anglo German Tension and a Solution,"
1912; "The True Way to Peace," an address at the 20th Lake Mohonk
Conference, 1914.

We have said that an 'adjtistment' is inevitable, that is to
say, a many-sided agreement embracing equitable concessions on
both sides. But no peace and no adjustment are possible — nor
desired, hy any Belgian^ that do not involve the restoration of
Belgian independence and the freedom of Belgian territory.

Equitable moral compensations and material indemnities
will be due, moreover, to this nation, the victim and the martyr
of the errors and qtiarrels of her powerful neighbors.

Let us suppose that Gem^ny, recognizing her economic
errors, the futility of her conception of human progress, and the
defects of her international policy, should announce her acceptance
of the pacifist adjustment that we have proposed — and that we
hereby submit to the statesmen of the world; let us suppose
that Germany, announcing her desire to resume her place in the
ranks of civilized nations, should pledge herself to evacuate
Belgium and to indemnify her — ^with or without the concurrence
of the other belligerents. It would only be France that could urge
any objections. England obviously would only be too happy to
see Germany enter upon the path of an economic policy on liberal
lines and moreover in conformity with her own. Russia has no
colonies (unless we regard Siberia as such), and it does not seem
unlikely that she might be inclined to become a party to a possible
agreement between the European nations, tending toward greater
freedom of trade in the future. Austria is in precisely the same
position.

But Prance is engulfed in the quicksands of Protection;
she has forgotten the period of commercial prosperity that she
enjoyed under the commercial treaties of the second Empire,
which from that point of view was more liberal than the third
Republic; and, in spite of the advice of her most enlightened
politicians, of her best economists and of her most authoritative
Chambers of Commerce, she might insist upon n^intaining for
her colonies the hateful economic sjrstem that she has imposed
upon them: a system that has brought misfortune upon them,
upon herself, and upon Europe. But I do not hesitate, as a
Belgian, to assert that the government and rulers of Prance must
refuse, eventually, to be guilty of such an act and of such an
attitude, if there is one word of truth in the protestations of eternal
and botmdless gratitude which have been expressed by Prance
to Belgium in the last two years. I would add that these pro-
testations were not in the least extravagant, for on two occasions* —
after Liege and after Louvain — ^Belgium sacrificed herself, without

any material^ moral, or international obligation so to do, and
saved France, and then England, from the designs of the Ger-
manic race. I would venture to remind France and England
that they have a duty to fulfiU: the duty of emplojring every
possible means of saving Belgium from the supreme ordeal,
provided these means do not prejudice the civilization of the
future but'rather tend to promote it.

In the interests of future peace the question of Alsace-
Lorraine must also receive a solution. But here we must not
overlook the legitimate interests of the inhabitants of German
origin, who form a very important part of the population of these
districts. Nor must it be forgotten that many of the inhabitants
of French origin had abandoned the idea of reunion with France
on the condition of satisfactory and radical alterations in the
Reichsland statute. Is it impossible to conceive in these pro-
vinces a government independent or autonomous satisfying every
legitimate interest, aspiration and feeling, whether French or
German?

The author asserts his belief and indeed his conviction
that the two questions of Belgium and of Alsace-Lorraine can
be easily solved by the economic agreement which he proposes,
and which he considers calculated to satisfy the legitimate demands
of Germany.

We shall not deal specifically with the questions of Poland,
Italia-Irredenta, the Balkan States, the Bosporus, Asia Minor.
But it is easy to see that not one of them can be solved in the
interests of the populations concerned, of Europe as a whole and of
the world, tmless in the way suggested by the principle of freedom
of trade. Just as the economic and fundamental interests of
Alsace-Lorraine need continuation of free relations with Germany,
so do those of Poland need it with Russia, those of Italia-Irredenta
with Austria. The Balkan States need absolutely free economic
intercourse between themselves and with their great neighbors.
The Bosporus and Asia Minor must be open to the commerce of
the whole world. Those would not be satisfactory nor definite
solutions which would sacrifice the fundamental interests of all
those countries to the artificial combinations and futile considera-
tions of national "greatness," pride and " power. "*

^Much is to be said on questions like those raised by the Panama Canal,
the Suez Canal, even the Kiel Canal, but above all by the Straits of Gibraltar.
We shall limit ourselves to this expression of opinion: these questions un-
avoidably, sooner or later, must create a new an intolerable and impossible

It is appropriate to emphasize here the general truth that
freedom of international commerce will greatly facilitate and
simplify the solution of the complex and delicate questions arising
from racial afiSnities. This superior condition of economic
civilization, giving henceforward to all nations the assured and
unlimited .means of exchanging their goods and therefore of
expanding their industries and trade would remove the main and
undoubtedly only serious remaining motive for war. What
interest could nations still have in organizing huge empires,
embracing ntmierous peoples and vast territories, if they were
certain never to need again to fight either among their own
nationalities or against other peoples? What grounds would
there remain to the great composite nations for refusing to loosen
or abolish ties of dependence that would have either remained
or become distasteful?

The spirit of conquest and domination must be destroyed by
the abolition of its motives. With freedom of commerce, the
nations would soon come to recognize that all the advantages
that they hope to obtain through territorial expansion, through
the conquest and subjection of other nations, are found, with no
risks and no drawbacks, in the stability and security of relations.
Such a system alone admits of the permanent reconstruction and
preservation of those 'natural nationalities', whose aspirations
are among the noblest and most legitimate of our era; for the
principle which they embody, as has been brilliantly proved by
Novicow {La Question de V Alsace-Lorraine), is the basis of the
international as well as of the national and social order.

8. The Logical Treatment of the Questions op Disarma-
ment AND of International Arbitration

A study of the European question cannot ignore the question
of armaments, upon which it may certainly be noted that it is an
extraordinary delusion, indeed an inconceivable blunder, to
suppose that by the suppression of armies war wotild be suppressed,
and that to assure peace a beginning must be made by suppressing
armies and "militarism." Is it not the simple common-sense
truth that, in order to be able to suppress armies and militarism,
we must first of all suppress war — ^that is to say, we must create a
position of international security?

international situation, sure to evolve in war, if the principle of freedom of
trade is not accepted henceforth as fundamental in international relations
and policy. If this were so, the fortification or military occupation of such
passages would soon appear to be anachronistic.

Treated in the customary illogical fashion the question of
disarmament, or of mere limitation of armaments, is inextricably
complex and calculated to raise the most dangerous diiBBiculties,
not only between belligerents who would be in a fair way to
adjust their diflEerences, but also between belligerents and neutrals,
and between nations in actual or prospective wholly pacific under-
standing with one another. But the question could be readily
solved, either by agreement, or perhaps by simple nattural causes,
so soon as it were attacked logically. This solution can obviotisly
only follow the organization of international security, which will
tend to become identified with economic security, as mankind
completes the transition from military civilization to true indus-
trial civilization. Disarmament will be the logical and natural
consequence of the establishment of economic security between
nations.

The same will be true of compulsory reconciliation and of
compulsory arbitration between nations, which will then become
acceptable and will be quite naturally accepted.

9. Conclusion: A Natural and Stable Peace must be a

Pax Economica

Students, statesmen, and pacifists have far too much over-
looked the fact that the evolution of human progress has con-
stantly and increasingly been influenced by the economic conditions
of each epoch. Henceforth political science must draw its in-
spiration more and more from the data of economic science, which
deals with human relationships in conformity with the nature and
necessity of things — ^that is to say, by reverencing natural truth and
justice. For, humanity being part of nature, its evolution and its
history are controlled by natural laws, indistinguishable from the
Will of Providence. Among natural laws, those of economics,
practical and basic rules of life for individuals and nations alike,
are the most important to observe in politics, if it is desired to
avoid the shocks and disturbances that periodically convulse
societies and empires.

Mankind in Europe seems to have reached the decisive
turning-point of its history. Material progress at an excessive
and abnormal rate, not balanced by the requisite progress in
the sphere of morals and philosophy (a defect of which the primary
cause can be determined), had created entirely artificial conditions
of social and international life which were weak and unstable in
the extreme. In the sphere of intematioiial relations, the wishes

of a faction, the discontent of a monarch, the rashness of a minister,
the excesses of a mob, were sufficient to disturb to an alarming
extent the delicate balance of the tremendous opposing European
forces and to endanger a civilization which, though apparently
extremely advanced, was in reality merely fortuitous. The
problem is to give cohesion, stability, and unity, in foundations
and superstructure, to a world socially and internationally chaotic.

We are not here concerned to deal with the social problem;
it is the international problem that is urgent. Now whatever
politicians and pacifists may have thought, the preservation of
economic frontiers (the direct consequence of lack of equilibrium
between utilitarian and philosophic progress), has been the main
obstacle to the realization of intellectual tmity and moral harmony
in Western Europe. That European Confederation, which is the
dream of some thinkers, would be possible, it will be admitted,
only if tariflE frontiers were removed: but if these are removed,
the political federation of the States of Europe is no longer needed.
The unique and fleeting opportunity is now oflEered of lajring
the first free trade foundations of a co-operative federation of the
nations of Europe, which wotild mark the beginning of an era of
boundless economic and social progress, as well as the advent of
universal peace.

The Romans had conceived the idea and the hope of a per-
manent * Pax Romana. ' The emperors of mediaeval and modem
Germany have cherished themselves and fostered among their
peoples the ambition of a *Pax Germanica.' No doubt many
friends and admirers of England would ardently desire a 'Pax
Britannica.' But Truth and Justice, the eternal twin forces
that hold sway over mankind, will never rest till men attain to
the ' Pax Economica. '

November, 1914.

P. S. January, 1915.

Some say to me: you explain (without any desire to approve
them) the attitude and the actions of Germany on very just
considerations and reasons, which however the Germans them-
selves have never urged. I reply: it is probable that the Germans
are sensible of their situation without being able to explain it.
My object is to bring them to a real tmderstanding of it because
only by this means will they be induced to consider the true
remedy.

The colonial future of Germany depends on freedom of trade,
which will enable her to acquire colonies that will be opened to
all peoples, and also to co-operate with other peoples in their
colonial development by the means I have indicated, (page 22.)

It is possible that Protectionism, Militarism and War must
march side by side, but Free Exchange, Industrialism and Peace
are without doubt necessarily concomitant.

A nation which bases its ideal of increasing prosperity on
Plutocracy, in military activity and conquest has perhaps an
ephemeral interest in being Protectionist. But those nations
whose ideals are unhampered development of industry and
commerce, social progress and international peace, have certainly
a definite interest to adopt Free Trade.

Part II

International Morality and Exchange

Considerations upon the basic condition of permanent
and universal peace.

The economic rights are the primary natural rights.

Economic freedom is fundamental freedom. Economic
justice and morality are fundamental justice and morality.

INTERNATIONAL MORALITY AND EXCHANGE i

Peaceful and harmonious relations are not conceivable
between beings — ^individtials or collectivities — deprived of morals.
Concord and peace among nations can be the outcome only of
knowledge and practice of true international ethics. These do
not consist in the employment by nations of any means enabling
them to enforce or maintain among themselves an artificial peace;
they consist in the absence of motives and desire for war, the
necessary condition of a natural and stable peace. No alliances,
no "ententes," no hegemony, no "balance of power," no diplo-
macy, no treaty, no league or society of nations, no peace "organi-
zation" or "machinery" whatever, will successftdly take the
place of morality in international relations.

The author of the following reflections will endeavor to
demonstrate that, by the very nature and force of things economic
co-operation of peoples is the fundamental principle of Interna-
tional Morality. He will undertake to establish rationally,
without having recotirse to such arguments of fact as present
themselves to the mind, that Humanity will henceforth find itself
more and more confronted by this inflexible dilemma: liberty of
international commerce, or conflicts of increasing gravity between
the most advanced and powerful peoples.

I. The Economic Fundamentals of International

Morality

The economic interests of men are their primordial interests.
Their economic relations are their ftmdamental relations. It
is so in the life of individuals and of groups within national collec-
tivities. It is equally so in the life of nations in the international
society. Economics are necessarily at the base of all politics.
National economic policy is the ftmdamental national policy.
International economic policy is the fundamental international
policy.

All politics must be inspired by morals, and these themselves
cannot disregard the economic foundation. Fanciful ideas and

^November, 1915. Journal des Ecanomistes, Translated and pub-
lished, with an introduction by the Right Hon. Lord Courtney of Penwith, by
George Allen and Unwin, London.

morals engender fandftil politics. Sound and positive politics
cannot make headway except by the principles of sotmd and
positive morals. These principles are derived from the very
nature and necessity of things. Sound and positive morals
are natural morals. Now natural morals are primordially and
primarily those which manifest themselves in the economic
relations of men, resulting in the satisfaction of their physical
and vital needs: for the mind of man cannot be free and his
intellectual faculties and higher aspirations cannot expand tmless
these needs are satisfied. "Economic morality" appears as
fimdamental to all activities and relations — ^individual, social,
national, and international. It is the positive and essential
morality and the indispensable condition of harmony in private
and in political intercourse.

To bring into line harmonious relations of peoples interna-
tional politics should be inspired by international economic
morals, manifested by the practice of justice in the economic
relations of peoples — ^that is to say, in the political administration
of international economic interests. It has always been so, and
will be more and more so with the increasing advance of physical
sciences and technical arts, as well as of industries, commerce and
means of commtmication — advances which tend to render eco-
nomic interests of peoples more and more interdependent and
unified.

2. International Economic Justice

What is justice? What must be its characteristic in the
administration of international economic interests?

Justice, in itself, is considered as undefinable. This, we
think, is because its definition has always been sought in the
ideal or the abstract. Let us seek it in the nature of things.

In order to be successful, first in conceiving, and secondly
in defining justice in its essence, it is necessary to begin by in-
quiring what was its origin among men. Now, the conception of
justice cannot have entered and gradually taken shape in the
human brain until men came into a relationship other than that of
force — ^that is to say, until the dependence of man on his fellow
began to be satisfied by exchange of things and services. The
origin of the sentiment and notion of justice in human intercourse
lies in the natural and divine phenomenon of division of labor
and exchange of products and services. Justice was bom of the
necessity of evaluating things and services that had to be more

or less freely exchanged and of accepting their approximate
equivalent. As division of labor, as well as exchange of things
and of intellectual and moral services, have become more complex
and free, so have the sentiment and conception of justice been
developed, perfected, and raised. Justice is directly functional
to freedom of labor and exchange. Natural law and positive
morals have as origin, and will keep as fundamental principle,
the freedom of rendering mutual services by labor and exchange.
The primordial liberty of exchanging mutual services (capable,
tmder the diverse forms of co-operation and solidarity, of carrying
in its train the freeing of man from all subjection and oppression
by man), remains the essential criterion of justice in human
relations.

Justice in the administration of international interests must
be essentially characterized by freedom in all relations of exchange
between peoples.

Division of labor and exchange is the origin and the means of
all economic progress. The moral importance of this phenomenon
is not secondary to its economic importance. The necessary and
suflSdent f otuidation of harmonious intercourse is furnished by
freedom to produce and to render mutual services. It is so within
the nation; it will be equally so between nations. Why do
individuals of a nation, in the main, live at peace with each other
without the need of intervention of legal force? The primary
reason is that between these individuals there operates a natural
rule of justice and morality. Of what does this rule essentially
consist? It consists of recognition of the liberty of each and
every citizen to work and thereby to render services (material,
intellectual, moral, religious) to others, as well as to be the recip-
ients of such services — ^that is to say, it consists of recognition of
freedom to produce and to exchange. (Assuming that the
individuals comprising a nation systematically created obstacles
to this freedom of production and exchange between themselves,
would not the inevitable and immediate result be profound
discord and conflict?)

What is true of individual relations within a nation is also
true of the individual relations of men of one nation with those
of others, and of the collective or political relationship of the
nations themselves.

The first and fundamental manifestation of justice and
morality in relationship is freedom to exchange material things
necessary to physical needs. Moreover material interests repre-
ss

sented by industries and commerce have hitherto ftimished the
only positive domain of international relationship, and offer
therefore the only possible basis of a positive international justice
and morality. Psychological, that is to say, intellectual and
moral, interests could not have a beneficent dominating importance
and influence in international politics so long as the fundamental
material interests — of which the administration is much less
complicated — do not benefit by an international policy responding
to morality and justice, ^

It is the primary and fundamental economic relations,
exercised under a regime of Uberty and justice within the nation —
and not the power of the State — ^which, in permitting unlimited
development of common material interests, form the real, concrete
solid substrattmi of the moral, judicial, and political unity of
nations. Similar relations of liberty and justice instituted between
peoples will be the means of providing the same indispensable
substratum and of assuring the same progress toward unity in
the international order.

The politics of peoples adequately adjusted to the natural
conditions of their harmonious intercotirse will be those which,
inspired by international economic justice and morality, establish
freedom of industries and commerce in international society.*

^It may be well to note here that material exchanges are indispensable
to intellectual and moral exchanges, because the latter necessitates a material
support (paper, raw material, money, or personal human presence)^ Suppres-
sion of physical exchanges and communiccUions would bring in its train sup-
pression of psychical services and exchanges. International tolerance applied
to either has necessarily been accompanied by tolerance to the other. They
have assisted one another in the process of civilization. Hindrance to material
exchange is brought about by dangerous minds capable, for their own ends,
of lending friendly support to the most reactionary meastires. Here intoler-
ance is ready to serve intolerance, favoring exclusion, isolation, tyranny, and
provoking interior and exterior conflicts.

^We do not believe it is necessary to enlarge here on many economic
considerations of the merits of Free Trade and of the defects of Protectionism.

To imagine that by encircling a country with barriers and by isolating
it from the rest of the world it becomes richer; to believe that it is in the
interests of a country to produce itself, even if with great difficulty and at
great cost, those things which are necessary to it, and which the foreigner
produces easily and offers cheaply; to suppress the fact that products are
exchanged for products, and that imports are regulated by exports; not to
understand that when merchants of a country are enabled to import goods from
other cotmtries it is because their country produces advantageously mer-
chandise to export and exchange for the equally advantageously produced
goods of other countries: that consequently international commerce is inter-
national exchange of natural advantages and services; not to see that the

3. International Law

All human progress, material, intellectual and moral, is
derived directly or indirectly from the division of labor and
exchange. If the natural law of division of labor and exchange
ceased to operate, himianity would return to its most primitive
stage as soon as the accumulated stores of htiman requisites were
exhausted. It is as impossible to imagine society without this

additional profits obtained by the protected industries of a country are legal
spoliation of the consumers of that country and a premitun to incompetence
and to industrial parasitism resulting in unnecessary labor of the working
classes and in privation of the consuming masses: in truth, to imagine, to
ignore, or not to tmderstand all this, presupposes lack of economic knowledge
which we are convinced cannot be attributed to our readers.

To deny the benefits of international exchange — and consequently of
free exchange — ^is, in fact, to deny the advantages of division of labor and
the increase of productiveness resulting therefrom. It is, therefore, to deny
that which is evident. A coimtry which determines to be self-supporting
must resign itself to an inferior productivity and standard of wealth. If
such a country continues to prosper, it will be because of natural advantages,
because of high intelligence and labor energy of its inhabitants, because of
interior free exchange and despite its e forts to be self-sustaining.

If it be advantageous to a cotmtry to be self-sustaining, why not apply
the same principle to each region, province, cotmty, village? A country is
rich by the quantity, quality, cheapness and variety of articles of consumption
and things at the disposal of its inhabitants, whatever may be the origin of
these things — ^home soil and labor productions, or foreign productions got by
exchange with home products. Hie resolve of a coimtry to produce them
itself evidently can be only an obstacle.

It is moreover untrue that Protection preventing importation and
making for a self-sustained people is a source of higher wages and a factor
of a higher standard of living; on the contrary. Protection tends to lower
both, and it is free exchange only that can have such favorable results. For,
all imported things are paid for by equal values of exported things; therefore,
to begin with, importation does not and cannot reduce home production,
demand of labor and wages. But, prevention of importation through pro-
tective tariffs narrows markets and causes the artificial establishment and
parasitical prosperity of industries, these taking the place of natural industries
for which, if free, the possibilities and prospects of development would be
far greater than those of the protected and artificial industries; therefore
tariffs and self-sustaining system make for lower, whereas free trade makes
for higher home production, demand of labor and wages. The cost of life
being necessarily higher under the tariff r^^e, we are forced to admit that
Protection tends to reduce both wages and standard of life (of the workmen)
whereas free trade tends to increase both of them.

Is it necessary to add that Protectionist customs duties represent the
worst and most exhausting method of raising revenue for the state? Home
producers of articles taxed are thereby enabled to extort from the general

natural phenomenon as the phenomenon without society. It is
the original social phenomenon, and will never cease to be funda-
mental to civilization. Every obstacle to its accomplishment is
an obstacle to progress. Except by suffering themselves and
imposing suffering on others, peoples cannot set up against it
the obstacle of political frontiers. By nature, logic and force of
things social order, international order and civilization are domin-
ated by a law of economic liberty and justice. ,

body of consumers a sum which may be many times larger than any possible
revenue which would accrue to the state. The higher the customs duties
the less the state receives (by reason of diminishing volume of importation),
and the more the tax levied by manufactures on consumers is raised (by
raising the prices of their products) the more also by reason of general deamess
will the expenses of the state suffer increase even to the extent of absorbing
the greatest part of receipts from customs. Attempts to create important
revenues by means of Protectionist customs are condemned to failure. They
will end in revolution or war — or in both.

Prom the point of view of the special object of this study it is useful
to observe further:

1. Protectionist duties (actively assisting syndicates, cartels^ and

trusts formed to raise selling prices to their maximum by
limiting production, with the inevitable consequence that wages
are reduced to a minimum), multiply with abuse and excess
capital in the hands of the exploiters and financiers of industry,
whilst weakening the nation's power of purchase and constunption
and thus limiting the possibilities of expansion of home industries.
In order to find remunerative employment for such capital these
exploiters are then obliged to seek scope for it energetically in new
Gotmtries. Hence the need for excessive colonial expansion by
old countries.

2. On Protectionism depends the industrial and commercial system

known as ''dumping," consisting in selling exteriorly at a low
price (sometimes even below cost) by sacrificing a portion of
excessive profits levied in the home market. By means of
special reductions of transport rates and by grants of export
bounties, the whole levied on customs receipts — ^that is to say, on
the nation's consumers — states acquiesce in that system of inter-
national competition, at once immoral, aggressive, warlike.

3. Lastly, let us observe that exchange and division of labor are

necessary factors in the increasing possibilities of production
and consumption of both exchangers. The international action
of Protectionism is not confined to hampering exchange. It
further, by hampering international division of labor, lessens
the general productiveness and the power of consumption of
humanity. The injustice and immorality of a nation putting
obstacles in the way of free exchanges lies not alone in the
privation and suffering it causes to itself, but also, and above
all, in the like evils it thereby imposes on foreign peoples.

It is obvious that a code of judicial relationships of peoples
cannot obviously suppress the natural necessity attaching to
the phenomenon of division of labor and exchange in international
intercourse: international law cannot with impunity ignore
international justice and disown primordial international morals
in their most essential manifestation. Every effort in the direction
of installing an international law under the regime of reciprocal
economic isolation and exclusion of peoples is doomed to failure,
proceeding as it does from opposition to the natural ways and
means of fulfillment of the Supreme Will with respect to harmony
and progress. The possibility of codifying the conditions of
international intercourse in sovereign and definite laws rests
fundamentally on international economic co-operation, that is
to say, on international liberty of industries and commerce. On
this concrete liberty and justice the principles of moral liberty
and superior justice, which it is the ftmction of international law
to consecrate, will be supported and elevated.

International law must be fotmded on natural international
justice, signifjring international economic liberty; failing this, it
will remain a precarious and sterile doctrine. International
treaties will be without strength, value, stability.

Moreover, there cannot be a true written law, save that
which derives its motive and value from a nattiral law. There
will never be a solid and stable international law except it be the
outcome of a natural international law. If the constitution of
humanity in national groups is a natural fact, there must neces-
sarily exist a natural international law. It is only a question of
discovering it.

Certainly one cannot conceive the operation of a nattiral law
except between entities — ^individuals or groups — ^whose relations
are natural; it is, therefore, only between nations enjoying natural
relations that there can be a natural international law; and it is
economic relations which, being fundamental, must above all
and by sheer necessity be natural.

Now, those fimdamental relations between peoples which
exclude and isolate each other are artificial: the diversity with
which riches are scattered in the d'fferent regions of the globe,
in such fashion that every nation has in abtindance, and sometimes
even in super-abundance, some things and natural advantages of
which others have an insufficiency or lack totally, and the natural
solidarity which results therefrom — does this not demonstrate
that it is in the very necessity of the natural plan of progress that

peoples should render mutual services by exchange? The accom-
plishment of the phenomenon of division of labor and exchange
cannot be stayed or hindered "naturally" by political frontiers.
Must not himian laws limit themselves to sanctioning "relations
having their origin in the nature of things? " The establishment
of artificial economic frontiers (political frontiers being necessarily
justified by the fact of nationalities) is an attack against natural
international order and law, and will be penalized by the im-
possibility of building up between peoples a definite and sovereign
law capable of assuring to them mutual harmony and peace. The
international judicial edifice will crack and crumble if not built
on the true, concrete fotindation of unified economic interests of
peoples living under the regime of the natural international law
of freedom of exchange.

4. The "Laws or Civilized Warfare."

War is the suppression between peoples of the regime of law,
for which is substituted the regime of force — ^in which regime
arbitrariness will, in fact, only be limited by considerations of
opportuneness and interest entirely foreign to right, or by fear
of reprisals by the adverse force. How can one seriously speak
of a regime of rights and humanitarian conventions between
peoples who mutually massacre the flower of their humanity,
and whose objective is annihilation of one by the other? Between
them the sdus popvli suprema lex will fatally finish by being
applied in its most tragic and absolute form without any con-
sideration of rights, laws, or conventions. The "law of war" is
an entirely artificial and contradictory conception.

As to the expression "civilized warfare," it is void of reason

and even of sense. By tmloosing the organized brute forces of

peoples, by supreme manifestation of human violence, war assumes

the simplest and harshest characteristics of barbarism. To

pretend to civilize warfare is nothing less than to pretend to

civilize that which suppresses civilization. Future generations

will indeed wonder that jurists of the nineteenth and of the

twentieth century should have resuscitated ancient theories in

order to "legalize" international destruction and to "civilize"

htmian interslaughter in the name of "rights of peoples. "^

^In the term "civilized warfare" may be often implied the significa-
tion of "war between civilized nations." We question whether nations
which have not yet arrived at the stage of suppressing war have the right
to call themselves civilized.

There cannot be found a more peremptory and striking proof
of the impossibility of civilizing warfare than that which is offered
by the "War Manuals" of the nations who look upon war as an
honorable and indeed civilizing — ^if not "educative " — undertaking.
Par from it being to their interest to discredit war, these nations
would, were it possible, invest it with a character of nobility;
yet these selfsame nations make its code the most brutal and
demoralizing. Truly herein lies war's logic. Employment of
the most brutal and treacherous apparatus, of the most cowardly
tactics, recotirse to the most perfidious stratagems and means of
success, whatever they may be, such are and such will be more
and more not only the art of war but also the only possible "moral
of war. " For, if war never has been a sport or tournament, it
has now even ceased to be a kind of duel, such as was fought
between armies, knights and kings in order to decide questions
of relative importance: War has developed into a "to be or
not to be** between peoples. Such is the result of a civilization
which, not having known (for reasons to be explained) the
compensating equilibriimi of the progress of philosophy and of
utilitarianism, has been incapable of establishing the conditions
natural to peace.

Wars will become more pitiless, more ruinous in men and
things, and more general, in proportion to the progress of exact
sciences, technical arts and industries, in proportion also to the
development of the means of communication and of the mutual
needs of peoples. It is only by suppressing war by a corresponding
progress of economic and political philosophy and international
ethics that men will succeed in escaping the fatally increasing
horrors and calamities of wars.

The endeavors to reintroduce "laws of chivalry," or simply
to introduce more "legality" into wars, cannot be justified except
by men who are dominated either by the idea of nobility of arms
and military power or by the presumption of the natural inevi-
tableness of periodic encotmters and intermassacring of peoples.
Such endeavors bear testimony to intellectual and moral inferiority.
In aiming to render wars milder and more supportable (if not even
sjntnpathetic), these efforts, like all those which proceed from
sentiment and not from reason, are humanitarian in inspiration,
but would become anti-humanitarian in result. The question

iSj not to surround war with a halo, nor to palliate its secondary
and indirect effects, but to discover, to loathe, and to suppress its
causes, and so make possible the suppression of war itself.

Moreover we recall or suggest that:

1. All contracts or treaties in which the contracting parties

make engagements compromising their existence are
immoral and consequently void;

2. All conventions regularizing violence and slaughter are a

defiance of morality, and are therefore judicial non-
sense —

and without dwelling here upon these decisive arguments of
judicial principle,' we conclude that "laws of war " are institutions
without foundation, the chimerical products of human will solely.
K it were possible to have a "law of war, " it could derive its origin
and force only from the "natural law of war, " which in his "De
Jure Belli ac Pads" Hugo Grotius defines as follows:

"Omnia Ucere in beUo qwB necessaria sunt adfinem beUi. "^

The fight for survival is the natural law of all beings deprived
of morals; it remains the natural law of individuals and collec-
tivities in those surroundings where an inadequate morality
obtains — a state of things for which by reason of natural solidarity,
responsibility is forced on all. War is, therefore, if not a criminal
or immoral act, at least a phenomenon caused by "a-morality,"
signifying non-morality — ^that is to say, by ignorance or inadequate
knowledge of the moral laws which should prevail in international
relations. The wills and conventions of men can never n^ke
moral that which is immoral or "amoral." Logic and force of
things will ever impede the introduction therein of a — so to
speak — ^false morality. This only is given to men: to substitute
by study, knowledge, and practice of morality, the moral state
of things for the "amoral" state. Such are logic and just law.
International morals and laws of war will ever be hollow concep-

^We should add, thirdly: All contracts, international or otherwise,
which do not stipulate duration and term are, as we have seen, in fact, null.
As they cannot be everlasting or binding by perpetual title, they can be
denounced at any moment by one or other of the contracting parties. A
ccmtract without stipulation of duration presupposes the rebus sic stantibus.
Perennial r^[ime is that of complete contractual instability.

'The distinction between combatants and non-combatants which is
a leitmotiv of the "laws of war" does not rest on any foundation of truth —
save where children are concerned — because everybody, man or woman,
directly or indirectly, participates or helps in furthering war. As to children,
it stands to reason that their presence cannot be invoked as a protective

tions and sterile script. There can only be international laws and
morals of Peace. ^

5. Disarmament and ''Freedom of the Seas"

Armaments and the competition in them do not cause
wars. They are but the consequences of the danger of war —
that is to say, of international "amorality." It is evident that
their disappearance will only be made possible by international
security — ^in other words, by the intervention of international
morality.

Man in danger and unprotected can only arm himself. It
is the same with nations. Surrotmd an individtial with the
blessings of security and he will desire nothing so much as to drop
his weapon; soon he will let it rust; he will even end by not know-
ing where to find it. The disarmament of nations can only come
about in the same way — ^voluntarily, gradually, as a natural result
of an increased feeling of international security. In proportion
to advancement in the direction of industrial civilization, based
on co-operation and exchange, this feeling will more and more
merge itself into that of stability in international economic
relations — stability which identifies itself with the freedom of
these relations. To be truly desirable and finals disannament can
and must come about only as the result and the blessed gift of
the advent of international economic liberty, justice and morality.

shield (Is this 6oae in the case of a besi^ed town? Why should it be done
in the case of a besi^ed country, as is every country at war?) The true
protection of the little ones is the morality of their elders. There Ues true duty
in respect to them.

^The Editor of the Journal des Economistes points out that in his " A B C,
ou Dialogue entre ABC," Voltaire expresses on the "laws of war" (eleventh
Lecture) opinions extremely similar to those here enunciated. A (Voltaire)
remarks at the outset of the Dialogue: —

"The right of Peace I understand well enough: it is to keep one's
word and allow Humanity to enjoy the rights of Nature; but as to the right
of War, I do not know what it is. The law of murder seems to me strange and
fanciful. We shall soon see jurisprudence emanating from highway robbers. "

On the subject of the "laws of war" the author ventures to suggest that
were any such laws feasible, one only would be advisable and useful, viz.
an international agreement to employ as combatants only those men who
are ooer forty-five years of age. This would be a double boiefit, inasmuch as
most of the useful and stronger men would be spared, and most of the useless
and detrimental would be periodically swept away. But we fear it would not
"work," for it is nearly certain that with such a law operating there would be
no more war. We are at present witnessing the complete failure of the
"Nestors."

Navalism has the same cause as militarism: international
insecurity. It will not disappear save by means of international
morality. Ahlata causa, tollitur effectus. Gradual disarmament
on land will then be accompanied by gradual disarmament on
sea. Naval disarmament and freedom of the seas will be natural
consequences of liberty of international commerce. They are
problems which will never be solved if considered apart from
the general problem of permanent peace.

Freedom of the seas shall not be liberty of maritime com-
merce and communications in times of war guaranteed by agree-
ments between nations. How curious and contradictory is the
conception that enterprises of war should by common agreement
be favored and preparation therefore be given cotmtenance!
Vain effort, indeed, that would seek to deduce the principle of
liberty and security of the "nations' highway" from a morality
of war! The only possible morality of war is that seas as well
as lands must belong to those who are capable of seizing them by
force and of maintaining their domination by the same means,
as pirates and tyrants do — ^that is to say: the "morality of war"
can only be the "morality of international brigandage.**

From such a state of things neutral peoples must legitimately
suffer; no human efforts and conventions whatever will prevail
against the superior law of natural solidarity, which condemns
all men alike to suffer from the failure of progress wherever it
takes place — a, just law indeed, since it tends to promote rapid
and general progress, and since that failure has proved that no
nation has given to others a sufficiently constant and powerful
example of progressive international morality. Without doubt,
certain great Protectionist non-belligerent nations have a con-
siderable, even a very large, share of direct and active responsibility
in the conservation of international immorality.*

*This was written in the year 191 5, long before the entry into the war of
the greatest "Protectionist non-belligerent nation."

ON NEUTRALITY : There is only one true neutrality— that in which
real neutrals cease all relations of trade with all belligerents and with all
those themselves calling neutrals who do not adopt the same rule of true
neutrality. For, to sell to belligerents food, clothing, munition, is to be
co-operator to war and half belligerent. Such neutrality, consisting in helping
and profiting by the mutual destruction of others is immoral — ^whereas actual
belligerency may be a non-directly deserved catastrophe or, in certain cases,
may have appeared as a high duty.

The present-day conception of neutrality (the only one which a leader
is enabled to follow in practice; for, no responsible statesman can go far ahead
of his time, and disregard the written law) is supported by arguments of

Surely, the seas were bestowed no more than the lands, in
fact rather less than the latter, on any particular nations: they
have been given by God and Nature to humanity as a whole,
with the object of an ever-increasing intercourse and co-operation
of all peoples of the earth, in order that the accomplishment of
human works of progress, justice and peace n^ty be ensured
universally together with the spiritual Finalities, of which these
hxmian works are the means. Therefore, true and final freedom
of the seas wiU not provide new facilities and new food for war: it
wUl be the reward to Humanity for the attainment by all nations
to the natural morality of peace arising out of international economic
liberty and justice.

For more than a century the seas have been permanently open
to the trade of all nations in times of peace. The fact strikingly
confirms the theory according to which the. problem of the real
freedom of the seas is identical with that of permanent peace, and
finds its best solution — ^its only one — ^in the policy of international
commercial liberty (which was that of the greatest naval power.)

Certainly, humanity has no interest in having the "freedom
of the seas" assured to — ^nor the domination of the seas exercised
by — ^imperialist, conquering, and Protectionist nations. On
the contrary, there is no more important interest than the pre-
vention of such domination and "freedom." There is therefore
clear evidence that this question can not be solved, justly, com-
pletely, definitively, except by means of liberty of international
trade. Liberty of trade cannot be the consequence of "freedom
of the seas;" it must be its means, its effective cause.

It is also as dear as it is rational that naval disarmament
and true freedom of the seas must depend on an equitable adjust-

present-day international law and is identified with freedom of commerce
and freedom of the seas. But all our ideas on these issues will be repudiated
by a perhaps near future, and they will be looked upon as having been insults
to moral law» to respectable commerce and to holy freedom.

Law, commerce, freedom appertain to the r^;ime of peace — not of war.

Moreover, all conceptions whatever of "neutrality, **• active or passive,
voltmtary or imposed, are artificial and will remain inoperative and precarious
in presence of the force of things represented by natural solidarity of nations,
as well as by the necessity (against which nothing ever shall prevail) of pro-
viding for the physical salvation of peoples engaged in the mortal struggle
of modem war.

Neutrality, even "true neutrality", will less and less be for peaceful
nations a refuge. A vigorous co-operation for the establishment of inter-
national morality and consequent security will be for such nations the only
righteous, worthy and effective attitude.

meat of colonial ownership, and above all on the establishment of
the regime of the Open Door, or at least of equal opportunities
in all colonial possessions^ present and future. (The logical
corollary of this being ultimate free trade between the Mother
Countries.)

Any limitation of naval armaments must necessarily be
accompanied by an agreement providing for international guar-
dianship of the seas. And we propound this question: Would not
such an agreement — ^which might be a first result of the dawn of
international security evolved from colonial Free Trade — be
the equivalent of freedom and neutralization of the seas?

Let us remark, in conclusion, that freedom of the seas faeces-
sarUy implies liberty of communications between lands and seas,
and also liberty of ports. By recognition of this principle many
difficult questions of international politics cotdd be solved with
extreme ease and to the great advantage of all interested.'

6. Diplomacy — Democratic Control — International
Arbitration and the " Supernational Grand Council"

There is nothing more morally infamous than international
policy and its tool, diplomacy. Between nations "all means
hold good," and that which in private life is reprehensible and

^For several years past the writer has scarcely ceased to propound
that the definitive adoption of the regime of the Open Door (or at least of
equality of opportunities) in the colcmies, present and future, of all Buropean
nations, furnished the only means of avoiding a European conflagratioa.
He still considers this measure as the only one, immediately practicable,
capable of powerfully contributing to a solution of the present crisis. It
must, in his opinion, be the intitial consideration of any Conference called to
discuss terms of peace. When adopted, it would create the atmosphere of
goodwill indispensable to the examination, with some prospect of agreement,
of the remaining numerous, great and grave questions to be determined by a
Peace Conference.

(" La Belgique et le Congo, " 1908. " La Belgique et le Libre Echange, "
1910. "Pax CBconomica," 1913. "Lettre ouverte k M. Woodrow Wilsoiit
Prudent des Etats-Unis d'Am^rique," October 1914. "Un autre Aspect
de la Question Europ^enne et une Solution, ** November 1914.)

It may be objected that present-day colonial trade has only a relative
economic importance; nevertheless, it involves all the value and importance of
a principle, and it is on the subject of colonial rights that the injustice of privi-
l^es and of monopolies following on conquest is most bitterly and most
legitimately resented. In a sky hitherto darkened by clouds chaiged with the
ignorance and injustice of most peoples and their governments, the advent of
colonial free trade would represent the dawn of international truth and
justice.

(We should note that in a convention relative to colonial conmierce

even criminal leeoaunends itself and becomes meritorious. There
jealousy, distrust, and fear culminate and triumph in treachery.
It would be difficult to overcome one's disgust if in private Ufe
one were obliged to employ the same methods as are necessary
in diplomacy.

Why is this so? Only because action in international poUcy
is exercised in the direction of instituting between peoples that
regime contrary to Nature, logic, and the force of things, which is
characterized by the spirit of conquest and Protectionism, with a
view to isolation and reciprocal exclusion by means of privileges
and monopolies, thus creating antagonism and hostility; whereas,
obviously, it is the regime distinguished by the spirit of Free
Trade and co-operation, tending towards development of relations
and of association, bringing in its train goodwill and unity, which
conforms to the general interests of peoples as well as to nature's
justice, morality, and Will. Beneficent Nature refuses to recog-
nize obstacles which men oppose to co-operation between them-
selves. For this reason, while these obstacles remain, no more in
peace-time than in war-time can intercourse between the states
be carried on by means other than those which being anti-natural
are violent and immoral. These debased methods must be as
artful as their results will be artificial. With deceit tmder the
name of '' diplomatic skill," secrecy becomes the essential con-
dition of their ephemeral "successes." Such are the ways and
morals of most statesmen and "great politicians" in their com-

the autonomous colonies of the British Dominion wotdd intervene as separate
states.)

Those in whose hands are the destinies of their contemporaries —
and of numerous generations to follow — must not lose sight of the fact that
short of complete <}estruction of one of the two actual belligerent parties
(signifying exhaustion of the other, and the probable downfall of Europe)
there are but three possible solutions by way of arrangemetU:

1. Territorial acquisitions.

2. Payment of war indemnities.

3. Economic concessions.

It being undeniable that territorial acquisitions and payments of in-
demnities are and will remain tmthinkable except as results of total defeat,
there eventually remains no "arrangement" possible other than that of
economic concessions.

This third solution of the European question is the only one possessing
durable character — ^that is to say, permitting gradual and definite disarm-
ament, and giving some hope of avoiding revolution, anarchy, and the more
or less early renewal of a war more terrible and grave than the present one, a
new war (claimed as one of liberation and justice) which we should inevitably
bequeath to our children.

binations and machinations against nature and the force of things.
What poor men, what little men, are these great men! Is it to be
wondered at that their imprudence and their misconception of
those natural and healthy principles, which should dominate the
relations of peoples, create an international situation so false and
arbitrary that peace is unceasingly menaced, and make for inter-
national conditions so incoherent and unstable, because artificial,
that, despite the desires both of statesmen and of peoples, war
breaks out almost automatically as an apparently spontaneous
explosion evolves from conditions combining a maximtmi of
energy with a minimum of natural stability?

Suppose, on the contrary, that the utility and justice of
international division of labor and exchange became recognized,
and free international co-operation practised: the exterior politics
of States would immediately become as simple, as easy, as stable
and as moral as the most healthy relations between individuals
can be, while international lying and knavery would be rendered
useless and "diplomacy" lose its raison d^Hre. The opprobrium
of diplomacy is only the reflection of the ignominy of the interna-
tional policies generally practiced.

An alternative is suggested — ^the control of international
policy by democracy — ^that is to say, by popular suflErage. Dem-
ocracy is as incapable of this as a simple and honest man would be
of directing the affairs of a " bucket shop. " Very soon democracy
and popular suffrage would discredit themselves. Democratic
control could ameliorate nothing, and might even make greatly
worse the state of things it seeks to control, if it did not commence by
demanding the cleansing of the atmosphere of international politics
through the natural regime of liberty of international economic
relations.

For this unhealthy and dangerous condition of international
politics yet another empirical remedy is proposed: international
obligatory arbitration. It is forgotten that tribunals do not
make morals. Whether dealing with arbitration or other issues,
they cannot create justice nor even define its principles. They
can do nothing more than apply the active principles of justice
and the rules of morality already recognized. The principle of
morality to be recognized, and the rule of justice to be put into
practice previous to the functioning of an international tribunal,
is the principle and the rule of economic freedom and equal
opportunities offered by and afforded to all peoples. That is a
regime of justice vital to small nations (exchange of productions

being all the more necessary to peoples occupying restricted
portions of the globe, since their own products are limited in
diversity) and to certain great nations destined to remain among
the most powerful. Here are fundamental interests which cannot
be left to "arbitration." Obligatory arbitration cannot precede
the regime of the morality and of the vital justice of freedom of
exchange. At the least, it caimot precede a decisive contributory
step, on the part of the protectionist nations, towards their
ultimate adoption of such a regime: but, this secured, voluntary
acceptance of obligatory arbitration will soon become its con-
sequence, natural and beneficial.

After having entertained with favor, but without logic, the
idea of obligatory international arbitration (and following thereon
the anti-progressive idea of the constitution of a "United States
of Europe," happily impossible of realization) many pacifists
appear at this moment to follow assiduously the conception of
instituting a "Supemational Grand Council," charged with the
"organization" and maintenance of peace. They seem to have
forgotten that such an institution could not last if imposed by
force. It must be the outcome of a general consent. And that
presupposes "good will," which can only arise out of the prior
establishment of a regime of international economic justice.
Those pacifists have apparently also not taken sufficiently into
account the fact that peace is not a state of things to be
"organized," but, on the contrary, one to be '^naturaUy^* called
into being and maintained tmder the influence of adequate con-
ditions. It would seem that, for the moment, a "Supemational
Grand Cotmcil" has more need of peace than peace has of a
"Supemational Grand Council." This institution, like obliga-
tory arbitration, cannot be brought into existence, cannot live,
cannot develop itself, except in the atmosphere and through the
spirit of Free Trade. *

^One can conceive the more or less satisfactory and durable working
of such institutions between a Protectionist and a Free Trade nation, but not
between two protectionist nations. The institutions of peace necessitate the
spirit of liberty, goodwill and justice which is inspired by and inspires Free
Trade.

A few words in passing with reference to the idea of a ** league of neutrals * '
or a coalition of peaceful nations with the object of "enforcing peace" and
eventtmlly declaring war against aggressors. It is, from more than one point
of view, a bizarre conception.

It is anti-judidal. Any treaty having war as. its object or implying
obligation thereto is anti-judidal, because such object or implication, being

Advocates of democratic control, international arbitrators,
''peace organizers!" give ear to this: The successful issue of your
laudable enterprises is dependent on your concurrence and resolve
to bring about the installation of international economic liberty
and justice.

7. The Problem of Nationalities

Our study cannot neglect consideration of the legitimate
aspirations to independence of the small ethnical, historical, or
political nations. But we do not hesitate to express the opinion
that the problem of nationalities is insoluble by itself — ^that is to
say, if isolated from the general problem of creating the natural
conditions of permanent peace.

Freedom of nationalities will be the result of international

security; it cannot be the cause of it. As long as international

insecurity subsists it will confirm the peoples in the entirely just

idea that national might and great empires are necessities. They

will, by force, form compact national blocks and, incited by vital

interests, they will refuse to listen to the pleas of sacrificed and

wretched subject nationalities. Moreover, the constitution of

great economic and political units is the logical consequence of the

illogical system of refusing international co-operation. And it is

immoral or "amoral, " is illicit and null and void in natural and positive law.
A "league of neutrals" wovldf<UaUy collapse at the psychological moment.

It has often been contended that a force will always be necessary at the
service of justice and morality, that these must be "backed" by it. But does
not this very contention imply that justice and morals must exist before
the force "backing" them?

A coalition of nations, no matter in what guise, in order to "enforce
peace," could be morally tolerable only if it had as its object the defense of the
established regime of intematianal justice. It could not be effective and durable
unless based on a sound foundation of satisfied Intimate interests. Short of
this it would be a "league to enforce injustice."

In our epoch of industrial and commercial development, when the
progress and the very existence of peoples is fundamentally dependent on
their achievements in these domains, it is necessary to commence by creating
content and harmony of interests through the justice of economic liberty.
And then a "league of nations" would remain as "platonic" as it would be
formidable. It would conmiand, and could impose, a penalty, irresistible,
but which in practice would prove unnecessary — ^the exclusion, pure and
simple (for, say, a centtuy), of disturbers of the peace from all economic re-
lations with the co-operative federation of peoples.

Moreover, all projects of coalition (economic boycott, international
force) proceed alike from the false idea that it is possible to establish and
secure permanent peace by means of force, whereas justice only is capable
of doing this.

extremely doubtftil whetheri under the regime of reciprocal
economic exclusions, the small nationalities would have a true
interest in their segregation from great empires and in an economic
and political isolation which for them would signify misery and
decadence as well as, in the main, increased exterior insecurity.

Had all nations lived, if only for a quarter of a century,
under the regime of freedom of exchange and intercommunication,
following on a like period of preparatory tendency toward such
absolute Free Trade, they would clearly recognize that all the
advantages which formerly accrued to them as the outcome of
territorial aggrandizement, of domination, and of centralization
were obtainable — ^without the evils consequent on these, and in
much increased measure — ^by international freedom of intercourse.
The idea of co-operation and association would substitute itself
for that of "power." Peoples would purge themselves of the
madness of " Empires. " And gradually even the great acquisitive
nations would no longer find it detrimental to their interests and
progress to accord to the various nationalities of which they are
composed governmental autonomy or even independence — ^which
tmder the regime of general free exchange and "open-door" would
prove for ally great and small, a great boon.

The diflSculties of interior politics would be singularly lessened,
for it is infinitely easier to discover and practise methods and rules
of government appropriate to national life in progress through
increasing liberty when political groups are restricted and homo-
geneous (one of the reasons of the absurdity of the idea of a United
States of Etirope). The internal civil, mcwal, and political liberty
and prosperity of nations can be largely influenced by the freedom
of their external economic relations; they are perhaps definitely
dependent on this. It is also certain that, were political collec-
tivities more circumscribed, their exterior relations, inspired by
a healthier spirit, would be smoother: by very reason of their
scantiness and of the consequently necessary increment of their
exterior relations the sentiment of nationality would, gradually,
under a regime of liberty and security, yield to the spirit of inter-
nationalism, and patriotic passion and savagery to humanitarian
reason. True htmian progress — social, moral, national, and
international — depends, without doubt, on the possibility of
constituting and of preserving circumscribed political groups,
economically federated in co-operative unity. Admitting the
truth of the principle propounded by Kant in his "Essay on
Perpetual Peace," that a "law of nations cannot be founded

except by a federalism of Free States," it appears diflScult to
understand how this principle could be applied except by co-
operative economic federation, signifying freedom of international
trade intercourse.

If the idea of ethnical superiorities is full of uncertainty
(each race, each people having its defects and merits), that of the
superiority of great nations is a mere prejudice. To the impartial
observer the contrary is rather the fact, despite the inferiority
of the economic conditions of the small peoples, brought about
by the narrow and false Protectionist spirit of the great peoples.
These latter are superior chiefly in the extent and danger of their
errors. Nevertheless, in the absence of such a general progress of
ideas as will gradually substitute the international conception of free
exchange and co-operation for that of power and domination, there
will finally remain to small nations only Dante's ^Hasciate ogni spe-
ranza " whatever may be their temporary situation and experiences.

We believe we have said enough on the subject to show that
the problem of nationalities cannot be definitely and satisfactorily
solved by artificial combinations of statesmen and "great poli-
ticians. " The true origins of nationalities are economic, * and the
natural and dominating conditions of the evolution of the
phenomenon must remain economic.

The actual problem is how to complete the transition from
the military civilization to the economic and pacific civilization.

The first is characterized by:—

1. Aggrandizement of states by conquest; federation by

force; centralization by "authority."

2. Enrichment, progress, and unity of each national tmit

sought in the pacific system of Free Trade applied to
internal relations.

3. The hostile system of "balance of trade" and of Pro-

tectionism applied to international relations.

4. Precarious maintenance of order between nations by

hegemony or by "balance of power. "

* Neither "race," langtiage, religion, custom, history, nor common
government constitutes the principal factor in the formation of nationalities.
It is easy to realize this. It is conmion economic interests and relations
combined with one or the other or with several of those factors, which go to
form a nationality. The cohesion of nationalities is best assured when
common economic interests are combined with most of the aforesaid elements.

The economic civilization will be characterized by —

1. Enrichment and general progress of all peoples achieved

by the peaceful and peace-making method of Free Trade
applied to international as well as to national relations.

2. Voluntary gradual partition of great States; political

decentralization, and autonomous government of their
constituent nationalities according to affinities and
aspirations, ethnical, ethical, political, or territorial.

3. Growth of interpenetration and intermingling of peoples;

fusion of temperaments and characters (propitiated by
the reduction of political tmits, and the economic
association of such reduced units.)

4. International order sustained by solidarity of interests

and unity of moral aspirations — ^i.e. by the co-opera-
tive association of peoples in the material, intellectual,
and moral order.

Such is, we think, the necessary process from integration to
disintegration, of transformation from more or less confused
uniformity to diversity, from homogeneity to heterogeneity,
which should mark the natural and progressive evolution of the
phenomenon of nationalities.'

For effecting, without great upheavals, the difficult transition
of the military civilization to the economic and pacific civilization
it would have been necessary to balance the too rapid strides
which have been made in physical sciences and their applications —
technics, industries, communications— by a corresponding progress
in economic morals and in poUtical philosophy to both of which
international ethics are relevant. This progress has not been
achieved, it has yet to be attained hy all peoples, (Conservation
of the Protectionist system by the majority of great nations
has been the baneful consequence of. this lack of balance.) If

*We do not theoretically rule out a fiuther process from disintegratioii
to reintegration and to settled uniformity and homogeneity; that is to say,
we do not deny the probability of an vdterior voluntary political retmion
of some of the peoples, nor even the possibility of the ultimate volimtary
political federation of an economically, intellectually and morally united
mankind.

But we do practically and theoretically rule out any prospect of a
future peaceful and lasting political federation (partial or total) of mankind,
if not preceded by a long period of economic civilization (characterized by
political independence or autonomy and by economic association) and if not
founded on absolute freedom of economic intercourse between the members
of the group politically federated.

the absence of the indispensable parallelism and eqtiilibrium of
moral and material progress persists, it is extremely probable
that humanity will be obliged to undergo a very long period of
wars, of revolutions, of national and international anarchy, from
which civilization will recover but very slowly/

8. Modern Wars and Peace

Like all phenomena, the catastrophic phenomenon of war
cannot be mastered except by knowledge and mastery of its causes.

Ntmierous and diverse causes of dissension may occur
between individuals or groups belonging to the same national
collectivity. Affecting as they sometimes do political and moral
interests, before which common material interests momentarily
disappear or are effaced, they npiay translate themselves into
revolution and civil war. When great empires composed of
mosaic nationalities are, in spite of Free Trade within themselves,
menaced by dissolution, it is because between varied peoples,
Uving under a common central government (or between such peoples
and their necessarily strong Government) there must come about
causes of disagreement, so diverse and grave as to render every
other consideration subordinate thereto. But causes of discord
between separate nations (or between really autonomous nation-
alities) can neither be ntmierous nor diverse, their actually impor-
tant relations being almost exclusively of an economic nature.
Such are, in any case, those of their relations which give rise to
extremely strong quarrels. International conflicts have more and
more their origin and deep cause in unsotmd economics. These
conflicts may more and more be looked upon as "natural phe-
nomena" — ^in this sense that they are due to the reaction of natural
economic laws, forces or needs, outraged by the anti-natural politics
of the nations.

The most primitive .wars were expeditions of hunger or
brigandage. In the main all wars have had as their objective
territorial increase and acquisition of economic advantages. After
having passed the period of wars which apparently had as their
causes dynastic or personal ambitions and rivalries of kings, and

^While we cannot here consider and propound it, we should at least
indicate the cause, very simple but very profound and universally active, of
this absence of parallelism and equilibrium of moral and material progress:
namely — ^the want or defect in all human institutions — economic, social, and
political — of individual responsibility, which is the natural curb of excessive
utilitarian initiatives and activities and the only real factor in education, for-
mation of character and moralization.

of those wars in which rdigious f anaticisin was the apparent
primary cause, humanity is entering into a period — which must
rapidly be brought to an end — of wars of which the underlying
causes are distinctly economic. Race hatred, national passions,
inferior ''ideals'' of peoples no longer intervene as influential
factors except in so far as they second the rivalries of the industrial,
commercial, and financial interests of powerful groups — syndicates
cartels, and trusts.

The great nations urged by these interests covet ''assured
markets" and "spheres of influence" from which other nations
shall be excluded (and in which the natives shall be exhaustively
exploited). They dedre to secure them, after conquest, by pro-
tectionist privileges and monopolies (by "Imperialism") — ^that is
to say by international injustice. Their "great politicians"
naturally give zealous support to those debased enterprises, rely-
ing, if need be, for opposition to adverse interests, on "alliances"
or "ententes." Their Governments are then induced to impose
on nations from whose interests competition is feared terms as
disadvantageous as possible. Of commerce and industry, sole
platform of international rapprochement for practically all indi-
viduals, sole actual possible platform of international morality^
Governments make a terrain of exclusion, discord, hate, and
international immorality. No statesman has the courage, nor
even perhaps the wisdom, to cry to Humanity: Stop! Through
the mouths of their leaders (a few excepted) the masses equally
show the measure of their incapacity. And so, by the artifices of
some and through the ignorance of the many, the causes are
brought about and the conditions developed of modem wars.
Thence will fatefully arise the catastrophic phenomenon. Those
most benefited by injustice will be condemned to defend (par lefer
et par le sang), against those less favored, the portions of the globe
which they have conquered, and even those territories which
they have possessed immemorially. So long as there exists the
general desire and prejudice in favor of economically closed and
monopolistic empires, so long will the catastrophic phenomenon
repeat itself and increase in gravity. The ignorance and injustice
of conquerors wiU, unfailingly, bring their own retribution in
ultimate attack by other would-be conquerors.

At our epoch the problem of peace consists in substituting for
the causes of war, which are economic, the natural economic
condition of peace. Modem peace must be a Pax Economica.
Such will be the fmit of knowledge and practice of an international

5S ' .

morality inspired by that economic justice which is comprised
in liberty of international co-operation, free competition and
exchange.

Shall Love, or even Concord, between men not be eternally
dependent on their mutual practice of justice? ^

9. The International Morality of Exchange

Harmony must be the result of Justice, and Justice is in-
separable from Truth. Progress of moral conduct is dependent
on progress of intellectual truth.

The condition of international peace is international morality.
This is dependent firstly on Knowledge of international moral
truth and secondly on the practice of that truth (peoples will find
in this practice a twofold interest : interior prosperity and exterior
tranquillity.) The love of justice and the desire for morality
vnH follow, but they cannot precede knowledge and practice. Cause
and effect will act and react interchangeably, but jtistice and
morality must pass from the "conscious" into the "unconscious."
Progress of sentiment (of "good will") can only be consequent
on progressive knowledge and increasing practice of truth. It
is equally so in international as in social and in individual affairs.

Kjiowledge of the natural economic truths is fundamental
to justice, order, morality, and security, social and international.
It furnishes the most certain and positive rules of the art of politics.
These truths and rules cannot be ignored or even misunderstood
with impunity.

War is the inevitable outcome of a state of persistent inter-
national "amorality" and insecurity. Peace, in such a state, is
but an unstable equilibrium between adverse forces. It is at the
mercy of those who consider themselves capable of emerging from

*To contest the international justice of free exchange is an enterprise
which henceforth will not be undertaken except by those who support the
rights of conquest, of confiscation, of monopoly, of occupation, with jus
tUendi et ahutendi, i.e. by the advocates of force, of right by might.

We cannot hope to stay the blasphemous contention of those who,
while recognizing the national and international immorality of Protectionism,
will nevertheless continue to affirm that it contributes to the enrichment of
nations (certain nations may indeed become prosperous, by reason of special
causes, in spite of that system, which tends to impoverishment; furthermore.
Protectionism, in bringing about by spoliation the unjust partition of a nation's
wealth, gives to many superficial observers an exaggerated idea of general
prosperity). Of those we ask. Of what value such enrichment if doomed to
be annihilated by war, tenfold, aye a hundredfold? Consider this, you
insensate manufacturers, you blind traders, who in the midst of this most

the general insecurity by creating self-security through the
vanqtiishing and subjection of others. Such an "amoral peace"
is comparable to the "good relations" of cannibals; it also evokes
a regime of "international jtmgleism," for even lions and tigers
do not live without a certain mutual "respect" and, at times, "in
peace."

For the last half -century European amorality and insecurity
resulting in desire of conquest in some and fear of conquest in
others, has manifested itself by n^litarism put at the service of
international economic error and injustice. When truth and
justice making morality do not rule between States then force
must and will be supreme. When international law is not inter-
national truth and justice, there remains but force to overcome
and vanquish this false right.

Absolute security and certain peace are conceivable only
in so far as no peoples have any interest to desire, and consequently
none of them has any reason to fear, conquest. Now, liberty of
economic relations (carr3ring in its train, as it does, liberty of
general intercourse) between two peoples is equivalent to mutual
annexation by these two peoples; and liberty of relations between

terrible of all wars do not hesitate to demand meastires that would prepare
the way for its renewal. May it be given to a proletariat, better informed
better advised, to determinedly and successfully oppose your errors. For your
sake, may these appear to them more foolish than criminal.

Others, alas numerous! will say, "international free trade, while it is
international justice, is also freedom of international economic competition
and struggle; therein lies its defect. "

Free economic competition is indeed discredited — and very wrongly
so. Free competition is not "struggle" but "enterprise" to the end of
improved service resulting in profit to each and all. Derived from the spirit
of liberty, and consequently of justice, which it preserves and develops, it is
moralizing and brings about harmony of spirit and of all concerned interests.
It is restriction of competition under the guise of privileges and monopolies
which is demoralizing, which exerts a perturbing social and international
action, and which by spoliation ends in antagonism. The danger, then, is to
accuse free competition of the evils caused by privilege and monopoly, to
impute to liberty, mother of all progress, the criminal mischiefs of restraint.

Our present economic and social organization is almost wholly comprised
of restrictions, privileges, and monopolies (of which Protection is only one
of the forms and manifestations.) The critical incapacity of the men and
women of our epoch, even the most perspicacious, to discover the root of these
evils and our consequent impotence to abohsh them will appear to the historian
as the strangest of the determining circumstances of the great international
and social crisis which will so mightily and tragically characterize the twentieth
centtiry.

all peoples wotdd be equivalent to reciprocal annexation by all
peoples. 1 No people would any longer have an important or even
serious interest in vanquishing other peoples and conquering their
territories. Given liberty of international economic relations,
it is certain that international justice, morality, security, and peace
would become a positive, practical, and absolute state of things.

True civilization will be the result of knowledge and be
founded on practice of natural economic truths.

The present war, its abominations, its crimes, its duration —
and its sequel, probably graver than the war itself — is not the
direct outcome of the spirit of injustice and brigandage in men,
but the result of the general ignorance and disregard by peoples
and their leaders of those economic truths. They were bound to
be of a decisively capital importance at an epoch which will
ever remain characterized by an extraordinary development of
industries and a consequent need of corresponding expansion of
international commerce.'

Thus it has happened that certain peoples and their leaders
have considered supreme recourse to force and utmost violence
necessary and entirely legitimate, in order in their mind to redress
inequalities and injustices and put an end to insecurity — ^whereas
to these evils only the political application of the principles of
economic science, under the form of international liberty of
enterprise, commerce, and commxmications, can achieve a complete
and definite remedy. War has, for a long time past, been regarded
as the inevitable issue of a difficult international situation threat-
ening to become impossible. Instead of concerning themselves
with remedying this situation, nations and their leaders thought
only of preparing for war. War broke out. And the lack of

^Acoording to the highly suggestive remark of Monsietir H. L. Pollin in
" L'indkfiduaHsle AuropUn. "

'Is it not incredible that in our time and in all countries there is certainly
not one in ten of business men, members of the liberal professions, politicians,
writers, professors, scientists, statesmen, who possesses a thorough grasp of the
elementary principles underlying political economy, which is not only the
philosophy of industry and commerce but the' natural fundamental science
of morals and law, the necessary starting-point of every sane philosophy in
private and political life (economic life being the fundamental life of individuals
and peoples), and the indispensable scientific pre-condition of all seriotis study
and just appreciation of political questions, easy or difficult?

Our ''realism," our "idealism," our politics are worthless; they are
ideologic constructions without bases.

Future historians wiU easily in the light of this statement on the general
ignorance of economics understand all our failures, social and international.

philosophical and moral truth is such among all peoples (and in
all spheres without a single exception) that, after having brought
about war, it leaves each of the belligerent parties incapable of
conceiving a peace possible by means other than suppression,
pure and simple, of the enemy nations — ^however appalling the
reciprocal massacre, ruin and annihilation! All nations are
apparently already resigned to sacrifice to the moloch of militarism,
in the future as at present (with the object of defending themselves
against those as fearftd as themselves), all remnants of their past
riches in men and wealthl This implacable war is no more the
outcome of bad instincts than is smallpox or cholera.

The ignorance and stupidity of men have always proved
more inexorable and caused them more sufiEering than their
wickedness. It mtist be so. Men are ordered to become good
and wise — aye, to become good, because wise! Goodness unless
inspired by wisdom is incapable of evolving progressive morality.
Good cannot be separated from Progress.^

Moreover, no nation, however great its desire to be regarded
as ''good, civilized, peaceable," has so far given proof of its
disdain of war and conquest, nor of its reprobation of their in-
justices and cruelties. No "superior" naticAi has given this
example of morality to "inferior and barbarous" nations. As
there exists no criterion nor line of demarcation of the relative
superiority or inferiority of peoples, it is only too easily explainable
that nations who consider themselves superior should adopt
towards other nations eqtially imbued with the idea of "superi-
ority" that conception and policy of hostility, of conquest, of
political and economic subjugation, which has alwa3rs prevailed
between peoples presumed to be superior and those presumed to
be inferior — these last having always been treated without justice,
benevolence, pity.

After nineteen centuries of political effoilts and Christian

preaching, the state of relationship and the mutual attitude of

nations, "civilized and Christian," do not, alike in time of peace

as in time of war, differ essentially from those of savage tribes.

^The first men who abandoned the system of force for the system of
exdiange did not so because this was jtist and good, but because it was profit-
able, wise and true. The origin of peaceful civil relations, of social morality,
of civilization, is not in good feelings but in wisdom — in knowledge and prac-
tice of a law of nature, of a law of God, the law of exchange of services. For
ensuring peaceful international relations, the process of peace has only to be
continued and extended by recognizing the profitableness, wisdom and truth
of adc^ting free relations of exchange between nations.

Everywhere nations are compelled to prepare to fight at any
moment for the defence of their chattels, of their soil, of their
liberty, even for the very preservation of their physical existence.

More menacing still seems the future

For this apparently desperate state of things there is happily
a discernible cause and a possible remedy: it is that there can be no
international morality save by knowledge and practice of natural
and positive international morals. The indispensable and sole
possible foundation of that morality will be freedom of labor and
of exchange of things and services between national collectivities —
that is to say, liberty of international co-operation without
privileges and monopolies. It is incumbent on men to recognize
that such is the only natural and solid base of a universal and
permaaent peace.

lo. Conclusion: the Natural and Fateful Necessity of

International Exchange

The economic activities and utilitarian progress of men are
the necessary means and material support of their moral progress.
Economics form the base of civilization. Moral progress is its
consummation and end, because it alone is capable of response to
Finalities. Material progress, if not followed in due time by
corresponding and "compensating" moral progress, will become
a cause of corruption and perdition. Persistent retardation of
advance in morality entails the annihilation of the works of men
and the disappearance of their civilizations.

The normal accomplishment of the moral progress of national
collectivities must result from thought and in peace, social and
international. Failing this the incoerdble law of progress will
finally impose its action by force — in wars and revolutions.
Conflict, in view of victory going to the strongest (presimiably the
most apt and "best"), is the heroic, primitive, inferior, and
uncertain means of the progressive development of humanity.
It is its "amoral" means. Co-operation by division of labor and
exchange — ^indispensable and permanent manifestation of human
solidarity, first and eternal form of mutual help, and the prelim-
inary necessary condition to altruism — ^is the superior aad certain
means of this progressive development. It is its moral means.

Being, as it is, the natural phenomenon in which lies the origin
of "justice," exchange is par excellence the natural moral phenom-
enon; hence its extreme importance in respect to internal and
international relations; hence its constructive power; hence, also,

the destructive consequences — without limit — of the attempts
to prevent its accomplishment; hence the fatefidness of Exchange,
Thus is explained to those who as political philosophers contem-
plate the great contemporaneous events, how, across the path of
Humanity, there strides a monster combining the pitilessness of
the Sphinx with the frightfulness of the Minotaur. "Thou shalt
go no farther," he says. "It is not by an enigma but because of
an imperative and categoric dilemma that I bid thee halt. Thou
must emerge from thy state of Protectionist and militarist ignor-
ance and amorality; thou must recognize the moral truth of
peace by free exchange; thou must practise international economic
justice. Otherwise thou art condenMied to a succession of revolu-
tions and wars which will ultimately lead to barbarism. For, thy
persistent refusal to adopt the ways of justice will be the proof
and measure of thy actual incapacity to further true progress;
and therefore there can remain only, for long periods to come,
the law of brute triumph and survival of those best fitted for
combat and slaughter. " So speaks and will act the Monster.

Yet, the rational interpretation of natural moral phenomena,
revealing as it does to men the International Morality of Exchange,
teaches them the natural necessity of international co-operation,
ever more free, consequently ever more just and increasing,
as the only, and as the certain, means of rescuing nations from the
natural fatefulness of conflicts, more and more fearful.

ENVOI

Is there in the ranks of the world's rulers and leaders a statesman
possessed of deserved authority who has the wisdom to see, the courage
to proclaim, and the strength to make humanity understand and
accept the essential truth of the hour? Of all perils the greatest
would be that such a man did not exist,

November, igi5.

Part III

After three years of war: Quo vadis ? o genus hominum !

The Way of Salvation:
an economic peace

" That the essential principle of peace is the actual equality
of nations in all matters of rights and privileges, " —

WooDROW Wilson, Inauguration Address.

THE WAY OF SALVATION : AN ECONOMIC PEACE

I. Fundamental Justice

Hannony between men, peace, be it social or international,
will never exist and endure unless founded on justice. Injustice,
insecurity and conflict are inseparable; justice, security and peace
likewise. With insecurity, every man must be a master or
seek one. That the peaceful progress of Humanity and the
continuance of civilization can have no other foundation than
justice, social and international, may be accepted as a political
axiom.

The all important question, therefore, is to know what,
fundamentally, justice is. Obviously it is justice in the funda-
mental relations of men, that is to say, in their relations concerned
with their fundamental needs, their means of subsistance — ^food,
clothing, shelter. Fundamental justice is justice in economic
relations.

An international status making for good-will, hannony and
peace, because resting on justice, must first of all afford to all
nations equality in economic rights, reciprocity in opportunities
offered and in services rendered, a progress inseparable from in-
ternational arrangements practically tending towards freedom of
economic relations.

The pacifist, the international lawyer, the statesman studying
the peace problem and overlooking the necessity of this inter-
national economic basis is to be compared to an architect who,
planning a splendid cathedral, shotdd lose sight of the need for it
of a solid concrete foundation. Their work is worthless. Their
edifices would crumble, even before completion.

2. Free-Trade, the Only Possible Peace-Maker

Richard Cobden has said: "Free-Trade is the best peace-
maker." We make bold to say: "Free-Trade has become the
only possible peace-maker. "

The desire to suppress armies and navies, to have "freedom
of the seas," to institute "World's Courts," to organize "Leagues
to Enforce Peace," in order to suppress wars, proceeds from an

extraordinary illusion. The truth — a truth of simple common
sense — ^is that it is necessary to begin by creating international
security before suppressing or even limiting armies, navies,
and achieving "freedom of the seas." The truth is that it is
necessary to begin by propounding and accepting the principles
of international justice and morality before instituting tribunals
for judging offenses against international rights and morals;
that it is necessary to commence by adopting the conditions
making for a just and worthy peace before "enforcing peace."

Now, in our epoch of industrial and commercial development,
the basic principle and condition of international security, morality
and peace are equal opportunities of peaceful economic activities
and welfare. Of this the ultimate and complete expression will
be absolute international freedom in the exchange of mutual
economic services, that is to say, freedom of international trade.
It is along these lines that we must seek and can find the only
means of pacifying the world and saving civilization.

This does not mean that the future regime of economic
relations is the only international question, but it does mean that
being basic it is the first to be solved. It is moreover the one
question the solution of which could bring about the international
good will and good faith indispensable for any prospect of a
fair examination and successful settlement of the other questions.

3. "Reductio ad Absurdum"

If the protectionist system were in conformity with economic
truth and usefulness, the securing by nations of exclusive and
monopolistic economic domains could alone respond to the real
and inevitable needs of progress and civilization. The founding
by every nation of the greatest possible "empire" would then be
not only a national right but a national duty — ^the fundamental
national "virtue." Conquest would be justice; permanent war
wotdd be the true international morality.

In that case, imperialist Germany would have been right
in provoking this war; and Great Britain would be right in be-
coming protectionist and militarist; the latter would only be doing
her duty vis a vis herself if she carried through her projected
enterprise of securing the third of the productive territories of the
Earth for her own more or less exclusive exploitation and ad-
vantage; we should be obliged to approve and laud her if she
succeeded in establishing the greatest territorial and commercial
monopoly which ever cumbered the world.

Protectiomsm and militarism — ^which are inseparable — ^thus
being truth and right, our democratic ideals of liberty, equality,
fraternity, human co-operation, and our whole conception of
civilization would appear to have been fundamentally wrong.
But then what are we complaining of? and what are we fighting
for?

4. Past Failures and Present Duty

If Germany and the United States, following the meritorious
and persevering example given to the world by Great Britain
during more than sixty years, had become free-trade, an alliance
between Germany, the United States and Great Britain would
have been quite naturally concluded more than thirty years ago.
Prance would have joined them, perhaps after some hesitation.
The whole world would have been legitimately controlled and
administered by these great progressive peoples allied for Good
and Progress. They would have led all other peoples in the ways
of Uberty, true democracy and peace. A policy of association
and co-operation of nations would have been substituted for
"Imperialism." Humanity would not have followed the lead
of the "Empire builders" and thus taken the road back to
barbarism. Not only all our present international trouble and
our future trouble with the Yellow World (for half a century
misled by our bad example) but also a great part of our past and
of our terrific future social disturbances would have been avoided.

Probably the only remaining chance of salvation for our
civilization is in the adoption by the United States and by Ger-
many, and the preservation by England, of a policy of interna-
tional economic freedom and morality.

S. The Democratic Peace

This war can end safely only with a victory of freedom over
Autocracy — aye, of freedom over Democracy! For, the world
could not be made safe for "Protectionist Democracies." It
cannot be conceived as a harmonious ensemble of nations restrict-
ing one another's "making of a living" — even if these nations
are pleased to call themselves "Democracies."

For desire of territorial agrandizements, for war, conquest
and "Imperialism" (democratic or autocratic) there exists, by the
nature and force of things, only one infallible and desirable alter-
native: the international policy of freedom of mutual services

and complete equality of opportunities; for the national "will of
power" the only conceivable substitute is the international
"Will of Equity." Therefore, not a "league of nations" for
the enforcement of peace, but a "Concert of Nations" for the
establishment of economic liberty and equity is the safe democratic
alternative of the "Balance of Power." An international com-
munity of interests is the natural and definite substitute for
"Hegemony. "

Have Democracies never waged wars, never made conquests,
never proved Imperialist? It will no more be suflBcient for
democratic nations to declare themselves peacefully inclined; it
has become necessary for them to give one another and the whole
World the practical proof of their desire for peace by creating the
nattiral condition making peace desirable and possible for all
nations — ^by establishing the natural and universal basis of peace.

To those who have a justified horror of an autocratic Pax
Germanica, who do not want a Pax Britannica — ^nor wish for a
Pax Americana — ^there remains one hope: that of the advent of
the democratic Pax Economica.

Pax Economical solving word, saving truth, necessary
asset of Democracy, new departure in the History of Mankind !

6. Armageddon and Madness

" Where there is no vision, the people perish,"
"BUnd leaders ef the Uind. "

But all nations appear to be waging this Armageddon with
the view of establishing among themselves a system of accen-
tuated privileges and mutual economic exclusions, which more
than ever will make for desire — ^and may be for real necessity — of
conquest and hegemony. Brought about by monopolism, this
seems to be a war waged by monopolists against other monopolists
for the sake of more futtu-e monopolism. Not entirely unconscious
of the inevitable result of their projected policy, the "Protec-
tionists" of all countries urge "preparedness" for future wars.
Meanwhile the peoples are fighting to death for the preservation
of an error — ^for the continuation of the most formidable of all
international errors; they are fighting "to a finish" for the accen-
tuation of the very cause of their fighting. Among the statesmen
and the great politicians of Europe no one yet seems to realize this
monstrous stupidity of the international situation.

Voltaire never could have expected such a gigantic and
fearful confirmation of his oft-repeated contention that ''with
pearls and diamonds common-sense is on earth the most precious
but also the rarest of all things. "

Perhaps the explanation of the present situation of the world
is to be found in the " quos vult perdere Jupiter prius dementat " —
it seems as if the gods had enough of the protectionist absurdity
and immorality and as if, having resolved the destruction of the
peoples, they had begun by making their leaders and rulers mad.

7. The Revolt of Truth Against Error

And ye improvident business men, foolish politicians, weak-
minded "leaders of thought, " after three years of this terrific lesson
of things, do you not see yet the real cause and the deep significance
of this war?

It is a war of conquest prepared, provoked and waged for
possession of more soil, for more security and stability of eco-
nomic opporttmities, by a nation which, not without reason, com-
plained of not having her "place in the sun. " Why? Because
the occupation of the coimtries by the nations was more and
more coupled with the monopolization of the opportunities which
they offer; for, the exchange of the products of the lands was not
free, and continually threatened to become less and less free.
Through division of labor and through exchange, the opportunities
and the products of the earth are and must remain the gifts of
God to the whole of human kind. Short of this, the law of the
physical ''survival of the fittest" obtains. Thus men must co-
operate — or fight

It is true that the complaining nation was herself the worst
foe of liberty, of international equity and true human progress.
But in its hideous fear and hate of freedom, in its monstrous
selfishness and greed, in its ignoble exploitation of its ignorant
"protected" people, a protectionist and plutocratic autocracy is a
consistent organization. Whereas, internationally nor nationally,
a "protectionist democracy" is not a democracy. At least it
will and cannot be a lasting Democracy; it sooner or later will end
in war or revolution — or in both.

No ideals of world domination, moreover, would have suffi-
ciently developed in autocracies, no aggressive influences and in-
terests therein would have become powerful and daring enough for
precipitating their peoples and all htunanity into this catastrophic

abyss, if democracies had shown to the misled peoples of autocracy
the ways of international freedom, eqtdty, progress and true
civilization. Have democracies given such distinguished ex-
amples? Have they not rather, all with tiie autocracies, more or
less sunk into a contemptible bourgeois-plutocracy — with its
present international and coming national consequences?

This war is a revolt of the invincible natttre of things and the
insuperable force of truth against the errors and falsities of the
international policy of all nations. When its real cause and deep
significance are tmderstood by the peoples, there will be no more
place for international hatred, but only for mutual reproaches of
ignorance and error. Reproaches specially bitter and deserved
will be addressed to the "leaders of throught" and to the "great
statesmen. " The false prophets of Pacifism, of Bellicism and of
Protectionism will be cursed and stoned and the preachers and
singers of hate will be despised and ridiculed.

8. The Peace or Wisdom and Love

Thtis it is seen that for the reign of Justice and Peace it is
not reqtdsite that human natttre be reformed. If it were so,
humanity would indeed have a hopeless future. Men are not
naturally wicked. On the contrary they are naturally social and
inclined to mutual sympathy. But they are naturally ignorant.
Htmianity has originated and men are bom in ignorance. They
continue to behave unjustly one with another (in most cases think-
ing that they behave justly) because they have not yet the know-
ledge of what is just and unjust. Behaving unjustly, they create
insecurity among themselves. And then they behave wickedly
(they lie, they defraud, they hate, they destroy, they kill) in order
to subsist and survive in the insecurity which their ignorance has
created.

Wars and revolutions are the outcome of international and
social unintentional injustice much more than of international and
social wickedness. Mankind lacks, the world wants wisdom much
more than goodness. Civilization could not be promoted by good
and igomant feelings; it must be saved and furthered by intelli-
gence. "Ignorance is the curse of God, knowledge is the wing
that shall bring Humanity to Heaven. "

Knowledge of international and social truth and justice,
creating security and peace, and permitting the fulfilment of htmian
spiritual Finalities, can only be found in the study of the laws of
Nature, which are the living and ever present expression of the
Will of God.

The ftmdamental natural ethical law is that of freedom to
produce and to exchange, permitting all men and all nations to
"make their living" and to develop peacefully in prosperity — ^to
"mtdtiply and replenish the earth."

When men know and observe that natural and divine funda-
mental law of the real Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of
Man, they will be permitted to live in deserved peace
and ultimately in love — bui never before.

9. The Whole PACiriST "Secret"

With the exception of a few mystics and idealists (who
deserve some sympathy and even respect) there is practically no
individual on earth who in his private life does not, as a natural
necessity, accord to his "economics" a primary importance.
Nobody, however, seems to realize that this care is even more
legitimate and unavoidable on the part of nations — ^whose
security depends on economic development and whose rulers,
unlike private men, have no right to be disinterested, imforeseeing,
unfarsighted.

Under the system of international free-trade, the economic
opportunities, possibilities of development and "places in the sun"
being worldwide, would for all nations, great and small, be brought
to their maximum and be equal. International justice and security
would be practically complete. International Peace would have
its true permanent foundation. Such is the whole pacifist "secret "
which Nature and God want men to discover.

Humanity, like a child, should be led by the hand up to the
screen which, by the will of the Protectionists and with the
consent of the Pacifists, hides from its eyes that ftmdamental and
simple Truth. When the screen shall be raised, men will not
immediately thoroughly understand what they see. But they
will know that there exists a comforting, hopegiving and consoling
thing which hitherto has been hidden from them. They will
thenceforth dream, think, discuss, and after some time they will
"understand. " They will understand what a great crime against
mankind is Protectionism.

lo. The Article PntST of the Treaty oj Economic Peace

**IiuUad of esdunot cominnaiianSf I wami to see
openueoHm

** America skatt stand for the just eonceptiom amd basis ef peaee^
for ike competUion of merit and for the generous rimUry ofUherty."

^America came into existence, my feOow dUMenSt not im order to
show to the world the most notable example of aceumulaiion of wmMeritd
wealth but to show the way to Mankind in eoery part of Ae World to
justice and freedom and liberty, " —

WooDROW Wilson. (Re-election ^)eediesw)

Europe, and with her the rest of the World, can be internaiionaUy
and socially saved, civilization can be preserved, only if a great
Statesman, equal to the emergency and opportunity of the times, as a
Redemptar, ready momentarily to sacrifice his popularity and even
his reputation for the service of Mankind, resolves to put an end
to the international enterprises of greed, injustice and spoliation
served by ignorance.

All peoples of the World ought to be told and taught that
no real and true ''solution" of the international problem, no
international security, no durable peace, no permanent liberation
of smaller nationalities, no true freedom of the seas, no future
disarmament, no safety for democracy, can be hoped for except
through the general adoption of an international policy of economic
justice and morality based on the principle of international
freedom of economic intercourse and services.

No success of peace efforts or negotiations will be in sight so
long the nations in conflict have not in principle agreed on this
Article First of any peace-treaty : Germany to reduce immediately
her customs duties, say to 50% of what they are at present;
Great Britain to remain free-trade; all nations to adopt for
the future a policy of freer trade and of ultimate complete
free-trade; all colonies of the World to be opened, under the
qrstem of equality of economic opportunities, to the commerce
of all nations of the World.

Two Protectionist Fallacies,

widely pfx>pagated in all oountries and specially mischievous in the
United States (to the point of possibly inducing many people to fear an
"economic peace!") need, in this place, an answer. We therefore beg to
reproduce here some passages already met in the foregoing pages, to which
we shall add some short considerations;

Tariffs, in all coimtries, have been instituted in order to en-
courage and protect capital engaged in industries. They now every-
where protect high selling prices and high manufacturing profits.
But, in all countries (be it noted) they are said to be continued for
the " protection of labor against the cheap foreign labor products. "
Except in England, where labor stands for free-trade, the workmen
are happy to be so well cared for. ["I protect my cows," says the
farmer. ''I know why I do this, but the cows do not."] So is it
explainable that, with the consent of the . . workmen and the
gradual auto-suggestion of the . . fanners, Protection has become
for most peoples an economic credo — ^which indeed in the future
will be considered as the most ndschievous and widest spread
superstition known in the history of men.

i) It is untrue that Protectionism, preventing importation
and making for a self sustained people, is a source of higher wages
and a factor of a higher standard of living; on the contrary Pro-
tectionism tends to lower both and it is &ee exchange only which
can have such favorable results. All imported things are paid
for by equal values of exported things; therefore, to begin with,
importation does not and cannot reduce home production, demand
of labor and wages. But prevention of importation through
protective tarifEs (i) narrows markets and (2) causes the parasitical
establishment and prosperity of artificial industries, these then
taking the place of natural industries, for which, if free, the possi-
bilities and prospect of development would be far greater than
those of the protected and artificial industries. Therefore tariffs
and the self-sustaining system make for lower, whereas free-
trade makes for higher home production, demand for labor and
wages. The cost of living being necessarily higher tmder the tariff
regime, we are allowed to state that Protectionism tends to reduce
both wages and standard of life whereas freedom of exchange tends
to increase both of them.

Of course, a nation, whatever may be the number and the
enterprise of its inhabitants, has a limited capacity of industry;
amongst its possible undertakings it must choose the most profit-
able, and it is a matter of simple common sense that such are those
industries which are best appropriate to the nature of the country,
and that these industries want only freedom, i. e., a natural
condition for birth, growth, health and prosperity. If the situa-
tion of the working classes are found to be more or less satisfac-
tory in a protectionist country it is because of these natural
industries f because of the natural opportunities and riches offered
by the country, because of the intelligence, enterprise and labor
energy of its inhabitants, because of freedom of exchange within
its own borders and despite the protectionist barriers put against
the exchange of services with the outer world. How could
barriers, obstacles, isolation create general wealth and prosperity?
How could communication, co-operation and mutual services not
create them?

Undef eatable, the Protectionists will say: national self-
support, which requires Protection, is necessary /(?r the case of war.
We answer: exactly; for with them war will sooner or later be
inevitable; whereas, with international free division of labor and
exchange of mutual economic services, the result would be a
double "disaster" — ^free-trade and peace.

We think it useful to suggest here that, with freedom of
exchange, fair opportunities for the making of their living would
be aflEorded to all peoples at home, without their being obliged, or
powerfully incited, by poverty, to leave their cotmtries, thus
disturbing the labor markets of other nations and complicating
their problems. Free exchange is the natural solution of the
emigration and immigration problem.

Freedom is nature of things, is justice, is harmony, is peace.
It is the obstacles which we oppose to freedom that create our
difficulties.

2) It is of the utmost importance to note furthermore that
Protectionist customs duties represent the worst and the most
exhausting method of raising revenue for the State. Home
producers of articles taxed are thereby enabled to extort from
the general body of consumers a sum which may be and generally
is many times larger than any possible revenue which wotild accrue
to the State. The higher the customs duties the less the State
receives (by reason of diminishing volume of importation) and
the more the tax levied by manufacturers on consumers is raised

(by raising the prices of their products) ; the more also, by reason
of general deamess, will the expenses of the State suffer increase,
even to the length of absorbing the greatest part of receipts from
customs. Thus the "revenue " goes to private profits. Attempts
to create important State revenues by means of Protectionist
customs duties are doomed to failure. They will end in
revolution.

Moderate "revenue tariffs" of course are less harmful; they
work moderately for bad distribution of wealth — ^and ultimate
revolution.

Any system of raising State revenues, whatever its defective-
ness may be imagined to be, is preferable to customs duties.
The only "merit" of this system is that it makes it possible to
raise taxes without the taxed people's knowledge and consent — ^the
greatest error and peril for a Democracy.C*)

^An increasing number of men throughout the world know that there
exists a system of taxation which not only is capable of ensuring important
public revenues through fair and just ways but which also contains in itself
great potentialities and virtues for the opening and the equalization of oppor-
tunities and for an equitable distribution of wealth. The adoption of this
system of public taxation is necessary for the solution of the social question;
though it is notf by itself, the only required economic, social and political
asset of a new and better social order, it is to be considered as ftmdamental
to this.

The object of the present book is not to propose nor to propound the
taxation of land values. But it may be of interest to state here that if the
endeavors of the Single-Taxers are to be crowned with success in the future,
their success will depend on the tritimph of international freedom of trade.
For, this alone can re-establish — or, rather, establish — international security
and no great and progressive economic, social and political reform can any
more be carried through before international security becomes a definitely
settled fact.

It is a very profound truth that "the world must be made safe for
Democracy."

Part IV

The Treaty of Economic Peace

'^ The making of peace is to be desired and to be regarded
as a blessing, when it can insure us against the suspicious
designs of our neighbors, when it creates no new danger
and brings the promise of future tranquillity. But if the
making of peace is to produce the very opposite of all this,
then, for all its deceptive title, it is no better than the con-
tinuation of a ruinous war, " — Guicciardini.

"No Treaty of Peace is worthy of its name, if contained
therein are the hidden germs of a future war." — KIant,
Essay on Perpetual Peace,

"Only an economic peace can prepare the ground for the
friendly association of the peoples. " — resolution recently

VOTED BY THE GERMAN REICHSTAG.

Truth and Justice, the eternal twin forces that hold sway
over Mankind will never rest till men attain an Economic
Peace.

July, 1917.

The characteristic f eattire and dominating fact of the present
highly critical situation of the belligerent world is that the various,
— military, political and economic — consequences arising from a
defeat have developed to such a point of gravity that it has
for either side become impossible even to contemplate submission
to the will and power of the enemy. Fighting "to the last gasp"
appears preferable. Fortunately, it however remains possible for
both sides to submit to a principle, to surrender to a truth. Large
quarters in both "camps" would immediately declare their read-
iness for such a surrender; everywhere a favorable public opinion
would rapidly become overwhelming in its favor. "For above
all things Truth beareth away the victory."

A "peace by understanding" is desirable and possible — ^but
only if this means a peace by the understanding of truth. Out of
the international struggle have arisen a moral problem and a
spiritual necessity. More and more it will appear that the greatest
and deepest misforttmes, possibly for centuries to come, cannot
be warded from Humanity unless an adequate solution is given
to the problem, an adequate satisfaction to the necessity.

The problem is that of the fimdamental moral relations of
the nations — ^their economic relations; the necessity is that of
freedom and justice in these fundamental relations. By the
nature of things our economic life is our fundamental life, and
morality in the economic intercourse is the fundamental morality.
Peace lacks and awaits its natural moral foundation.

In their practical and immediate application, the principle
and truth which are determining factors in the following scheme
of settlement, and to which nations are hereby invited to submit,
find this double expression:

(i) a negative expression: this war cannot be ended except
by the suppression of its main motive, and gtiaranty against
repetition cannot be obtained except through the elimination
of the main cause of all modem wars — economic error, exclusion,
injustice, with the necessarily following jealous, tmhealthy, mis-
chievous rivalries;

(2) a positive expression: a treaty of peace, if it is to be
lasting, mtist, firstly and fundamentally, be a treaty of future
economic justice and security, that is to say, of future international

economic freedom, equality of opportunities, harmony of interests
and co-operation — involving a fair distribution of colonial owner-
ship, leadership, or control.

OUTLINE OP THE TREATY OF ECONOMIC PEACE

Article I

i) Great Britain to remain free trade.

2) Germany immediately to reduce her customs
duties to 50% of what they are at present and
further to agree to operate an annual reduction of
5% until customs duties are entirely removed.

The careful observer of the present spirit in Great Britain
knows that there is no hope of this country remaining free trade
if Gennany does not make a great immediate step toward this
system of fairness, justice, morality and harmony. A similar
step will be required from all other countries.

Though disputable from the view point of economic wisdom,
this state of mind and attitude of the British nation can and must
be understood from a sentimental point of view. It is too much
to expect that one country will give indefinitely to the world an
unfollowed example of international freedom and wisdom.

3) All other nations to pledge themselves
gradually to reduce their customs duties to 50% of
what they are at present by annual reductions of 5%
during the 10 years following the signature of the peace
treaty.

Results and example will do the rest and insure future further
reductions and ultimate freedom of international intercourse.
Discussion and enlightenment on this great subject of the connec-
tion of protection and war and of free trade and peace will insure
the necessary progress.

Article II

All colonies of the World to be opened on terms of
absolute equality of opportunities to trade and general
economic activities of all nations.

Canada^ Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to be
regarded in this respect as independent States and not as
"colonies."

A^-Minor, Persia, Egjrpt, Morocco, China, Manchiaria and
Siberia to be regarded as "colonies."

All nations to pledge themselves not to ofifer or to accept
any preferential or differential economic treatment.

Article III

As a preamble to this article, we venttire to suggest that
every forward and wealthy nation has the right to claim and the
duty to accept an honorable share in the control or leadership of
the backward peoples and countries in the ways of Uberty and of
service for general human interest. For the former scramble
of swine for everything in sight this article substitutes a gentle-
manly division of "mine, thine and ours" between all nations.
No more then would the terrors of national power, autocracy and
world domination overshadow the future of civilization.

i) Germany and Austria to be allowed joint
leadership in the development of Asia-Minor.

If the principle of future co-operation and equality of rights,
under the provisions and benefits of Article II, is regarded as
furnishing a guaranty of lasting good-will, harmony and peace
(and it alone is in conformity with the interests of the native
populations) there is no doubt that a satisfaction given to Ger-
many and Austria in Asia-Minor must be accepted as a necessary
integral part of any treaty of peace.

A Protectionist "Mittel-Europa" would be the greatest
conceivable obstacle to future lasting peace; a free-trade Mittel-
Europa would be a powerful factor and assurance of peace.

2) The territory between Bagdad (included) and
the Persian Gulf to be internationalized.

3) Russia and Great Britain to be allowed a
joint political and economic influence in the develop-
ment of Persia.

4) France to be granted a political control of
Palestine and Syria.

5) The Dardanelles, the Bosporus and adjoining
territories to be politically and economically controlled
by an international board.

6) Japan to be granted the political and economic
leadership in the development of China, Manchuria
and Corea.

7) The Monroe Doctrine to be recognized and
proclaimed by all nations as expressing a right and a
duty of the United States.

8) The British, French, German, Belgian and
Portuguese colonies of Central Africa to be united in
an international State and to be controlled by an
international council.

In this intematioDal colony the trade should be entirely
free. No customs duties would be raised. The expenses of the
State should be bom by all contracting nations in proportioii to
their trade with the international colony. The taxation ci land-
values is highly commendable in this new country.

May it be suggested that there probably exists no better or
other way (i) of opening Central Africa to civilization in the
ifUertst of the natives (2) of solving the eminentiy di£Qcult and grave
question raised by the case of the German colonies of S. E. and
S. W. Africa? These being joined to the international ccdony, the
problem would be solved satisfactorily for all parties.

ARTICLE IV

Once fairness in dealings, liberty of interoourse, actual
equality of rights and duties, co-operation and morality axe thus
proclaimed and ensured between the great nations — bni then
only — the problems affecting their military, political and economic
"greatness" and "power" having lost thdr hitherto rationally
dominating if not exclusive importance — ^the following burning
questions can be settled definitely and finally.

i) The political and economic independence of
Belgium to be restored.

2) Alsace-Lorraine to be made an independent
and neutral State, but to remain, if it chooseSj vrithin
the German Zollverein (for 10 years according to Art. i).

This solution is the one responding to the economic i n terest s
and fundamental needs as well as probably to the pofitical wishes
of the great majority of the population of Alsace-Lorraine. It
is also the onlv one which conceivably could answer to the wish
of "peace without annexation" and it is the one eliminating the
bone of contention between Germany and Ftanoe.

3) German, Austrian and Russian Poland to be
made an independent and parliamentary State under
an Austrian Ruler.

This solution g^ves the best prospect of futuie weKare for
Poland, which for many reasons is not prepaied to live under
republican institutions. Moreover, it being assumed that the
peace-treaty shall be agreed upon, and not imposed, it is not easy
to conceive that Germany and Austria would consent to combine
their Polish provinces with the Russian Poland if there is not
given to them what they will consider as a necessary guaranty of
futtu^ internal order for the new State.

4) The independence and harmony of the Balkan
States to be reestablished and consolidated, under
the guaranty of all signers of the peace treaty, by a
freer economic intercourse between these States and
an absolutely free way through for their goods.

5) Trentino to be given back to Italy.

6) Trieste to be made an Austrian free port.

Article V

Damages done in the invaded countries during the
war to be estimated by an international commission
and reparation therefor to be paid within the next 10
years by the belligerent nations in the following
proportions :

Germany and Austria 60%

Great Britain 10%

France 10%

Russia 10%

United States 10%

Such is the only agreement which in its principle conceivably
can respond to the wish of a "peace without indemnities. "

The author of this scheme appeals to the common sense and
to the generosity of the United States to accept this. Without
giving to this consideration a first importance it is to be noted
that the sacrifice asked from the United States would scarcely
be superior to its expenses for one month of war. Moreover,
have not all nations "sinned?" Have they not all partaken
in the errors which have brought about this World's war. All
nations have to "take their medicine."

Of course, a nation, whatever may be the number and the
enterprise of its inhabitants, has a limited capacity of industry;
amongst its possible tmdertakings it mtist choose the most profit-
able, and it is a matter of simple common sense that such are those
industries which are best appropriate to the nature of the country,
and that these industries want only freedom, i. e., a natural
condition for birth, growth, health and prosperity. If the situa-
tion of the working classes are found to be more or less satisfac-
tory in a protectionist country it is because of these natural
industries f because of the natural opportunities and riches offered
by the country, because of the intelligence, enterprise and labor
energy of its inhabitants, because of freedom of exchange within
its own borders and despite the protectionist barriers put against
the exchange of services with the outer world. How could
barriers, obstacles, isolation create general wealth and prosperity?
How cotild communication, co-operation and mutual services not
create them?

Undef eatable, the Protectionists will say: national self-
support, which requires Protection, is necessary /£>f the case of war.
We answer: exactly; for with them war will sooner or later be
inevitable; whereas, with international free division of labor and
exchange of mutual economic services, the result would be a
double "disaster" — ^free-trade and peace.

We think it useful to suggest here that, with freedom of
exchange, fair opportunities for the making of their living would
be afforded to all peoples al hofncj without their being obliged, or
powerfully incited, by poverty, to leave their coimtries, thus
disturbing the labor markets of other nations and complicating
their problems. Free exchange is the natural solution of the
emigration and immigration problem.

Fteedom is nature of things, is justice, is harmony, is peace.
It is the obstacles which we oppose to freedom that create our
difficulties.

2) It is of the utmost importance to note furthermore that
Protectionist customs duties represent the worst and the most
exhausting method of raising revenue for the State. Home
producers of articles taxed are thereby enabled to extort from
the general body of consumers a sum which may be and generally
is many times larger than any possible revenue which would accrue
to the State. The higher the customs duties the less the State
receives (by reason of diminishing volume of importation) and
the more the tax levied by manufacturers on consumers is raised

questions wotild be found absolutely insoluble at a peace con-
ference, even if this were to last several years. But they all can
and will be solved gradually, satisfactorily, within a relatively
short time,^ as a natural consequence of the advent of true
international right, order and security, permitting progress in
national and international ideas and morals and, at last! the reign
of international good faith and good-will between the nations
and between their rulers.

The author therefore suggests the additional article:

Article VI

The contracting nations, who invite all other
nations of the World to join them, solemnly pledge
themselves to call a convention, to take place within
three months of the signature of this treaty of peace,
in order to solve all questions of general and common
interest of which the settlement is considered necessary
for the future international welfare of humanity.

^Thia may mean 5 years of diligent study and discussion b% a highly
competent and impartial body, composed, not of military and diplomatic
lepiesentatives of the nations, but of specialists of international science.
The resolutions of this body would involve a new organization of the world.
They should, all, of course, be submitted to, discussed and voted by, the Par-
liaments of the contracting nations, and this alone suffices for making it
simply impossible that questions as those named should be decided upon at
—and therefore discussed by — the peace conference.

Part IV

The Treaty of Economic Peace

Open Letter

Mr. Woodrow Wilson
President of the United States of America^

The Hague, 3d of October, 1914.
Snt:

Europe goes to ruin. Civilization is threatened with break*
down. Brave little Belgium is in agony. Judging by the recip-
rocal attitude of the great nations in conflict, it would seem that
they have harked back to those epochs when peoples could not
conceive their existence and prosperity possible except by the
suppression of the other peoples.

Must the horrible tragedy be pursued to ^'a finish" as the
Statesmen of the great European nations appear to consider it
necessary? Must all peaceful hopes be abandoned by those who
amid the storm preserve intact their brain and heart? Is no
effort to be put forth by those possessed of authority sufficiently
high to permit them to exercise an influence on the destinies of
their contemporaries?

As a Belgian citizen, a man of business and in some degree an
economist, I would ask you. Sir, to do me the honor to weigh the
economic considerations as well as those considerations that
tend toward peace which I venture to bring to your notice in the
course of the present letter. They express opinions which for
some ten years past I have tmceasingly defended, but which are
widely removed from those in vogue in all countries at this present
hour. In propounding them anew to-day with the object of
interesting you therein, I fulfil what appears to me to be my
imperative duty to humanity.

I appreciate, Sir, that amidst the chaos of ideas which looms
ahead, two peace-making conceptions, equally true because
equally realistic, should be carefully kept together in view: the

^Published in French by the Nieuwe RoUerdamsche Courant on the 8th
of October, 1914. — ^Translated by the American L^^tion at The Hague
and transmitted for information to the Department of State at Washington.

one, of a peace imposed by arms, which could only be temporary;
the other, of a definitive pacification, to be realized by means of
economic arrangements assuring the loyal association or coopera-
tion of the European peoples.

The present war will appear in future to many a political
philosopher and historian as a natural phenomenon which came
about because most peoples had persisted in gravely infringing
one of those great natural laws of progress, which express a
superior Will.

Among these laws there is none more important or more
fundamental to civilization than that of the practice of Exchange
alike between nations and between individuals. All material,
intellectual, and moral progress of humanity, since its origin, is
directly or indirectly derived therefrom. Exchange is the primor-
dial social phenomenon: for, one can no more conceive Society
without Exchange than Exchange without Society. It is therefore
natural and only logical that the phenomenon of exchange of
goods and services exercises a momentous influence on the life
of the Society of Nations as it does on the internal destinies of
national collectivities. To ignore the fundamental international
importance of Exchange is to be guilty of a great error, a great
wrong, a great fault of which most peoples and their governments
have more and more gravely been guilty during the last half
century.

Industry and commerce, which are comprised in exchange of
material services are the most, if not the only, effective means for
bringing nearer and finally uniting peoples, because they are its
primordial, nattural and positive means. Such mutual services
must be permitted free development in the interests of peace as
well as of true prosperity. For harmonizing feelings it is necessary
to harmonize and unify interests. At least the contrary ought
to have been avoided. Fundamental interests cannot without
peril be dealt with in a spirit of systematic antagonism; it is so
between friends, even between brothers, how could it not be
equally true between peoples?

Now, for the last thirty or forty years, industry and com-
merce, because of the almost universal acceptance and accentua-
tion of the system of reciprocal exclusion by means of protective
customs duties — and other privileges and monopolies connected
with Protection — ^have but furnished grounds for jealousy, discord,
developing in international hate and culminating in the present
war.

That which has happened was bound to happen. For, it
is in the nature and consequently in the very force of things that
peoples are unable to live in assured peace until they have decided
definitively to enter into the state of freedom of international
economic intercourse. That will appear more and more impera-
tively true in measure of the development of industry and com-
merce, which must characterize all progressive civilization. Cobden
has said: "Free Trade is the best Peace-maker." Inspired by
him I make bold to say: Free Trade wiU more and more become the
only Peace-maker.

The desire to suppress armies in order to make peace proceeds
from an extraordinary illtision. Is it not the simple common sense
truth that it is necessary to begin by creating international
security in order to be able to suppress armies? Now at our
epoch of industrial development the fundamental condition of
international security is equality of economic rights and oppor-
tunities for all nations — a progress inseparable from international
arrangements tending toward freedom of trade. It is along this
line of action that one must seek and can find the only means for
the pacification of Europe.

A voice of high authority should be raised in order to make
the civilized world comprehend that the disastrous and terrific
state of things — ^which has been brewing for long time past — ^has
a profound cause, so far nearly unnoticed, differing widely from
the superficial and passing causes which everyone puts forth.

The actual conflict has as origin, already remote, the insecure,
unstable and imequal condition in which practically every people
found itself in what concerned its economic outlets and future.
This was so because of the possibility, ever latent, of a recrudes-
cence of the so-called "Protectionist" policy of the nations,
chiefly of the great colony-owning ones. Not one of these latter
nations avoided this threatening and perilous policy tending to
monopoly. Therefrom sprang the increasing eagerness of every
nation to possess its own exclusive economic and colonial domain.
The will to exclude and monopolize engendered more will to
exclude and monopolize.

Relatively deprived of colonies (having arrived too late
to be able to acquire her portion of new territories) menaced
occasionally by more or less complete exclusion from the markets
of other nations, the great industrial and commercial nation,
which Germany is, was not willing to — and indeed could not —
take the risk of losing important parts of her outlets and markets,

and she resolved to conquer that which for many years past, she
has designated her "place in the sun." In our imperfect^ un-
completed civilization, at once highly industrial and highly
militarist, economic development is the foundation of military
power and consequently the condition of national security.

Herein lies the true cause and the true objective of the
increasing armaments of Germany on sea and land involving
increasing armaments by the other European nations.

Applying herself the detestable protectionist system (even
more excessively than most of the other nations, her agrarians,
manufacturers and politicians being sustained by the narrow and
erroneous teachings of the professors of the "Nationale Wirt-
schaft") Germany could not, reasonably and decently, complain
of the resulting insecurity to herself of the protectionism of others.
She persevered in error and wrong and continued to arm. And
such is the formidable and persistent misunderstanding which
no European statesman either dissipated or even understood
and which culminates in the present catastrophe.

It is not too late. Sir, to put forth a supreme effort with the
object of ending the devastation and carnage which are ruining and
dishonoring Europe and humanity. This demands a great action,
a grand achievement:

The assembling of a conference in which all nations of the
world shall participate with the view of coming to an agreement
for the opening of all colonies of all peoples to the free commerce
of all peoples.

This agreement must apply to colonies present and future.

It will not necessarily signify the immediate abolition of
all customs duties in the colonies, but certainly the immediate
application to all nations of similar treatment, of economic equality,
in all colonial markets of the world.

Such an agreement will be equivalent to the internationaliza-
tion of the colonies. It will be eminently favorable to the inter-
ests of these — above all to the interests of those colonies that are
highly "protected."

This great act would without doubt constitute the probably
decisive step in the direction of Free trade between the mother
cotmtries themselves.

It is thus only, Sir, that humanity can hope for a general and
definite peace, it is thus only that it will be possible to transform
the sword into the ploughshare, to recast cannon into anvils and
hammers. Then only will true civilization begin.

If among all peoples, there is a people which has the right to
ask that a great pacifist initiative should be taken without delay,
it certainly is the Belgian people so hospitable, so laborious, so
innocent, and nevertheless so unhappy and so completely sacrificed.
Yet, no Belgian implores pity. But all make appeal for justice —
to others as to themselves.

I have, however, to declare that in writing you this letter I
have not intervened at the behest of any person. I act individually
in full consciousness of a duty to accomplish and in the absolute
conviction that I express the most useful and the highest truth
that can be proclaimed at the present epoch.

And finally I permit myself to ask again, Is it possible that
humanity can contemplate a return to primitive epochs when
peoples could not conceive it possible to live and to prosper
except by suppressing and ruining other peoples? Whereas it
is exactly the contrary, whereas it is loyal association and eco-
nomic co-operation of peoples which is TRUTH of a dazzling
deamess.

I beg you. Sir, to have the goodness to accept the expression
of my confidence in your kind attention and the assurance of my
profound respect.

(Signed) Heniu Lambert,

Manufacturer in Charletoi (Belgium.)

Free Trade and Peace

A Message to the Society of Friends
AND OTHER Christians^

Friends:

A few months after the beginning of the war I was present
at one of the London meetings of the Society of Friends, where,
for the first time in my life, I heard serious discussion of ^'Non-
resistance to War." I left the meeting convinced that the
Friends were right in their view of the religious principles involved
in the question of war and peace, but that they had not the same
clear conception of the practical application of these principles. It
is still my judgment that '^ non-resistance" is not a short and
efficient way to avoid wars and secure peace.

In all countries, and for a very long time, practically all men
will lack the intelligence, wisdom and virtues needed to vanquish
unloosed war forces by the influence of the Christian spirit. If
a strong minority of "non-resistants" should now exist in one
nation, that nation would be in danger of being enslaved; it would
possibly disappear. It is our conception of international life and
duties in time of peace which must be rendered Christian. This
can result only from knowledge of international Christian truth;
not from vague "international Christian feelings."

As long as the custom of war and conquest shall last, it
will be necessary to oppose offensive by defensive forces. "Con-
scientious objection" most probably lacks its necessary rational
motive and moral justification; for, sociologically and histori-
cally, the liberty and the rights of the individual alwa3rs have
depended and must necessarily depend on the security of the group.
Were the nation deprived of its freedom, there could be no freedom
of the individual. No claim of individual rights therefore can
prevail against the need of national security.

Only the suppression of war itself will remove the necessity of
resistance to war. This does not mean that the brutal forces of
war will be finally conquered by superior brutal forces. War can
no more be definitely defeated by war, than oppression can be
defeated by oppression, injustice by injustice, evil by evil. In

^Appeared in the Philadelphia Public Ledger , in the Springfield Repub-
lican, in the Johnstoum DemocriU, and in the London Ploughshare, a Quaker
organ.

that sense Friends are right in teaching that men will never con-
quer inferior material forces, finally ending war, unless they
oppose to them a superior spiritual power. What spiritual power?

"Non-resistance" is real and superior spirituality because
its attitude is that of love. But is humanity ripe for "inter-
national love?" Moreover, is there not an intermediate stage of
justice, which must precede that of love in all human relations?
International justice alone appears to be capable of overcoming
war by preventing the outburst of aggressive or resentful national
forces. Against the brutal forces of war Christians must oppose
the spiritual powers of international justice.

The true Christian attitude is one of spiritual combat, and,
in the matter of war, there is possible only this satisfactory com-
promise between non-resistance and resistance: combat against
international injustice. Such is the only short, efficient, practical
way of establishing peace on earth, good will among . nations.
" The fruit of righteousness is peace, and the effect of righteousness,
quietness and assurance forever. "

Now, of what does justice in international relations consist?
What must be its main characteristics in the present historical
period?

Religious wars ceased in 1648 with the Treaty of Munster.
Dynastic wars, arising from monarchical rivalries and ambitions,
are probably a thing of the past. Among the causes of the present
war were hostile international feelings, racial passions, inferior
national "ideals," interests of castes; but their influence was
important only because allied with antagonistic economic interests
of the nations or, at least, of large sections of the nations. Modem
wars have been caused, are caused, are likely to be caused, by
huge international economic contests, strivings for advantage,
for privilege. The problem of the suppression of war being a
problem of suppression of international economic conflicts, inter-
national peace depends upon international economic justice.

The question now arises: What is economic international
justice?

Increasingly, for nearly half a century, the development of
industries and commerce has been the main motive, the real
objective, of international politics. No longer are nations strongly
moved by desire of conquest or domination for satisfaction of
pride and lust of power. In our day wars have economic pur-
pose and motive; territories are conquered, empires are built
up with a view to economic expansion, with desire for security.

stability of outlets and markets and, tinf ortunately, for industrial
and commercial privilege and monopoly. Not yet do men and
nations realize that expansion, prosperity, securty and stability
for their own trade do not involve loss of such accompanying
advantages for the trade of others. Man's thought is still one of
aloofness, exclusion, privilege, monopoly — ^i.e., international eco-
nomic injustice. It should be of co-operation, free competition,
equality, mutual services rendered by exchange — i.e., inter-
national ECONOMIC JUSTICE.

In the unjust, un-Christian economic ideas generally accepted
lies the actual cause of international economic conflicts and of wars.
This wrong conception must be removed. The task should be
easy, for there is no sounder truth than this: in international
trade, liberty means prosperity for all nations. In international
trade, liberty is the true national good, the true international
justice, the true Christian policy. Every nation desires other
nations to adopt toward itself freedom of trade; ought not nations
to do to others as they would be done by, and avoid treating
others in a way that they themselves would not wish to be treated?

As Nature has distributed diversely and unequally the many
things needed by men, it is clear that exchange — and, con-
sequently, free exchange — among nations accords with the Divine
Will, as a primordial, imperative law of justice and progress,
securing to men in various parts of the world their share of the
natural, divine gifts needed for physical and, therefore, for intel-
lectual and spiritual welfare. Does not the growth of superior
aspirations require leisure for thought, and is not this dependent
upon the easy satisfaction of physical needs?

The enactment of the law of international economic justice
is of the utmost importance to the smaller nations whose limited
territories compel them to specialize in production, emphasizing
the need of free exchange. Generosity and friendliness toward
smaller nations, as well as well-understood self interest of the
greater nations, ought to be manifested primarily by freedom of
economic intercourse.

I submit this proposition: God has not given the lands

AND THE seas TO THE NATIONS, BUT TO HUMANITY. NATIONS
WILL NEVER ENJOY GOODWILL AND PEACE UNTIL THE DIVINE

WILL BE RESPECTED AND FULFILLED. This docs not mean that
every human being must be at home everywhere on the globe,
and that political frontiers of nations should be abolished (an
tmnatural, unprogressive idea); but it does mean that economic

frontiers must be abolished, i.e., that the "open-door" for free
exchange of things and services must be tmiversal, every man
thus finding at home, in his own country, among his own people,
the best possible opportunities for making a living. Thtis,
all human kind through co-operation may progress materially,
intellectually, spiritually ; therefore in harmony and peace. " Seek
ye first the Ejngdom of God and His justice, and all these things
shall be added unto you. "

Pascal said that "as it has not been possible to insure that
what was mighty should be just, it has been insured that what
was just should be mighty." The war powers of the mighty
nations will be vanquished only by the almighty spiritual power
of international justice, the necessary, practical, fundamental
characteristic of which is liberty in exchange of economic services.

I respectfully suggest that the Society of Friends through-
out the world transform their negative, passive attitude into
a positive, active one; that they substitute for "Non-resistance
to War" a vigorous and uncompromising resistance to the chief
cause of war, viz.: the un-Christian international policy of ob-
struction to mutual services, miscalled "Protection." I suggest
to them that International Free Trade, foreshadowing the reign
of morality, harmony and goodwill among nations, is a great
and true Christian peace ideal worth striving for, worth "fight-
ing" for.

New York, May, 1917.

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