The first, the international conflict, gives rise to a peculiar virtue called patriotism, which, in so far as it teaches a man to love the country to which he belongs, and the people amongst whom he lives, is altogether good, but in so far as it teaches him to hate and occasionally slay those of other nations is altogether bad.
The second, the intranational conflict, gives rise to a quality which, though not recognized as a virtue, should, if measured by the rewards it receives, be assuredly regarded as the greatest of all—acquisitiveness; for the fortunate few who possess this quality gather unto themselves all the good things in the world at the expense of all the rest.
Let us briefly study each of these formidable obstacles to virtue and happiness:
As regards the international conflict, the world is so large, and is peopled by races of men so different, that it would be quite impossible to include them all under the same government. The Red Indian is incapable of adopting our civilization; he would rather die. The Chinese has a conception of government so different from ours that he has no word in his language for patriotism. The Oriental, who has occupied the Danubian provinces for five centuries, is still so foreign to us that he cannot live amongst Christians except either as a conqueror in Turkey or a subject in Hindoostan.
So long as these differences exist, there must be separate nations; and the smoke of international conflict must occasionally burst into a flame.
Nevertheless, even to-day human effort can do much to diminish occasions for war; witness the Tribunal of The Hague and the daily multiplying treaties of arbitration; witness, too, the gradual extension of solidarity between workingmen beyond national frontiers and the growing disposition to organize regardless of them.
As regards the intranational conflict—between individuals belonging to the same country—there is much more to be said, for although the total elimination of occasions of conflict between citizens of the same nation may still be far off, there is serious reason to believe that a partial elimination of them is immediately possible, and may constitute the most practical of all political programs, and the most vital of all religious faiths. Indeed, a thorough understanding of the problem presented by this intranational conflict is so indispensable to its prosperous solution, that upon this understanding may be said to depend the question whether our civilization is to degenerate.
The intranational conflict is mainly concerned with the acquisition of wealth; and because this conflict has so far inordinately enriched a few and impoverished the mass, it is the fashion for us to rail against wealth.
But wealth is the necessary product of civilization, and like manure, it is a benefaction when lightly distributed over the right place, though a pest when heavily concentrated in the wrong. The wealthier a community is the happier it ought to be. It is not wealth itself which constitutes our grievance, but the method of its distribution.
Now the unequal distribution of wealth is mainly due to the system of private property under which the few who have the gift of money-making acquire large fortunes, while the many are left in comparative poverty and even want.