Personally I wish that forty million Englishmen would stand up and shout the request all at once.
FOOTNOTES:
[8:1] Since this was written, the Anglo-Russian agreement has been arrived at.
[10:1] Justin H. Smith, Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony, Putnams, 1907.
[15:1] The Bellman, Minneapolis, Dec. 22, 1906.
[32:1] A point which there is no space to dwell upon here but which I would commend to the more leisurely consideration of readers—especially American readers—is that under a régime of physical force there can in fact be hardly any transfer of commodities at all. What a man has, he holds, whether his need of it be greater than another's, or whether he needs it not at all. There is no inducement to part with it and pride compels him to hold; so that only the strongest can come by the possession of anything that he desires. If the dollar were substituted for the club in the dealings of nations, the transfer of commodities would forthwith become simplified, and such incidents as the purchase of Alaska and the cession of Heligoland, instead of standing as isolated examples of international accommodation, would become customary. To take an example which will bring the matter home at once, many imperialist Englishmen on visiting the West Indies have become convinced that certain of England's possessions in those regions could with advantage to all parties be transferred to the United States. But so long as the military idea reigns—so long as an island must be regarded primarily as an outpost, a possible naval base, a strategic point—so long will the obstacles to such a transfer remain. As soon as war was put outside the range of possibilities, commercial principles would begin to operate and those territories, however much or little they might be worth, would be acquired by the United States. The same thing would happen in all parts of the world. Possessions, instead of being held by those who could hold them, would tend to pass to those who needed them or to whom they logically belonged by geographical relation, and neither Germany's legitimate aspirations nor those of any other country would need to go unsatisfied.
