SOCIAL BACTERIA AND ECONOMIC MICROBES. 327 



Our principal competitors in the great commerce of the world — 

 Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands — are 

 subject to an average rate of $14 to $15 per capita, mostly imposed to 

 meet the interest on war debts and the cost of militarism. This burden, 

 tending to increase, stands for a rate of from eight to fifteen per cent. 

 on their lesser national product. 



On this difference only we save from $700,000,000 to $800,000,000 

 a year, or, in other words, gain that amount which our principal 

 competitors now waste in destructive preparation for war. 



People of some prominence in political and clerical life often ex- 

 pose their shallow capacity or their ignorance, by sneering at l com- 

 mercialism/ and by trying to discredit those who oppose the brutality 

 of war by speaking of commerce as a mean and selfish pursuit. 



Commerce lives and moves and has its being in mutual service ren- 

 dered by men and nations for mutual benefit. It demands peace, order 

 and industry. 



War exists because of the survival of the brute element in man, 

 which has not yet been overcome by education. 



As surely as Christianity will displace paganism, as surely as 

 civilization will displace barbarism, as surely as intelligence and edu- 

 cation will displace ignorance, so surely will the beneficent force of com- 

 merce suppress the barbarity and brutality of war. 



