i54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The methods by which Great Britain, in haphazard fashion, built 

 up her imperial domain have not always been those which conscientious 

 British can defend. They have brought Great Britain into disrepute 

 and they have been used as precedents by rival nations who make no 

 pretense to British scruples. The Great War in Europe has been called 

 the "nemesis of Lord Beaconsfield." Were it not for the imperial 

 chicanery of Lord Beaconsfield's period of unscrupulous glory, the 

 Balkans might never have been fanned into the flames which set all 

 Europe on fire. 



England is very rich, if you look at her from above, but her wealth 

 through tradition and through legalization of privilege and abuse is in 

 very few hands. The landholding dukes and the lords of commerce 

 and finance hold the resources of England in their grasp. One fourth 

 the population of Great Britain hold virtually nothing at all. One tenth 

 of them are persistently submerged, and with the waste and havoc of 

 the present war, another tenth will be found to have fallen with them. 

 Says Franklin: 



The profits of no trade can ever be equal to the expense of compelling it 

 by force of armies. 



But the profits of the trade obtained through compulsion go to the 



undeserving few. The cost of compulsion in blood and in gold falls 



on the body of the nation. 



The governments of the world take the risks of imperialism. The 

 great trading, mining, and exploiting corporations receive the gains. 

 In almost every large transaction of any government, there is this con- 

 stant source of confusion. What the nation expends should be bal- 

 anced by what the nation receives. It is not enough to estimate "our 

 outgoes" on the one hand and "our receipts" on the other when the 

 outgoes are drains on the public funds, and the receipts are private 

 gains. This fallacy of administration may be found on every hand in 

 connection with almost every item of public expenditure. Public ex- 

 penditure turned to private gain is the very essence of privilege, and 

 privilege wherever found is the betrayer of justice, the antithesis of 

 democracy. Where privilege exists it violates the principle of equality 

 before the law. In Imperial exploitation a thousand little streams lead 

 from home activities to swell the wealth drawn from overseas. 



We admit, says Professor J. Arthur Thomson, 

 that wars have been necessary and righteous — especially necessary, and that 

 they may be so still, but this opinion does not affect the fact that prolonged 

 war in which a nation takes part is bound to impoverish the breed, since the 

 character of the breed always depends on the men who are left. The only 

 thing a nation dies of is lack of men and is there not disquieting evidence of 

 the increase of incapables? It is said (in Great Britain) that we can not 

 relax one spine of our national belligerence since we must, at all cost, uphold 

 our national supremacy, having all these teeming millions to feed. But is not 

 this, in part at least, a vicious circle. Is it not preoccupation with militarism 

 that is responsible for keeping up our national misery? With a little money 

 saved off belligerence, what might not be done towards social improvement? 



