PEACE AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL REFORM. 229 



To war, therefore, and not to the wisdom of philanthropists, may 

 be traced all those regulations of industry and commerce that have 

 cursed and still curse every civilized nation. It was the author of 

 customhouses, of cruel taxes, like the taille and gabelle, and of all 

 the licenses and monopolies ever invented. While the plunder of 

 enemies often contributes, as it did in the case of the Romans, to the 

 military chests of a nation, it is upon the taxation of industry and 

 commerce, a form of internal aggression always accompanying the ex- 

 ternal aggression, that the despot must depend for certain and definite 

 revenues. To make sure that both are conducted in a manner most 

 advantageous to himself as well as to his subjects, he assumes the 

 right to regulate them. Since the exportation of commodities would 

 diminish his own supplies and increase those of his enemies, he pro- 

 hibits it; since their importation would drain his kingdom of 

 the precious metals, indispensable in war, he prohibits that also. 

 " Considering that our enemies might profit by our provisions and it 

 is important to leave them their merchandise," said St. Louis, " we 

 have ordered that the former shall not be exported nor the latter 

 imported." Sometimes industries fall under the blight of royal pro- 

 tection because they provide commodities useful in war; sometimes, 

 to make the state independent of supplies that might be cut ofi by 

 war; sometimes, to establish monopolies to get the ready money 

 required in war; sometimes, to stimulate production in order to make 

 easier the burdens of war; sometimes, as was once proposed in 

 France in regard to the silk industry, to prevent a form of toil that 

 might unfit men for war. But whatever the regulation or the indus- 

 try regulated, it is always war that gives the first impulse to this 

 exercise of despotism, and the more a country is given up to war, the 

 more despotic the regulations. It was so in Spain, where those of 

 Charles V and his successors ruined industry; it was so in France, 

 where those of Boyleau, Sully, and Colbert paralyzed industry; it 

 was so in Germany, where the Great Elector and the other princes 

 pursued the same ruinous policy. Only in England and Holland, 

 where despotism throve the least, did industry thrive the most. 



War also is the origin of those distinctions of society based, not 

 upon character and ability, but upon occupation and birth. As long 

 as it was the chief or only pursuit of man, it was the only calling of 

 respect and honor. All other pursuits were more or less ignoble and 

 debasing. Soldiers fight and die for their country. Only slaves 

 work. Toilers, consequently, become objects of scorn and con- 

 tempt. ISTot even philosophers were able to rise above the prejudices 

 born of war. " ISTature," said Plato, describing the inhabitants of 

 his ideal republic, " made neither shoemakers nor blacksmiths. Such 

 occupations degrade the people that engage in them. ... As to 



