182 president's address. — section g. 



its broader aspect. The questions presenting themselves oven now 

 for systematic examination are only too self-evidently momentous. 

 Different orders of political theory and practice need, as time re- 

 veals their consequence, to be reviewed in the light of facts; and 

 apparently questions will arise which must necessarily range be- 

 tween national aims tending on the one hand to that individualism 

 expressed in Herbert Spencer's " Man versus the State." or on 

 the other hand toi an organic and well-defined national regime, 

 such for example as that which constituted the economic system 

 of pre-war Germany, and is again reflected in the present organiza- 

 tion of the All-German Industrial Trust. Fundamentally, the 

 issue is, perhaps, that between various forms of socialism and in- 

 dividualism. The rapidly enlarging powers of mankind, however, 

 show how inevitably the rights both of individuals- and of 

 nations ultimately impinge, the one vipcn the other. The ever- 

 increasing command over Nature's reeonrces, exemplified in the 

 applications of science to industry, reveals unmistakabh'- what 

 vast powers of destruction are at thet disposal of nations and even 

 of individuals, and how relatively limited are our piowers of 

 ameliorating national or social conditions. Thus it is not sur- 

 prising that, in thei general consciousness of mankind, the thought 

 more and more clearly emerges that there is something funda- 

 mentally wrong aboiut a social system which involves readiness 

 to find hundreds or thousands Oif millions sterling for the purposes 

 of destruction — in order that we may be safe or be pre-eminent 

 xxi wealth — and, at the same time, hesitation to find even one 

 tithe of these amounts for systematic attack upon those problems 

 of either national or international economy, which make for peace. 

 One cannot help feeling that, quite apart from the evil de^- 

 velopments incidental to war — these were found in each natiou 

 engaged therein — it is an ugly portent that the means are not 

 even yet available for a thorough study of the problem of living 

 in international amity. The solidarity of the world in respect of 

 finance, commerce, industry, social organization, and scientific re- 

 search has become more apparent, and when this is borne in mind 

 it. is seen that it is not a mere Utopian dream to imagine that, 

 internationally, it it not impossible for mankind to be more 

 mutually helpful. It is probable that national egoism alone pre- 

 vents this, for unrestricted individualism probably has nO' eminent 

 advocate among political or other thinkers. The advantages and 

 privileges which accrue to individuals are poesessed in virtue 

 of an inclusion within a society which respects law. And the war 

 has at least done this — it has compelled people to realize that any 

 safety for their persons oir property is dependent upon such in- 

 clusion within the social organism, to' which, therefore, they have 

 obligations, and which has the right to modify very greatly their 

 individual rights, so as to' make the latter at least consistent with 

 the well-being of the whole. 



