2 5 o NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



I have already endeavoured to show how, in a com- 

 munity, the effect of the keenest individual competition 

 is to elevate every class, and that the successes and 

 triumphs of such individuals as are more highly 

 favoured and exceptionally endowed prove the means 

 of raising the status and the standard of comfort of 

 the whole community : that, in short, while competi- 

 tion is the law of life, it is Nature's ordinance for 

 making each individual contribute in the most effective 

 manner to the general benefit of society, and a salutary 

 principle having for its end and aim the distribution 

 and dissemination over the whole of the wealth created 

 by the brains and the hands of its component units. 

 It is the principle of one for all and all for one, not 

 definitely realised as the rule of individual action, but 

 necessarily involved in the concept of man as a social 

 being, and of society as an organic' whole. 



Not less marked is the operation of what is essenti- 

 ally and fundamentally the same principle in the arena 

 of international commerce. The action of international 

 trade is to bring the different nations of the world 

 into communication with each other, and thus to 

 create among them a sense of community of interests 

 as well as to stimulate their several industries. It 

 thus becomes, if not the supreme, yet one of the most 

 important factors in the advancement and develop- 

 ment of civilisation as well as in the extension of its 

 area. 



The commercial prosperity of a nation can in no 

 case prove a detrimental element in the great com- 



