COLONIAL EXPANSION AND FOREIGN TRADE. 63 



lie unimproved because the eyes of greed, like those of the dog 

 crossing the stream, are turned on the coveted piece of meat he sees 

 reflected in the water, and to grasp which he drops the one he holds 

 in his mouth. France bristles with bayonets, and is constantly at 

 pains to increase her naval armaments, about whose seaworthiness 

 her own minister of marine expresses suspicions, in obedience to 

 a nervous restlessness for foreign acquisition. England, after her 

 feat in civilizing savages and barbarians in the customary fashion, 

 shown again at Omdurman, is ready to turn her war dogs on France, 

 because the latter has the temerity to demand a slice of Soudanese ter- 

 ritory. Well might she have given as hush-money, or for the mere 

 grace of the action, a few thousand square miles of a country closed 

 to access except by the permission of Great Britain, which has suc- 

 cessfully pre-empted every desirable bit of land in sight. 



Germany, instead of using her newly liberated energies at home 

 in an endeavor to elevate the miserable condition of her working 

 classes, taxes their bread and meat, never too freely supplied, to in- 

 crease the size of her armies and the number of her battle ships. The 

 defense and expansion of her colonial empire is her leading thought. 

 A strange paradox: The workingman and the peasant are overbur- 

 dened with taxes on the necessaries of life, so as to procure markets 

 for a limited quantity of factory products outside of the field secured 

 in open competition. 



While professing friendship and, brotherly love, they all have 

 their eyes on their neighbor's throat, fearful only lest the other might 

 clutch first. 



As we are in danger of being drawn into this vortex, it is well to 

 examine the range of possibilities and see what the trade amounts 

 to, to obtain which the scientific intellect of Europe and America has 

 been strained to its limits to discover new means of destruction for 

 attack and defense unknown to the other brothers in the common 

 bond of civilization. 



It is a matter of course that trade among European nations does 

 not come within this circle, nor of European nations with the United 

 States. It does not depend on battle ships. In the annexed tables 

 I have classified the countries in three classes: (1) Independent 

 states; (2) colonies of European countries, populated by people of 

 European stock; and (3) colonies and dependencies of European coun- 

 tries, but of non-European stock. 



I have reduced the values of imports and exports of the different 

 countries, published in their own currencies, to American dollars. 

 As the values are paper currencies, silver currencies, or conventional 

 values, and of fluctuating rates, I have in such instances taken a 

 yearly average, which will be found in the footnotes of the tables. 



