346 Morality and Self-interest 



can fortunately be traced in the international 

 relations of the past few years. The action of the 

 United States in returning a large part of the Boxer 

 indemnity to China, and President Wilson's 

 declaration in his Mobile speech on October 27, 

 19 13, that "the United States will never again 

 seek one additional foot of territory by conquest," 

 are illustrations of this tendency. And even the 

 traditional orthodox diplomacy of Europe is begin- 

 ning to recognize the true relations between moral- 

 ity and self-interest. Thus Winston Churchill, a 

 member of the British Cabinet, declared in an 

 address reported in the London Times, of Septem- 

 ber 12, 1914: 



Now the war has come, and when it is over let us 

 be careful not to make the same mistake or the same 

 sort of mistake as Germany made when she had 

 France prostrate at her feet in 1870. (cheers) Let 

 us, whatever we do, fight for and work towards great 

 and sound principles for the European system. 



But in the relations of individuals, this identity 

 of morality and self-interest is far from being. rec- 

 ognized. For nearly twenty centuries it has been 

 repeated that we shoiild love our neighbours as 

 ourselves, but very few persons apply this precept. 

 Why? Because it is not believed to be advan- 

 tageous. What purpose would it serve to love 

 one's neighbour as one's self? What benefits 

 could be derived from this? And because we have 

 not been able to see any possible benefits, we now 



