Page:"The next war"; an appeal to common sense (IA thenextwarappeal01irwi).pdf/183

 our schedules no longer with an eye solely on immediate national prosperity; we must consider them also in the light of good and just international relations.

Some kind of international agreement concerning the distribution of raw materials seems necessary to permanent peace. If any great nation should in this year corner the international supply of flax, for example, the great linen industry of Belgium would be ruined; for Belgium raises only a little domestic flax. Italy has most expert and intelligent workmen, together with certain other manufacturing advantages; she has no coal nor iron ore. Shut off coal and iron from Italy and the Valley of the Po knows acute distress. No longer should any nation or combinations of nations be allowed to monopolize any imported raw material.

Finally: the advantageous export of capital was perhaps the main object of financial imperialism and so one of the main causes for the late war. In the intense struggle at home, your capital would yield you only three or four or five per cent. Put into a new, undeveloped country, it might yield you—anything. Only it would not return its big interest-rate for long if other capitalists in other nations themselves saw the chance, came in, and competed. The game of the international flotation houses which represented national surplus capital was to keep their “sphere of influence” exclusive. This was the chief commercial object of the huge