Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/247

Rh are now easy of transport, and the higher industries may, therefore, be located at the choice and will of mankind. We are what our occupations make us; every mature man is imprinted with the characteristics of his calling. So is it with the nations, and no self-respecting nation henceforth will allow itself to be deprived of its share of the higher industries. But these industries are so interlocked that they cannot be developed except in balance one with another. It follows, therefore, that each nation will strive for development in each great line of industrial activity, and should be allowed to attain to it.

This is the ideal, I am firmly persuaded, which will make for peace. In ordinary society it is notoriously difficult for people of very unequal fortune to be friends in the true sense; that beautiful relationship is not compatible with patronage and dependence. Civilisation, no doubt, consists in the exchange of services, but it should be an equal exchange. Our economics of money have assessed as equal services of very unequal value from the point of view of the quality of the industrial employment which they give. For the contentment of nations we must contrive to secure some equality of opportunity for national development.