Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/850

768 to yield wealth. "As the root of socialism" it says, "is the thirst of the poor for more physical comfort, better food, better lodging, and more leisure, so the root of international jealousy is the thirst for a larger national fortune. The peoples are eagerly scanning the roads to wealth, and find them, not in industry and reduced taxation, but in tropical possessions, in foreign trade, in the immense businesses based on 'concessions'—that is, in reality, upon mining rights, state contracts, and monopolies of all descriptions. In particular the thirst for gold in its concrete and tangible shape has broken out everywhere, almost as strongly as it broke out in the sixteenth century among Spaniards, Portuguese, and Elizabethan Englishmen." It happens that most of the gold-bearing territories are in English hands, and this, the Spectator thinks, accounts for a great deal of the jealousy with which England is regarded. Here we have, most unfortunately, a special and somewhat ignoble cause for the intensifying of the military spirit in the present day; and how to find a remedy for it is an extremely difficult question. The Spectator advises the English people "to remember that prosperity and success involve certain duties, one of which is to suffer others to be prosperous too, and another to abstain from boasting."

Here the baffling question arises. Can a whole people be advised? Individuals may listen to counsel; but, when it comes to a whole people, one wonders whether anything but experience, with a touch of natural selection thrown in, can teach. It certainly is the case that, if the nations would abate their greed and boastfulness, the danger of war would be much reduced, and the terrible burdens which it imposes be greatly alleviated. Patriotism is a good thing, but we fear that much evil is wrought in its name. It is not patriotism to disparage rival nations, or to seek to secure for one's own unjust advantages. Not unadvisedly did old Dr. Johnson, in a phrase now sadly trite, but perhaps never more apt than in the present day, describe patriotism as "the last refuge of a scoundrel." The doctor had doubtless seen more than one specimen of the loud-mouthed breed who shout for the flag and execrate the foreigner, but who would cheat their country at the first turn if they could get the chance. Patriotism, let us tell our children, if we can not get wider audience, is not a matter either of shouting or reviling, it is a matter of disinterestedly serving the country in which our lot is cast, and in which we enjoy the benefits of citizenship. That is the whole of it, but that is much. It may mean laying down our life; it may mean sacrificing our property; it may mean incurring unpopularity through fighting against wickedness in high places or in low places, and struggling for the good name of our country against those who are bringing it into discredit; at all times it means a