e and
elaboration; and foreign trade is only trade in its widest
transactions. But foreign trade being the cause of all war, the only
way to end warfare is to displace civilization by a system of wealth
produced and distributed under communal control. Then commerce will no
longer be inspired by the financial interest of private investors, but
by the total welfare of the whole people of the nation. But I have
touched upon the identity of war and trade only to show their vital
connection with civilization as a whole.

XXIV. THE OPPOSITE OF A "RETURN TO NATURE"

Civilization is still advancing by leaps and bounds. Nevertheless, at
the same time, with a greater acceleration of development, the men are
checkmating the master and transferring control and initiative to the
will of the commonwealth. At least, not otherwise am I able to
interpret the new deference for nationality which has been aroused in
protest against aggressive militarism; nor the kind of industrial
legislation that has been enacted during the last decade in California
and other western states, in New Zealand and Australia, and even in
Italy and England. It all means that the new inventions, although at
first seized upon by monopolists, are seen to be such as to provide
channels through which the pent-up instincts and hopes of the masses
can act with concerted power. It means that also political machinery is
being devised for securing the public welfare and protecting
opportunities for individual genius and talent. No man asks for more.
The world over we have reached the threshold of collective democracy,
wherein the consuming of material wealth will be shared with
approximate equality and wherein social control will be retained by the
collective will, to safeguard individual initiative, and will be
administered by public servants who have proved their superior ability,
but who remain subject to almost instantaneous recall.

Such a substitute for civilization, however, is the opposite of a
return to the individualism of Nature or to a primeval communism. It
presupposes the highest mastery of man over matter and social unity
among all mankind co-operating as nation-states and federations of
states.

As regards external government and law, it is the antithesis of Mr.
Carpenter's proposal that they should disappear, because they are the
travesty of inward government and order. On the contrary, I hope that
external government, animated by the genera