n constant touch with one another, they begin to learn one
another's little ways; to inquire into the personalities of the
"foreigners" that pass them on the street, work with them elbow to elbow
in the shops, and eat with them at the same restaurant tables. This new
brotherhood is an outgrowth of day-to-day relations in an industrial
community.

Old time questions were of a kind that divided men. "Are you a
Christian?" "Where were you born?" "Can you speak Spanish?" No matter
how a man answered these questions he got himself into difficulty. If he
was a Christian, he found two-thirds of the world confronting him with
different religious beliefs. If he was born in France, he was compelled
to assume all of the enmities, hatreds and antagonisms felt by Frenchmen
for their rivals. If he spoke anything except Spanish, he was a
"foreigner" in Spain. The old world was a separatist world, lined with
walls, fences, boundary stakes and frontiers.

Modern questions bring men into touch with one another. "Can you repair
a locomotive?" "Do you understand coal mining?" "Can you carry us safely
to Japan?" "Will you take shoes in exchange for petroleum?" "Are you
able to get along with people?" "Have you any surplus wheat?" "How do
you suppose we can get rid of the boll-weevil?" "Let us show you a new
style tractor." If a man can repair an engine, he is wanted in an engine
shop. If he can dig coal, he is needed in a coal mine. If he has shoes
to exchange for fuel, he finds a ready customer. If he can get along
with an odd assortment of his fellows, he is in demand everywhere. The
new world is a co-operative world in which people are working together,
living together, thinking together; and a test of man's capacity to take
part in its activities lies in his ability to be an effective,
co-operating member of a world group.

[Footnote 1: Before the war Great Britain imported about half of her
food. By 1920 she was importing about three-quarters of it. On the basis
of the 1919-1920 harvests, British wheat sufficed for less than a third
of the British population. See "The Fruits of Victory," Norman Angell,
Glasgow. Collins, 1921, p. 9.]

4. _The Basis of a World Program_

With economic life established on a world scale, it is inevitable that
the range of men's thoughts and the lines of their social groupings
should assume the same general scope. The late war made it quite
apparent that war means world war, and that a real peace i