erely to protect the nation's honour,
but to provide large dividends for speculative concerns held in private
hands.

[16] Turkey has now thrown in her lot with Germany.

INVESTING MONEY ABROAD

The truth is, of course, that the honourable name of commerce is now used
to cover very different kinds of enterprise. We used to export goods; now
we export cash. Wealthy men, not being content with the sound, but not
magnificent interest on home securities, take their money abroad and
invest in extremely remunerative--though of course speculative--businesses
in South Africa, or South America, concerned with rubber, petroleum, or
whatnot. Often they subscribe to a foreign loan--in itself a perfectly
legitimate and harmless operation, but not harmless or legitimate if one
of the conditions of the loan is that the country to which it is lent
should purchase its artillery from Essen or Creusot, or its battleships
from our yards. For that is precisely one of the ways in which the traffic
in munitions of war goes on increasing and itself helps to bring about a
conflagration. Financial enterprise is, of course, the life-blood of
modern states. But why should our army and navy be brought in to protect
financiers? Let them take their own risks, like every other man who
pursues a hazardous path for his own private gain. Private investment in
foreign securities does not increase the volume of a nation's commerce.
The individual may make a colossal fortune, but the nation pays much too
dearly for the enrichment of financiers if it allows itself to be dragged
into war on account of their "_beaux yeux_."

IDEAL AIMS

It is time to gather together in a summary fashion some of the
considerations which have been presented to us in the course of our
inquiry. We have gone to war partly for direct, partly for indirect
objects. The direct objects are the protection of small nationalities, the
destruction of a particularly offensive kind of militarism in Germany, the
securing of respect for treaties, and the preservation of our own and
European liberty. But there are also indirect objects at which we have to
aim, and it is here, of course, that the speculative character of our
inquiry is most clearly revealed. Apart from the preservation of the
smaller nationalities, Mr. Asquith has himself told us that we should aim
at the organisation of a Public Will of Europe, a sort of Collective
Conscience which should act as a corrective of national