ss between Governments has special dangers of
its own.

Before the middle of the nineteenth century no nation owed payments to a
foreign nation on any considerable scale, except such tributes as were
exacted under the compulsion of actual occupation in force and, at one
time, by absentee princes under the sanctions of feudalism. It is true
that the need for European capitalism to find an outlet in the New World
has led during the past fifty years, though even now on a relatively
modest scale, to such countries as Argentine owing an annual sum to such
countries as England. But the system is fragile; and it has only
survived because its burden on the paying countries has not so far been
oppressive, because this burden is represented by real assets and is
bound up with the property system generally, and because the sums
already lent are not unduly large in relation to those which it is still
hoped to borrow. Bankers are used to this system, and believe it to be a
necessary part of the permanent order of society. They are disposed to
believe, therefore, by analogy with it, that a comparable system between
Governments, on a far vaster and definitely oppressive scale,
represented by no real assets, and less closely associated with the
property system, is natural and reasonable and in conformity with human
nature.

I doubt this view of the world. Even capitalism at home, which engages
many local sympathies, which plays a real part in the daily process of
production, and upon the security of which the present organization of
society largely depends, is not very safe. But however this may be, will
the discontented peoples of Europe be willing for a generation to come
so to order their lives that an appreciable part of their daily produce
may be available to meet a foreign payment, the reason of which, whether
as between Europe and America, or as between Germany and the rest of
Europe, does not spring compellingly from their sense of justice or
duty?

On the one hand, Europe must depend in the long run on her own daily
labor and not on the largesse of America; but, on the other hand, she
will not pinch herself in order that the fruit of her daily labor may go
elsewhere. In short, I do not believe that any of these tributes will
continue to be paid, at the best, for more than a very few years. They
do not square with human nature or agree with the spirit of the age.

If there is any force in this mode of thought, expediency an