tions have entered upon a new era. Commerce and
industry have come to dominate thought and action and are transforming
the very life of the world. Defying the rigorous climate of both the
poles, trade has penetrated the frozen recesses of Hudson Bay and
made of the Falkland Islands a relay station in the progress of
victorious industry. Nor is the equatorial heat more discouraging. The
thick jungles of Africa have yielded their secrets, and the muddy
waters of the Amazon are churned by propellers a thousand miles from
the sea. International trade routes traverse the seas, connecting
continent with continent. In forty years this commerce has increased
from two billions to thirty billions. Giant corporations have ignored
political boundaries, carried trade wherever profitable, and are
supplying the varied demands of entire communities. Tariff walls, but
lately effective barriers, are crumbling before the onslaught of
trade. Nations are no longer independent. The wheat from Canada and
the Dakotas feeds the mill workers of Sheffield and the nobility of
Berlin. The failure of the Georgia cotton crop halts the looms of
England and raises the cost of living throughout Europe. Nations can
no longer exist as self-sufficient economic units. Never before were
they so mutually interdependent. Never before has the welfare and
security of one state depended upon the enterprise and diligence of
another. And the movement for international peace is the chance
offspring of these new social forces, at once a protest and a warning
against the wrecking of modern economic structures by the ruthless
hand of war.

Commerce, the most important of these new forces, flourishes
unprejudiced by armaments and military prestige. In the open
competition of the world's markets stronger powers meet and suffer
from the rivalry of states that have no military standing. Relative to
population, Norway has a carrying trade three times as great as
England's. With her million trained warriors Germany is beaten by the
merchants of Holland. The flag of little Denmark flies at more
mastheads than does the Stars and Stripes. Where then is the
commercial advantage supposed to attend superior military strength?

But it is to prevent the seizure of its commerce by others that
nations must empty their treasuries to keep ironclads afloat. Yet what
could be gained by attempted confiscation? If Germany annihilated
England's navy to-morrow, how would she profit? Commerc