restige increases the nation's trade, whether in imports or in
exports. There is no available evidence that it has any effect of the
kind. What is not an open question is the patent fact that such an
extension of trade confers no benefit on the common man, who is not
engaged in the import or export business. More particularly does it
yield him no advantage at all commensurate with the cost involved in any
endeavour so to increase the volume of trade by increasing the nation's
power and extending its dominion. The profits of trade go not to the
common man at large but to the traders whose capital is invested; and it
is a completely idle matter to the common citizen whether the traders
who profit by the nation's trade are his compatriots or not.[6]

[Footnote 6: All this, which should be plain without demonstration, has
been repeatedly shown in the expositions of various peace advocates,
typically by Mr. Angell.]

The pacifist argument on the economic futility of national ambitions
will commonly rest its case at this point; having shown as unreservedly
as need be that national ambition and all its works belong of right
under that rubric of the litany that speaks of Fire, Flood and
Pestilence. But an hereditary bent of human nature is not to be put out
of the way with an argument showing that it has its disutilities. So
with the patriotic animus; it is a factor to be counted with, rather
than to be exorcised.

As has been remarked above, in the course of time and change the advance
of the industrial arts and of the institutions of ownership have taken
such a turn that the working system of industry and business no longer
runs on national lines and, indeed, no longer takes account of national
frontiers,--except in so far as the national policies and legislation,
arbitrarily and partially, impose these frontiers on the workings of
trade and industry. The effect of such regulation for political ends is,
with wholly negligible exceptions, detrimental to the efficient working
of the industrial system under modern conditions; and it is therefore
detrimental to the material interests of the common citizen. But the
case is not the same as regards the interests of the traders. Trade is a
competitive affair, and it is to the advantage of the traders engaged in
any given line of business to extend their own markets and to exclude
competing traders. Competition may be the soul of trade, but monopoly is
necessarily the aim of every t