y
hybrid population, it will hold true that no contemplated enterprise or
line of policy will fully commend itself to the popular sense of merit
and expediency until it is given a moral turn, so as to bring it to
square with the dictates of right and honest dealing. On no terms short
of this will it effectually coalesce with the patriotic aspiration. To
give the fullest practical effect to the patriotic fervor that animates
any modern nation, and so turn it to use in the most effective way, it
is necessary to show that the demands of equity are involved in the
case. Any cursory survey of modern historical events bearing on this
point, among the civilised peoples, will bring out the fact that no
concerted and sustained movement of the national spirit can be had
without enlisting the community's moral convictions. The common man must
be persuaded that right is on his side. "Thrice is he armed who knows
his quarrel just." The grounds of this conviction may often be tawdry
enough, but the conviction is a necessary factor in the case.

The requisite moral sanction may be had on various grounds, and, on the
whole, it is not an extremely difficult matter to arrange. In the
simplest and not infrequent case it may turn on a question of equity in
respect of trade or investment as between the citizens or subjects of
the several rival nations; the Chinese "Open Door" affords as sordid an
example as may be desired. Or it may be only an envious demand for a
share in the world's material resources--"A Place in the Sun," as a
picturesque phrase describes it; or "The Freedom of the Seas," as
another equally vague and equally invidious demand for international
equity phrases it. These demands are put forward with a color of
demanding something in the way of equitable opportunity for the
commonplace peaceable citizen; but quite plainly they have none but a
fanciful bearing on the fortunes of the common man in time of peace, and
they have a meaning to the nation only as a fighting unit; apart from
their prestige value, these things are worth fighting for only as
prospective means of fighting. The like appeal to the moral
sensibilities may, again, be made in the way of a call to self-defense,
under the rule of Live and let live; or it may also rest on the more
tenuous obligation to safeguard the national integrity of a weaker
neighbor, under a broader interpretation of the same equitable rule of
Live and let live. But in one way or another