of war, can it have much force on
the rare occasions when it speaks in its favour? For there is no
inconsistency with the view that finance is a peacemaker, if we now
acknowledge that finance may sometimes ask for the exertion of force on
its behalf. As private citizens we all of us want to live at peace with
our neighbours, but if one of them steals our property or makes a public
nuisance of himself, we sometimes want to invoke the aid of the strong
arm of the law in dealing with him. Consequently, although it cannot be
true that finance wanted war such as this one, it cannot be denied that
wars have happened in the past, which have been furthered by financiers
who believed that they suffered wrongs which only war could put right.
The Egyptian war of 1882 is a case in point, and the South African war
of 1899 is another.

In Egypt international finance had lent money to a potentate ruling an
economically backward people, without taking much trouble to consider
how the money was to be spent, or whether the country could stand the
charge on its revenues that the loans would involve. The fact that it
did so was from one point of view a blunder and from another a crime,
but this habit of committing blunders and crimes, which is sometimes
indulged in by finance as by all other forms of human activity, will
have to be dealt with in our next chapter, when we deal with the evils
of international finance. The consequence of this blunder was that Egypt
went into default, and England's might was used on behalf of the
bondholders who had made a bad investment. This fact has been put
forward by Mr. Brailsford, in his very interesting book on "The War of
Steel and Gold," and by other writers, to show that our diplomacy is the
tool of international finance, and that the forces created by British
taxpayers for the defence of their country's honour, are used for the
sordid purpose of wringing interest for a set of money-grubbers in the
City, out of a poor and down-trodden peasantry overburdened by the
exactions and extortions of their rulers. Mr. Brailsford, of course,
puts his case much better than I can, in any brief summary of his views.
He has earned and won the highest respect by his power as a brilliant
writer, and by his disinterested and consistent championship of the
cause of honesty and justice, wherever and whenever he thinks it to be
in danger. Nevertheless, in this matter of the Egyptian war I venture to
think that he is mi