century—from 1851 onwards—over
world-wide trade and Industrial Exhibitions, as the
heralds of the world’s peace and amity—a
jubilation voiced in Tennyson’s earlier Locksley
Hall—was to a certain extent justified.
There is no doubt that the nations have been drawn
together by intertrading and learned to know each other.
Bonds, commercial and personal, have grown up between
them, and are growing up, which must inevitably make
wars more difficult in the future and less desirable.
And if it had been possible to carry on this intertrade
in a spirit of real friendliness and without grasping
or greed the result to-day would be incalculably great.
But, unfortunately, this latter element came in to
an extent quite unforeseen and blighted the prophetic
hopes. The second Locksley Hall was a wail
of disillusionment. The growth of large mercantile
classes, intoxicated with wealth and pursuing their
own interests apart from, and indeed largely in
opposition to, those of the mass-peoples, derailed
the forward movement, and led in some of the ways
which I have indicated above to more of conflict between
the nations and less of peace.
Doubtless the growth of these mercantile classes has
to a certain extent been inevitable; and we must do
them the justice to acknowledge that their enterprise
and ingenuity (even set in action for their own private
advantage) have been of considerable benefit to the
world, and that their growth may represent a necessary
stage in affairs. Still, we cannot help looking
forward to a time when, this stage having been completed,
and commerce between nation and nation having ceased
to be handled for mere private profit and advantage,
the parasitical power in our midst which preys upon
the Commonweal will disappear, the mercantile classes
will become organic with the Community, and one great
and sinister source of wars will also cease.
[24] See p. 50 above.
COLONIES AND SEAPORTS
There is another point of economics on which there
seems to be some confusion of mind. If mere extension
of Trade is the thing sought for, it really does not
matter much, in these days of swift and international
transport, whether the outlying lands with which the
Trader deals or the ports through which he
deals are the property of his own nation or of some
other nation. The trade goes on all the same.
England certainly has colonies all over the world;
but with her free trade and open ports it often happens
that one of her colonies takes more German or French
goods of a certain class than English goods of the
same class; or that it exports more to Germany and
France than it does to England. The bulk, for
instance, of the produce of our West African colonies
goes, in normal times, to Germany. German or
French trade does not suffer in dealing with English
