system, but only by a combination of the strong to exploit the weak.  Such a combination is being attempted as the outcome of Washington; but it can only diminish, in the long run, the little freedom now enjoyed by the weaker nations.  The essential evil of the present system, as Socialists have pointed out over and over again, is production for profit instead of for use.  A man or a company or a nation produces goods, not in order to consume them, but in order to sell them.  Hence arise competition and exploitation and all the evils, both in internal labour problems and in international relations.  The development of Chinese commerce by capitalistic methods means an increase, for the Chinese, in the prices of the things they export, which are also the things they chiefly consume, and the artificial stimulation of new needs for foreign goods, which places China at the mercy of those who supply these goods, destroys the existing contentment, and generates a feverish pursuit of purely material ends.  In a socialistic world, production will be regulated by the same authority which represents the needs of the consumers, and the whole business of competitive buying and selling will cease.  Until then, it is possible to have peace by submission to exploitation, or some degree of freedom by continual war, but it is not possible to have both peace and freedom.  The success of the present American policy may, for a time, secure peace, but will certainly not secure freedom for the weaker nations, such as Chinese.  Only international Socialism can secure both; and owing to the stimulation of revolt by capitalist oppression, even peace alone can never be secure until international Socialism is established throughout the world.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 86:  The interests of England, apart from the question of India, are roughly the same as those of America.  Broadly speaking, British interests are allied with American finance, as against the pacifistic and agrarian tendencies of the Middle West.]

[Footnote 87:  It is interesting to observe that, since the Washington Conference, the American Administration has used the naval ratio there agreed upon to induce Congress to consent to a larger expenditure on the navy than would otherwise have been sanctioned.  Expenditure on the navy is unpopular in America, but by its parade of pacifism the Government has been enabled to extract the necessary money out of the pockets of reluctant taxpayers.  See The Times’ New York Correspondent’s telegram in The Times of April 10, 1922; also April 17 and 22.]

[Footnote 88:  See Chamberlain, The Invention of a New Religion, published by the Rationalist Press Association.]

[Footnote 89:  See Murdoch, History of Japan, I. pp. 500 ff.]

[Footnote 90:  An excellent account of these is given in The Socialist and Labour Movement in Japan, by an American Sociologist, published by the Japan Chronicle.]