as a violation of the great fundamental laws of morality, which apply to all the domains of human intercourse, to States as well as to individuals. Nor will they be impressed, in such a case, by the circumstance that one State is greater and stronger than the other. For they know that the small State-societies, such as the Jewish and the Greek, have been to the full as indispensable for the development of culture as the large ones. And they know that the right to live one's own national life, unimpeded by aggression from without, rests upon inner, qualitative essentials, and is independent of any quantitative valuation dependent on size or power. When looked at more closely, the defence of a policy of conquest built upon the great State's need of selfexpansion and its civilising mission stands revealed as the expression of an egotism and over-estimation of self which is frequently found in other fields of human life. There exists a State- and community-egotism which is as narrow as individual egotism. This is sometimes overlooked, because the two ways in which individual egotism may expand-the organic and the mechanical way, so to speak-are confused. Egotism may expand into family-instinct, tribe-instinct, patriotism and universal sympathy, through an organic process of transformation in the direction of altruism. But it may also expand mechanically when two or more combine in the endeavour to appropriate to themselves common advantages, or when members of a family, a tribe or a nation support each other mutually in competition with others for power and wealth. Fellowship in a struggle inherently selfish does not make egotism less egotistical or the heart less narrow. Bound up with this community-egotism is also an over-estimation of self. This latter is also, in the case of the community, of essentially the same sort as the over-estimation of self which occurs in the individual. The 'Superstate' views its need of expansion, its right to rule, its civilising mission, its right to set aside the ethical laws which apply for others, in the same light as that in which the 'Superman' sees his supposed unique position. Who does not know the typical politician with his mixture of unselfish desire to serve his country and his personal ambition? He also may easily come to look at his political mission, and consequent right to rule, through a magnifying glass. If he uses morally dubious methods to win the favour of the electors or to injure his opponents, he will appease his conscience by urging the necessity of winning that position of power which will enable him to do his country the greatest service. The difference between the position of a Superman and a Superstate, in such a case, is simply that the former is easier to see through than the latter. Human comprehension has reached a higher stage in the region of individual than in that of State morality. Where the individual man is concerned, every one with an awakened moral sense feels that it is not permissible to do wrong even to serve a good cause, and that no good is thereby gained in the long run. Jesuit morality is out of date. But conscience is not yet equally awakened in regard to national sins, partly because the very conception of the State's responsibility is so vague, partly because the sense of responsibility in the nation is weakened through being distributed among so many, partly, in fine, because patriotic feelings, which in themselves are noble, interfere with the verdict upon the foreign policy of one's country, and by suggestion render the great majority either unable to see what is unjust and aggressive and dishonourable in that policy, or cause them to cover up all this by representations regarding the higher necessity, the Superstate's civilising mission, its rightful need of expansion, and so forth. On the whole I suppose it cannot be denied that the evolution of the morality of States in international intercourse still lags far behind the evolution of individual morality. The evolution of morality moves in this respect parallel to the evolution of law, just as law on the whole crystallises to a large extent out of morality; and the two categories stand in deep inner relation and interaction. As regards law, the line of evolution passes from national law, regulating the intercourse of individuals, to international law, regulating the intercourse of States. And the growing recognition of the great fundamentals of morality as valid for the intercourse of mankind follows the same line. But should we not by this time have reached the point where we recognise that State-societies cannot possibly express the highest idealism in human endeavour, unless they likewise represent the highest grade of morality which mankind has reached at any given time? There will surely be a deep inner cleavage and contradiction in the moral consciousness and intercourse of mankind, if we try to maintain a dualism in the laws for the moral conduct of life, and if that which is considered right and equitable, good and honourable in the intercourse between man and man, may be excluded from consideration so soon as the society to which one belongs steps, so to speak, outside its own frontdoor and comes into contact with people belonging to other State-societies. We see remnants of predatory morality, of primitive narrow tribal instincts, where the stranger is not fully recognised as a human being with human rights. But the feeling of universal brotherhood begins to dawn. The whole sum of that energy, heroic courage and self-sacrifice, which unite around the love of country, will stand in a still purer and clearer light on the day when complete harmony in the ideals of life has been attained, and the citizens of a State need no longer observe a double morality, one for his own and the other for his country's actions; on that day when it will no longer be said: 'My country, right or wrong,' but when honour and the sense of justice, fidelity to one's word and respect for the rights and interests of others, are practised to the same extent in the intercourse of States as of individuals, or when, at any rate, a sin against them is judged as strictly in the one case as in the other. BREDO MORGENSTIERNE. Art. 5.-THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF WOMEN IN 1. Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry. Parly. Paper, 1919. [Cmd. 135.] 2. Appendices, Summaries of Evidence and Statements by Economists. Parly. Paper, 1919. [Cmd. 167.] THE present is proclaimed to be 'a time of reconstruction.' In its ordinary meaning, reconstruction is a process of pulling down and then building up. It is the pulling down that seems to possess, for many reformers, the greater attraction. A remarkable feature in the present process of national amelioration is the absence of effort or admission of any necessity to think things out constructively, to act with prudence, to prefer the sober to the heroic remedy, where both present themselves. With a happy optimism that has escaped the jars and bruises of experience, enthusiastic reformers attribute to that indefinite entity called Government a constructive genius and a wealth of experience in industrial matters that they would hesitate to assign to any individual Minister. They proceed on the convenient assumption that Cabinets can, by a stroke of the pen, or an Act of Parliament, successfully apply, with prescience of results, any measure of reconstruction to any industrial conditions. Another remarkable feature is the apathy of the public in regard to matters in which it is vitally interested. It seems to have dispensed with that critical faculty concerning broad essentials which on so many occasions has been the saving of the nation. It views now-a-days with a complacent tolerance tempered with amusement the visionary pitting his untried theories against experience and economic law. It appears not to realise that, in the end, it will bear the burden. When Governments, whose primal instinct is always to free themselves from organised political pressure, are stampeded into benefiting a section of the community at the expense of the taxpayers or consumers generally, the public seems impervious to a sense of injustice. Its restraint and patience, for example, under the recent 12 per cent. political prodigality form a sufficiently convincing illustration. But, it may be asked, why this exordium? What is its 6 relevance to the economic future of women in industry? The answer is, that there is no industrial matter of current moment to which it is more directly pertinent. The Government has pledged itself to bring about a new industrial era.' Of what that portends, no one has any very definite conception. Indeed, it may be questioned whether the Government itself has a clear idea, if one may judge from the conflict between vague and contradictory official statements. At any rate it implies an organisation of industry under which all the productive resources of the nation will be utilised to the full. It involves freedom to every member of the community to live his or her life, to develop his or her personality, to use to the best advantage his or her natural aptitude and abilities for production. But predominantly it postulates the precedence of the common good before any sectional or private interests. To argue the necessity of increasing production is superfluous. No other means are available to rid the country of the incubus of debt, or to enable the standard of life and living of the industrial classes to be improved as they ought to be. While few will controvert the urgency of production, the public in general little appreciates the enormous latent and unutilised capacities for production possessed by the women of the nation. In any scheme for reconstruction of industry, provision, at once clear, equitable and economically sound, must be made by Government for the full and appropriate use of women's talents, skill and ingenuity. Failure in this respect would be not merely ineptitude, but a crime against the taxpayer and gross injustice to women. It is certain that, however much the responsibility is one for political reasons to be avoided, Government will be compelled in the immediate future to assign to women a fitting place in industry. That responsibility carries within itself the seeds of mischief-hence my opening observations. There are gathering forces operating in the political world to which any Government is specially sensitive. On the one hand, there are the powerful and highly organised men's trade organisations which, especially in the case of the craft unions, are determined to resist to the utmost the permanent introduction of women into industries from which they are now |