Free Trade principles.

pean countries, discredited and renounced, but, even in countries where, for the sake of stimulating local manufactures, protection still exists, the essential meaning and spirit of Free Trade are more and more adequately appreciated, and converted into practical action, in a variety of unconscious ways. It is not merely professed, but widely believed, that each State profits by the wealth, and not by the poverty, of surrounding States; that each State, from its climate, situation, or special opportunities of all sorts, is likely to have, and, in fact, has, superior advantages in some certain kinds of production, manufacture, or trade; and that a State becomes rich and prosperous in proportion as it buys all things, in respect of which it has not that advantage, as cheaply as possible, and finds the greatest demand in other countries for the things which itself most economically produces or prepares.

Though these truths are occasionally clouded from view, owing to a passing spasm of national distrust or impatience,-the result of exceptional economical perplexities,-yet they are not seriously contested in any quarters worthy of attention, and, in fact, are already raised to the dignity of universal dogmas or axioms. They not only guide the statesman in devising schemes of taxation and arranging commercial treaties, but they have entered deeply into the popular thought and feeling

on all international topics, and they create that sort of secondary consciousness towards foreign nations which, in the long run, determines the attitude towards them of all popular assemblies, whether strictly political or not.

course between nations.

This notion of the benefit to all States of the wealth and prosperity of each, and the loss to all caused by the poverty or depression of any one, marks a complete transformation Amicable interof the aspect under which foreign nations have, up to very recent times, been invariably regarded, and in which they are still regarded in only partially civilised communities. It is not confined to purely mercantile matters. In every field of activity and interest it translates rivals into co-operative labourers, and jealous foes into helpful and sympathetic allies. It has manifold indirect influences on social life, as between the citizens of different States. Not only does the stimulus given to trade directly promote, and endlessly multiply, association of all sorts, but one sort of association always produces another, and constant familiarity begets friendliness, and banishes suspicion and vague dislike. It thus may be expected that the new era of Free Trade will have consequences to the relations between the citizens,and ultimately the governments,-of different States, of a kind wholly new and incalculable. Some of these consequences have already mani

fested themselves, in the actual changes made in favour of the freedom of commerce in time of War. Other consequences are beginning to make themselves felt in the same direction, and it must be quite impossible to fix an arbitrary limit to the extent to which such causes may hereafter operate.

Anyway, it is clear that War, and all it presupposes, is diametrically opposed,-and is now beginning to be felt to be so as never before,to the modern spirit and doctrines of international trade. This is not only the case because War springs out of, or is inflamed by, sentiments of personal rivalry and animosity between the citizens of different States, which are incompatible with widespread trade relations, but because War, more than any other event, is fatal to the course of trade. It occasions interruptions, sudden, perplexing, and incalculable; it forces ordinary trade into unnatural and uncongenial channels; it calls into existence a bastard sort of trade, based on nothing but the artificial exigencies of War, and which the chance of a single battle, or a turn in diplomatic negotiation, may instantly wither. For these and the like reasons it is obvious that War must be recognised, more and more distinctly, as implacably alien to the most characteristic tendencies of modern society. Of course this fact can, in itself, furnish no ground for hope of its speedy

abolition. But it at least suffices to rebut any presumption that War must, of necessity, be coeval with the life of civilised States; and if no such presumption can be fairly made, then it is legitimate for the reformers of International Law to include among their objects the hastening of the time for the final abolition of War.

5. Another reason, or class of reasons, for holding the extinction of War between civilised States to be a reasonable object of concern at the present time is, that a diffused apprehension of the evils and, in some respects, of the moral anomalies of War, is distinctly traceable, of a kind which seems to be without precedent. Part of this phenomenon is, no doubt, connected with the class of facts just noted, that is, the recognised incongruity between War and the maintenance of a finely organised commercial system. These facts have no doubt attracted attention to evils greater even than themselves, and they have encouraged free speech and unfettered criticism. But the growing dislike to War, on social and purely ethical grounds, certainly has an independent origin of its own, and is connected with an aggregate of social, moral, political and religious influences, which are only very remotely connected with commercial considerations.

(1.) The most prominent influences of this

Growth of dis

like to War on

various

grounds.

opposed to War favoured by diffusion of education.

A public opinion sort are those which may be described as being due to the extraordinary impulse which has, of late years, been given to popular education, and to the general diffusion of knowledge. The work which has thus been started is, of course, as yet extremely incomplete in all countries, and a persistent controversy is everywhere being waged as to the true and best mode of carrying it forward, both in its higher aspect, as bearing on the promotion of science and erudition, and in its lower aspect, as securing a minimum of general knowledge to every citizen of the State. This work has been largely favoured by the diffusion of literature, the study of foreign languages, and all those forms of International co-operation which will have, on their own account, to be separately adverted to lower down.

Popular interest

in social questions.

The direct and increasingly familiar result of this educational stir is a popular appreciation of the true bearing and significance of the common facts of daily life. The conditions of national wealth, the causes of high and low wages, the theory of prices, the relation of population to material well-being, the distinction between productive and unproductive labour, the problem of pauperism and its remedies, and even the general principles of equitable and economical taxation, are now no longer topics only for the abstracted student or philosophical statesman,