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appeal like this to financiers would form the best text for a parson to preach from. The good Kautsky almost succeeded in persuading the German financiers that it was not worth while to go to war with England over her colonies, since these colonies would, in any case, soon free themselves! England's exports to and imports from Egypt from 1872 to 1912 rose at a slower rate than her imports and exports as a whole. Where from the "Marxist" Kautsky deduces the following moral:—
We have no reason to suppose that England's trade with Egypt would have increased at a slower rate, under the influence of economic factors alone, without a military occupation (p. 72). The aspirations of capital after expansion can best be attained, not by the coercive methods of imperialism but by those of a peaceful democracy (p. 70).
What a wonderfully grave, scientific "Marxist" analysis! Kautsky "has put this foolish episode in the right light," and has proved that the English had no need to deprive the, French of Egypt, and that the German financiers had no need whatsoever to begin the war, nor to organise the Turkish campaign, hand in hand with other undertakings, in order to drive the English out of Egypt! All this, claims Kautsky, is a mere misunderstanding. The English have not yet realised that it were far better to give up coercing Egypt and to adopt the methods of a peaceful democracy in order to increase the amount of capital exported. …
"Of course it was purely an illusion of middle-class Free Traders," Kautsky argues, "when they thought that Free Trade entirely does away with the economic contradictions produced by capitalism. Neither Free Trade nor democracy can remove them. Nevertheless, it is to our interest to see these contradictions overcome by a struggle assuming such forms as impose least suffering and sacrifice upon the labouring masses" (p. 73).
"Oh, Lord, tell us what is a Philistine?" asked Lassalle, and in reply quoted the well known words of a poet: "A Philistine is an empty gut filled with fear, who hopes that God will take pity on him."
Kautsky has prostituted Marxism in an unheard of manner and has become a real priest. exhorts capitalists to resort to peaceful democratic methods by what he calls dialectics. If at the commencement there was Free Trade and subsequently monopolies and imperialism, then why should there not
