Only lately our two most eminent soldiers, Bliss and Pershing, have come out flatly for a disarmament program. They admit that it will not be easy; and no more will it. You cannot complete the job with a Congressional resolution and a flourish of the pen. Too many eminent gentlemen in all nations have something to gain by the race of armaments. But it is a first necessary step.
Then, even before we have a league, association or effective High Court of Nations, we may get at some of the economic causes for war.
The “financial imperialism” which brought on the Great War had three wholly commercial objects—trade, raw materials, export of capital. The struggle for trade—for profitable foreign markets—is, in the opinion of many economists, the least dangerous of the three. For while it is a cause of friction, it has also a pacific tendency. When two nations begin to trade with each other, there follow personal acquaintance and a community of interest. We saw that at the beginning of the Great War, when many Americans in the exporting business sincerely took sides either with Germany or England because they had with Germans or Englishman business relations and personal acquaintance. The most dangerous factor in national trade is tariffs. I am not preaching for or against tariffs. But they can be so drawn as to take unfair advantage, to work injustice against some given nation. The tariff is no longer purely a domestic question. We must draw
