of active profitable survival. Such a scheme of economic Interimperialism may now no longer be possible, for though Japan cannot perform her self-imposed task without financial assistance from the wealthier West, she may be able to obtain this assistance by making the financiers of several: Western countries compete with one another for the provision of the required finance, without allowing their governments any real share in the accompanying political control over China.
From the standpoint of the defence of capitalism it is not necessary to show that imperialism is profitable in the long run to the general body of the owning and exploiting class within a capitalist country, but only that it enables the members of that class concerned with foreign trade and investment to utilize the political and financial resources of their State to extend the area of such trade and investment or to retain and develop the colonies, protectorates and other portions of the existing empire.
It is such considerations that bring out the conflict of imperialism with democracy. For a political democracy, in which the interests and will of the whole people wield the powers: of the State, will actively oppose the whole process of imperialism. Such a democracy has now learnt the lesson that substantial economic equality in income and ownership of property is essential to its operation. The defence of capitalism is, therefore, bound up in every country with the destruction or enfeeblement of the popular franchise and representative government. If the forms of such democracy are still retained, they are reduced to the automatic or compulsory registration of the will of a dictator or a ruling caste. The cases above cited suffice to show the place which Imperialism occupies as an ingredient in the capitalist-military nationalism of the age. There is, of course, some division of interest and policy between the
