Germany and the Next War | Page 9

to her as a possible sphere of colonization. That would have set
up justifiable claims for the future.]
In such cases might gives the right to occupy or to conquer. Might is at
once the supreme right, and the dispute as to what is right is decided by
the arbitrament of war. War gives a biologically just decision, since its
decisions rest on the very nature of things.
Just as increase of population forms under certain circumstances a
convincing argument for war, so industrial conditions may compel the
same result.
In America, England, Germany, to mention only the chief commercial
countries, industries offer remunerative work to great masses of the

population. The native population cannot consume all the products of
this work. The industries depend, therefore, mainly on exportation.
Work and employment are secured so long as they find markets which
gladly accept their products, since they are paid for by the foreign
country. But this foreign country is intensely interested in liberating
itself from such tribute, and in producing itself all that it requires. We
find, therefore, a general endeavour to call home industries into
existence, and to protect them by tariff barriers; and, on the other hand,
the foreign country tries to keep the markets open to itself, to crush or
cripple competing industries, and thus to retain the consumer for itself
or win fresh ones. It is an embittered struggle which rages in the market
of the world. It has already often assumed definite hostile forms in
tariff wars, and the future will certainly intensify this struggle. Great
commercial countries will, on the one hand, shut their doors more
closely to outsiders, and countries hitherto on the down-grade will
develop home industries, which, under more favourable conditions of
labour and production, will be able to supply goods cheaper than those
imported from the old industrial States. These latter will see their
position in these world markets endangered, and thus it may well
happen that an export country can no longer offer satisfactory
conditions of life to its workers. Such a State runs the danger not only
of losing a valuable part of its population by emigration, but of also
gradually falling from its supremacy in the civilized and political world
through diminishing production and lessened profits.
In this respect we stand to-day at the threshold of a development. We
cannot reject the possibility that a State, under the necessity of
providing remunerative work for its population, may be driven into war.
If more valuable advantages than even now is the case had been at
stake in Morocco, and had our export trade been seriously menaced,
Germany would hardly have conceded to France the most favourable
position in the Morocco market without a struggle. England, doubtless,
would not shrink from a war to the knife, just as she fought for the
ownership of the South African goldfields and diamond-mines, if any
attack threatened her Indian market, the control of which is the
foundation of her world sovereignty. The knowledge, therefore, that
war depends on biological laws leads to the conclusion that every
attempt to exclude it from international relations must be demonstrably

untenable. But it is not only a biological law, but a moral obligation,
and, as such, an indispensable factor in civilization.
The attitude which is adopted towards this idea is closely connected
with the view of life generally.
If we regard the life of the individual or of the nation as something
purely material, as an incident which terminates in death and outward
decay, we must logically consider that the highest goal which man can
attain is the enjoyment of the most happy life and the greatest possible
diminution of all bodily suffering. The State will be regarded as a sort
of assurance office, which guarantees a life of undisturbed possession
and enjoyment in the widest meaning of the word. We must endorse the
view which Wilhelm von Humboldt professed in his treatise on the
limits of the activity of the State.[D] The compulsory functions of the
State must be limited to the assurance of property and life. The State
will be considered as a law-court, and the individual will be inclined to
shun war as the greatest conceivable evil.
[Footnote D: W. von Humboldt, "Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Grenzen
der Wirksamkelt des Staates zu bestimmen."]
If, on the contrary, we consider the life of men and of States as merely
a fraction of a collective existence, whose final purpose does not rest on
enjoyment, but on the development of intellectual and moral powers,
and if we look upon all enjoyment merely as an accessory of the
chequered conditions of life, the task of the State will appear in a very
different light. The State will not be to us merely a legal and social
insurance office,