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THE NEW PROTECTIONISM

renewal of the struggle, as soon as one of the two parties found a "favourable" opportunity. The "balance of power" policy in the economic world would be clearly understood to be an instrument and an index of the terrible military struggle waiting in the background. Not only Europe but the whole world would tend to be drawn into the new battle-array, as members of one economic group or the other. A breaking of Europe into two hostile commercial systems would be an even greater crime against civilization than the war itself. For it would be an open-eyed prostitution of peaceful commerce to the purposes of international hostility. It would be the perpetuation of a trench warfare in which Custom officers would take the place of soldiers. The mode of fighting would be different, the aim and the animating principle would be the same. The net effect would be to reverse the great and fruitful processes of human co-operation, not only in the mutually profitable interchange of

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