It is rather that the
atmosphere of commercial competition and rivalry automatically leads up
to military rivalries and collisions, which often at the last moment
(though not always) turn out contrary to the wishes of the commercial
people themselves. Also I would repeat that it is not _Commerce_ but the
_class_ interest that is to blame. Commerce and exchange, as we know in
a thousand ways, have the effect of drawing peoples together, giving
them common interests, acquaintance, and understanding of each other,
and so making for peace. The great jubilation during the latter half of
the nineteenth century--from 1851 onwards--over world-wide trade and
Industrial Exhibitions, as the heralds of the world's peace and amity--a
jubilation voiced in Tennyson's earlier _Locksley Hall_--was to a
certain extent justified. There is no doubt that the nations have been
drawn together by intertrading and learned to know each other. Bonds,
commercial and personal, have grown up between them, and are growing
up, which must inevitably make wars more difficult in the future and
less desirable. And if it had been possible to carry on this intertrade
in a spirit of real friendliness and without grasping or greed the
result to-day would be incalculably great.
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