War and commercial tariffs are the crudest and most wasteful forms of national struggles, testing, the lowest forms of national fitness. Let international government put down wars and establish Free Trade, the truly vital struggles of national expression will begin. As in the case of individuals, so now of nations, the competition will be keener upon the higher levels; nations having ceased to compete with guns and tariffs will compete with feelings and ideas.
Whatever there is of true original power and interest in the Celtic, the Teutonic, the various blends of Latin and Slavonic races can only bear its fruit in times of peace.
So far as nationality or race has any distinct character or value for itself and for the world, that value and character are expressed through work. Hitherto the absorption of so much national energy upon military, and in later times rude industrial occupations, has checked the higher forms of national self-expression; while the permanent hostility of international relations has chilled the higher intercourse and prevented what is really great and characteristic in the national achievements of art, literature, and thought from penetrating other nations, and so by subtle educative processes laying