the trade of Switzerland and Belgium go on all the same? Her arms have brought her Canada—but no monopoly of the Canadian orders, which go, in part, to Switzerland.
If the traders of little nations can snap their fingers at the great war lords, why do British traders need Dreadnoughts? If Swiss commercial prosperity is secure from the aggression of a neighbor who outweighs Switzerland in military power a hundred to one, how comes it that the trade and industry, the very life-bread of her children, as Mr. Harrison would have us believe, of the greatest nation in history is in danger of imminent annihilation the moment she loses her military predominance?
If the statesmen of Europe would tell us how the military power of a great nation is used to advance the commercial interest of its citizens, would explain to us the modus operandi, and not refer us to large and vague phrases about "exercising due weight in the councils of the nations," we might accept their philosophy. But, until they do so, we are surely justified in assuming that their political terminology is simply a survival—an inheritance from a state of things which has, in fact, passed away.
It is facts of the nature of those I have instanced which constitute the real protection of the small State, and