the whole thrills responsively to any disturbing touch, and no one can say beforehand what widespread damage may not be done by shock even at a single point. When a country is at war its commerce is at once disorganized, that is to say that its shipping, and the shipping of all the countries that carry its freights, is thrown out of gear to a degree that often cannot fail to be internationally disastrous. Foreign countries cannot send in the imports that lie on their wharves for the belligerent country, nor can they get out of it the exports they need for their own maintenance or luxury. Moreover, all the foreign money invested in the belligerent country is depreciated and imperilled. The international voice of trade and finance is, therefore, to-day mainly on the side of peace.
It must be added that this voice is not, as it might seem, a selfish voice only. It is justifiable not only in immediate international interests, but even in the ultimate interests of the belligerent country, and not less so if that country should prove victorious. So far as business and money are concerned, a country gains nothing by a successful war, even though that war involves the acquisition of immense new provinces; after a great war a conquered country may possess more financial stability than its conqueror, and both may stand lower in this respect than some other country which is internationally guaranteed against war.
Such points as these have of late been ably argued by Norman Angell in his remarkable book, The Great Illusion, and for the most part convincingly illustrated.
As was long since said, the ancients cried, Væ victis! We have learnt to cry, Væ victoribus!
It may, indeed, be added that the general tendency of war—putting aside peoples altogether lacking in stamina—is to moralize the conquered and