ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART

38

Argentine owing an annual sum to suchcountries as England . But the system isfragile; and it has only survived because itsburden on the paying countries has not so farbeen oppressive, because this burden is repre-sented by real assets and is bound up with theproperty system generally, and because thesums already lent are not unduly large inrelation to those which it is still hoped toborrow. Bankers are used to this system, andbelieve it to be a necessary part of the per-manent order of society. They are disposedto believe, therefore, by analogy with it, that acomparable system between Governments, on afar vaster and definitely oppressive scale, repre-sented by no real assets, and less closely associ-ated with the property system, is natural andreasonable and in conformity with humannature.

I doubt this view of the world. Even capital-ism at home, which engages many local sym-pathies, which plays a real part in the dailyprocess of production, and upon the security ofwhich the present organisation of Society largelydepends, is not very safe. But however thismay be, will the discontented peoples of Europe be willing for a generation to come so to ordertheir lives that an appreciable part of their dailyproduce may be available to meet a foreignpayment, the reason of which, whether as be-tween Europe and America, or as between Ger-many and the rest of Europe , does not springcompellingly from their sense of justice or duty?