the workshop of the world. Steeped in materialism of moneymaking, saturated in a philosophy that idealised success and justified trampling on the poor, the master manufacturers of the first half of the nineteenth century had many points of agreement, in economics and morals, with the militarist in our own time. The other nations were still at hand labour, while England by the aid of her machines decreased the cost of production, and undersold the world. Just as it is impossible or an Alexander to remain in the forefront for ever, or emerge unscathed from the struggle with his fellows, so must a nation meet the day when its supremacy is challenged. Other nations, prolific, industrious, reached that point in social development when they, too, had a surplus product to market abroad. America and Germany challenged the economic hegemony of Great Britain. One by one, all civilised nations entered the field of capitalist production, passed through the same process as Britain and emerged with a surplus product to sell. Henceforward, international politics and facilities for trade were synonymous terms.
THE SURPLUS PRODUCT CHANGES.
With the growth of the surplus product its constituent elements change. At the beginning of the capitalist era Britain exported woollen goods. At the hey-day of her economic supremacy her exports were mainly cotton goods. Then machines, tools, and the smaller implements of production; and lastly, iron and steel in the magnitude required for great works of construction and manufacture, become the major elements in the exports of highly developed capitalist countries. At first the exporting nations clothe and feed their customers; then they supply their customers with the means of production required to clothe and feed themselves. The impossibility of permanence in the capitalist market is revealed by the contradiction that in satisfying the market abroad, the exporting nation, ultimately destroys the demand for its own products. The surplus product accumulates, and the industrial capitalists of all countries are compelled to sell or be ruined. New markets must be created, and it so happens that the products most profitably produced on a great scale, are the very commodities required for the development of backward countries in Asia and Africa. Steel and iron take the place of wool and cotton as leading voices in the chorus of exporting capitalism. But before railways,
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