to democracy which might arrive in this country if the Press and other instruments of propaganda were used to announce an attack upon the sacred rights of property.
While it may be true that capitalism as a whole cannot in the long run gain by expenditure on armaments and territorial conquests, this consideration does not dispose of the facts that certain well-organised and politically influential industries gain for a short run by this spirited foreign policy, and that few business men concern themselves with “the long run” or the interests of capitalism as a whole. To “stay giddy minds with foreign quarrels” has long been a recognised expedient for threatened home despots, and a certain admixture of plausible economic incentives is found useful in order to turn the emotions of a confused popular mind away from dangerous attacks on property.
