cut out of American consumption or have been displaced, temporarily, at any rate, by home products. For several generations the main dependence of America upon Europe and particularly upon Britain was for capital to supplement home savings that she might make use of the stream of immigrant labor in the development of her great continent. This dependence upon European capital, of greatly diminishing importance during the last three decades has, of course, now been reversed, and the principal European countries are heavy debtors to the United States.

One other important economic lesson war experience has taught, viz., the vast capacity for increased productivity which every industrial nation possesses, and America especially, in better organization and fuller utilization of natural and human resources. It is evident that, far from the age of great inventions and of mechanical development drawing to a close, we are in the actual process of reaching new discoveries in wealth production, which will make the most famous advances of the nineteenth century mean by comparison. But without drawing upon a speculative future, a better and more systematic application of the knowledge which has been already tested—enlarged production, elimination of waste, and improved business methods—is clearly capable of doubling or trebling the output of material wealth without involving any excessive strain upon human effort.

Here, as in other ways, America stands in a place of unique vantage by reason of the magnitude and variety of her national resources, and the vigor and enterprise of her people.

It is evident that, if any country can afford to stand alone in full economic self-sufficiency, that country is America. It is feasible for America to contract within very narrow limits her commercial and political relations with the rest of the world, or, if she chooses, to confine her commercial and financial relations to this continent, leaving the old world to get on by itself as well as it can. This view is, indeed, conformable with the main tradition of American history up to the close of the last century. Even the Spanish war, with its sequel of imperialism, was but a slight and reparable breach in this tradition. The world war seems at first sight to have plunged America deeper into the European trough. But even this more serious committal is not irretrievable. She can step back to the doctrine and policy of 'America for Americans' and refuse any organic contact with a troublesome, a quarrelsome and, as it seems, a ruined Europe. America's economic status in Europe is not such as to preclude her taking this course. I may be reminded that the indebtedness of Europe to America is a solid economic bond, for it cannot be presumed that America would pursue the policy of liberalism so far as to cancel this debt. But, large as is this credit, it need not constitute a strong or a lasting bond of commerce, compelling America to receive such large imports of goods from Europe as materially to impair her self-sufficiency. A large and increasing part of the interest and capital of this indebtedness would be defrayed by the expenditure of American travellers and residents in Europe, while the importation of objects of art and luxury would not interfere appreciably with the policy of economic nationalism. If America decides to go no further in this business, it will not be too late to draw out.

The choice before her is momentous. So far I have presented it as an economic problem. It is also quite evidently a political and moral problem of the first significance, for economic national self-sufficiency is a phase of political independence. But business and politics alike belong to the wider art of human conduct; and the choice before America is primarily a moral choice.

By saying this I do not wish to appear to prejudge the issue. I have always felt that a stronger case could be made for the political and economic isolation of America than for that of any other country, partly because, as I have said, she has within her political domain all the resources of national well-being; partly, also, because it is of supreme importance that the great experiment of democracy should not be unduly hampered by excessive inpourings of ill-assimilable foreign blood, and by dangerous contacts with obsolete or inapplicable European institutions. As an economist, steeped in the principles of Cobden and his British school of liberals, my predilections (prejudices if you will) have always been in favor of the freest possible movement, alike of trade and persons, and against fiscal protection and immigrant restrictions. But, when confronted with the special situation of America, I have recognized that a reasoned argument could be addressed to prove that the economy of national security and progress for this country lay along the lines of political, economic and defensive self-containedness. I am convinced that many must be led to support this policy, not on grounds of selfishness, because they desire to conserve for America alone her great opportunities, and not mainly from fear, lest America should be embroiled again in the dangerous quarrels of distant European nations, but because they are animated by that pure desire, which has inspired so many generations of high-minded Americans, that American democracy should grow to its full stature by its own unaided efforts and save the world by its example.

I wish to give due respect to the sincerity of this conviction the more because I wish to lay before you some grounds for questioning its ultimate validity. It is no problem of abstract politics or ethics with which I here confront your minds, but one of concrete and immediate urgency. Distinctively economic in its substance, it brings right into the daylight the hitherto obscure issue of the duty of nations as members of an actual or potential society of nations. As a result of the destruction of war a large part of Europe lies today in economic ruin. By that I do not only, or chiefly, refer to the material havoc wrought by the direct operations of war in France, Belgium, Poland, Servia, and elsewhere. I mean the imminent starvation which this winter awaits large populations of those and other countries, both our allies and our late enemies, and the misery and anarchy arising from their utter inability to resume the ordinary processes of productive industry. It is not only food and clothing but raw materials, tools, machinery, transport, and fuel that are lacking over a large part of the European continent. If they are left to their own unaided resources, millions of these people, especially in Russia, Poland, Austria, and sections of the late Turkish Empire, will perish. They cannot feed themselves. The land remains, but large tracts of it have been untilled; large numbers of the peasantry have fallen in the war, or are wandering as disbanded soldiers, far from home; the women and the aged and the children, underfed and broken in health and spirit, are utterly unequal to the task of growing the food for their livelihood. The factories and workshops are idle or are ill-equipped, for materials, tools, and fuel are everywhere lacking; unemployment holds large industrial populations in destitution and despair. Even where plant and materials are present, the physical strength of the workers is so let down that efficient productivity is impossible. Even in countries that are not war-broken, the blockade, and the long stoppage of normal commerce, have caused great scarcity of many important foods and materials, and famine prices bring grievous suffering to the poorer classes. Britain alone among the belligerent countries is not in immediate distress, but only because she has had larger outside resources and larger borrowing powers on which to draw. Even the few neutral nations which are said to have profited by war are severely crippled by the lack of some essentials of their economic life.

All in different degrees are economic victims of the havoc and the waste of war. It is not Central Europe only, together with large parts of the Balkans, of