The financial conditions, however, deserve study because they lead straight to the very heart of the modern bellicose tendencies. In an obvious and superficial sense, financial conditions represent the maximum in the provision of armaments, because ultimately it becomes a question of how much a nation can afford to spend without going bankrupt or being fatally hampered in its expenditure on necessary social reforms. This, however, is not perhaps the most significant point. Financial conditions act much more subtly than this. Why has it grown so imperative on states to have large armies or large navies, or both? Because--so we have been told over and over again--diplomacy cannot speak with effect unless it is backed by power. And what are the main occasions on which diplomacy has to speak effectively? We should be inclined to answer off-hand that it must possess this stentorian power when there is any question about national honour--when the country for whom it speaks is insulted or bullied, or defrauded of its just rights; when treaties are torn up and disregarded; when its plighted word has been given and another nation acts as though no such pledge had been made; when its territory is menaced with invasion and so forth. [15] As a matter of fact, the United States are opposed to the Capture at Sea principle. PROTECTION OF FINANCIERS But these justifiable occasions do not exhaust the whole field. Sometimes diplomacy is brought to bear on much more doubtful issues. It is used to support the concession-hunter, and to coerce a relatively powerless nation to grant concessions. It backs up a bank which has financed a company to build railroads or develop the internal resources of a country; or to exploit mines or oil-fields, or to do those thousand-and-one things which constitute what is called "peaceful penetration." Think of the recent dealings with Turkey,[16] and the international rivalry, always suspicious and inflammatory, which has practically divided up her Asiatic dominions between European States--so that Armenia is to belong to Russia, Syria to France, Arabia to Great Britain, and Anatolia and I know not what besides to Germany! Think of the competition for the carrying out of railways in Asia Minor and the constant friction as to which power has obtained, by fair means or foul, the greatest influence! Or let us remember the recent disputes as to the proper floating of a loan to China and the bickering about the Five-Power Group and the determination on the part of the last named that no one else should share the spoil! Or shall we transfer our attention to Mexico, where the severe struggle between the two rival Oil Companies--the Cowdray group and the American group--threw into the shade the quarrel between Huerta and Carranza? These are only a few instances taken at random to illustrate the dealings of modern finance. Relatively small harm would be done if financiers were allowed to fight out their own quarrels.