The problem of bringing groups under some kind of ethical control is not new in history. It has become unusually difficult in the modern world not only because of the consolidation of the authority of the state but also because rapid means of communication have increased the size of social, political and economic units and made relations between them more intricate. The larger the unit the more unqualified seems to be the moral sanction which loyalty to it may claim. To an average citizen, immersed in his parochial interests, the nation appears in the light of a universal community in contrast to the smaller and voluntary communities within the nation. Yet this same nation is one of many human groups, most of which betray imperial desires reminiscent of Rome but which aspire in vain after the universal dominion which gave Roman imperialism a measure of moral worth. Treitschke, whose philosophy of history was the object of so much opprobrium during the World War that its faithfulness to the general prejudices of Western life would hardly be surmised, presented the nation as the ultimate community because all smaller societies are too petty to deserve and all larger ones too vague and abstract to claim the unqualified allegiance of men. The intricacies and propinquities of an industrial civilization tend at some points to increase the imperial desires of nations and at others to make their ordinary lusts more deadly. The feud between Germany and France is a very ancient one, but the need of French industry for German coal and of German industry for French iron explains some aspects of their present difficulties which are not derived from ancient animosities. Modern industry needs a unified world and, lacking it, each nation is inclined to seek the completion of its industrial establishment by the forcible appropriation of territory, rich in needed resources. The economic imperialism of industrially advanced nations is a product of the high productivity of modern industry which produces more than one national unit can consume and which needs more raw materials than the same nation can produce. Covetous eyes are consequently turned upon undeveloped portions of the globe, rich in raw materials and hungry for the products of modern industry. In one sense the European war was incubated in Africa. Rapid means of communication also extend the reach of the grasping nations. China is attempting to throw off the shackles of a Western imperialism which could never have gained the position it holds on Chinese soil but for the new contiguity which has destroyed the boundaries between East and West. Moreover, the intricacies of international commerce and finance offer opportunities for a new kind of economic imperialism which hardly needs, though it does not always avoid, the use of political force. The economic forces of one nation simply penetrate the economic life of another and, if there is a great disparity in economic power, the