For in each great nation of the world the same great choice, the same great struggle of contending principles and policies, is taking place. National self-dependence or internationalism--that is everywhere the issue. It is true that in no European country can that issue be so sharply presented as in America. For economic self-sufficiency in a full sense and, therefore, political isolation, is not possible for any European state. Even a peaceful and reviving Russia must lean upon her more advanced neighbors for the economic essentials of capital and organizing skill. But the several nations can strive to reduce their interdependence and their national aid to the narrowest dimensions, and where they cannot free themselves from extraneous alliances they can restrict the area of economic dependence within a chosen circle. Britain, for example, could set her policy closely and consistently to make her world-wide empire into a self-sufficing system, and if, as is likely, she learned that even the diversified fifth of the entire globe which owns allegiance to her Crown could not satisfy all her wants, she could eke out this inadequacy with some carefully selected and purchased friendships. This harking back to an economic nationalism is a natural reaction of the war, and is fed by a dangerous and precarious peace. Fear, greed, and suspicion prompt the victorious nations to guard their gains by reverting to a close nationalism or a ringed alliance; humiliation, without humility, the bitter pain of thwarted ambitions, resentment at their punishment, dispose the vanquished nations to keep their own company and form if possible, an economic system of their own. A prolonged war, followed by a bad peace, may leave this indelible scar upon the growing economic internationalism of the world. The richly nourished patriotism of war breeds divisions and antagonisms which are easily exploited afterwards by political, racial, religious, and cultural passions, but most of all by economic interests. Before the war internationalism was visibly advancing with every fresh decade. The bonds of commercial and financial intercourse between the peoples of different countries were continually woven closer; the policy of self-sufficiency was continually giving way before the superior economy of specialization on a basis of natural or acquired advantages. Any reversal of this policy would be far costlier than may at present appear, even for those countries best qualified by size and resources to stand alone.