But we shall not understand the attraction which this naked immoralism in international affairs exercises over the minds of many who are not otherwise ignoble, if we do not remember that the repudiation of the Christian ethical standard has been equally thorough in commercial competition. The German officer believes himself to have chosen a morally nobler profession than that of the business-man; he serves (he thinks) a larger cause, and he is content with much less personal reward. Socialist assailants of our industrial system, much as they dislike war, would probably agree with him. It is not necessary to condemn all competition. The desire to excel others is not reprehensible, when the rivalry is in rendering useful social service. But it cannot be denied that the present condition of industry is such that a heavy premium is offered to mere cupidity; that the fraternal social life which Christianity enjoins is often literally impossible, except at the cost of economic suicide; and that in a competitive system a business man is, by the very force of circumstances, a warrior, though war is an enemy of love and destructive of Christian society. When the object of bargaining is to give as little and gain as much as possible, the Christian standard of values has been rejected as completely as it was by Machiavelli himself. The competition between two parties to a bargain is often a competition in unserviceableness. Money is very frequently made by creating a local and temporary monopoly, which enables the vendor to squeeze the purchaser. In all such transactions one man's gain is another man's loss. This state of things, the evils of which are almost universally recognised and deplored, marks the end of the glorification of productive industry which was one result of the Reformation.