Viewed in the light of abstract logic, it seems the quaintest of paradoxes that the very act of production of the comforts and necessities of life can be considered, under any circumstances, a hostile one. Viewed in the light of the actual living facts of the day, it is one of the clearest of truths that a nation and a race may be attacked and dragged down through its industries, and that national greatness is lost and won in destructive competition in the workshops of the world. That industry itself may be turned to bad account is another proof that an age, in which there is much talk of peace, is still governed in the main by the ideas of warfare. The other day, to Dr Hall Edwards, known as the "X-ray Martyr," a grateful nation gave a pension of £120 a year after he had had his second hand amputated. He had given practically his life ("for you do take my life when you take the means whereby I live") to Humanity. As truly as any martyr who died for a religious idea or a political principle, or for the rescue of another in danger, he had earned the blessing decreed to whomsoever gives up his life for his brother. And he was awarded a pension of £120 a year to comfort the remainder of his maimed existence! At the same time that Dr Hall Edwards was awarded his pension, an engineer thought he had discovered a new principle in ballistics. His bold and daring mind soared above the puny guns by which a man can hardly dare to hope to kill a score of other men at a distance of five miles. He dreamed of an electric catapult which "could fire shells at the rate of thousands per minute from London to Paris, and even further." The invention would have raised the potential homicidal power of man a thousandfold. And the inventor asked--and, without a doubt, if he had proved his weapon to be what he said, would have got--£1,000,000. The invention did not justify at the time the claims made on its behalf. But a new method of destruction which did, could command its million pounds with certainty from almost any civilised government in the world. In industry also the greatest fortunes await those who can extend their markets by destroying the markets of their rivals, and nations aim at increasing their prosperity by driving other nations out of a home or a neutral market. There is thus a definitely destructive side to the work of production; and some foresee in the future an Asiatic victory over the White Races, not effected directly by force of arms but by destructive industrial competition which would sap away the foundations of White power. How far that danger is real and how far illusory is a matter worthy of examination.