Here we get the key also to the difference between the respective histories of the military empires, like Spain, France, and Portugal, and the more industrial type, like England, which has been touched upon in the preceding chapter. Not the mere hazard of war, not a question of mere efficiency in the employment of force, has given to Great Britain influence in half a world, and taken it from Spain, but a radical, fundamental difference in underlying principles however imperfectly realized. England's exercise of force has approximated on the whole to the rôle of police; Spain's to that of the diplomats of the supposititious Power just referred to. England's has made for co-operation; Spain's for the embarrassment of co-operation. England's has been in keeping with the real law of man's struggle; Spain's in keeping with the sham law which the "blood and iron" empiricists are forever throwing at our heads. For what has happened to all attempts to live on extorted tribute? They have all failed--failed miserably and utterly[89]--to such an extent that to-day the exaction of tribute has become an economic impossibility. If, however, our supposititious diplomats, instead of asking for tribute, had said: "Your country is in disorder; your police-force is insufficient; our merchants are robbed and killed; we will lend you police and help you to maintain order; you will pay the police their just wage, and that is all;" and had honestly kept to this office, their exercise of force would have aided human co-operation, not checked it. Again, it would have been a struggle, not against man, but against the use of force; the "predominant Power" would have been living, not on other men, but by more efficient organization of man's fight with nature. That is why, in the first section of this book, I have laid emphasis on the truth that the justification of past wars has no bearing on the problem which confronts us: the precise degree of fighting which was necessary a hundred and fifty years ago is a somewhat academic problem. The degree of fighting which is necessary to-day is the problem which confronts us, and a great many factors have been introduced into it since England won India and lost part of North America. The face of the world has changed, and the factors of conflict have changed radically: to ignore that is to ignore facts and to be guided by the worst form of theorizing and sentimentalism--the theorizing that will not recognize the facts. England does not need to maintain order in Germany, nor Germany in France; and the struggle between those nations is no part of man's struggle with nature--has no justification in the real law of human struggle; it is an anachronism; it finds its justification in a sham philosophy that will not bear the test of facts, and, responding to no real need and achieving no real purpose, is bound with increasing enlightenment to come to an end.