The remedy is so simple that only a very clever man could sophisticate himself into missing it, and it is as old as Cobden. It is not necessary to establish universal free trade to stop the rivalry to monopolize colonial markets; it would suffice to declare free trade in the colonies, or even in those which are not self-governing. To deal with the evil of “concessions” all that is required is a general understanding that financiers must win their own way, by merit or push or bribes, and that the doors of the embassies will be banged in their faces when they seek support. These sentences are easily written, but they would involve the democratization of diplomacy everywhere, the overthrow of the colonial group in France, and the confounding of the national economists in Germany. The force which might work such miracles is nowhere mobilized, for, with all their will to peace, the democracies nowhere understand the bearings of these colonial and commercial issues on war and armaments. It requires some imagination to understand that when two embassies compete in Peking for a railway concession, the issue may be determined by the balance of naval power in the North Sea. It requires some habit of observation to realize that because this may happen in Peking, the investing and governing classes are bound to keep up the balance in the North Sea. The nexus is none the less simple and clear, and it will hold as long as diplomacy continues to engage in this disguised imperial trading, so long as capital possesses nationality and regards the flag as an asset. There are none the less ways of escape which are neither Utopian nor heroic. It ought not to be utterly beyond the statesmanship of Europe to decree some limited form of colonial free trade by general agreement—to apply it, for example, to Africa. France would oppose it, but what if Alsace were to be restored on this condition? To open a great colonial market to Hamburg, while ending the dream of _revanche_, would be to remove the two chief causes of war in western Europe. American statesmanship may ere long have the power to propose such a bargain as this. For the plague of concession-hunting the best expedient would probably be to impose on all the competing national groups in each area the duty of amalgamating in a permanently international syndicate. If one such syndicate controlled all the railways and another all the mines of China and Turkey, a vast cause of national rivalry would be removed. The interests of China and Turkey might be secured by interposing a disinterested council or arbitrator between them and the syndicate to adjust their respective interests. Short of creating a world state or a European federation, the chief constructive work for peace is to establish colonial free trade and internationalize the export of capital. _H. N. Brailsford, “Trade as a Cause of War,” The New Republic, May 8, 1915._