Germany claims to be hemmed in by a ring of steel, and needs the facilities of Antwerp and Rotterdam for her Rhine Valley commerce, security against being shut out from the East by commercial restrictions on the overland route, and freedom of the seas for her foreign commerce. England must receive uninterrupted supplies of food and raw materials, and her oversea communications must be maintained. This is true also of France, Germany, Belgium, and other European countries. Japan, like Germany, must have opportunity for her expanding population, industries, and commerce. The foreign policies of the nations still at peace are also determined by trade relations. Our own country desires the open door in the East. South and North American States and Scandinavia are already protesting against the war’s interference with their ocean trade. All nations that are not in possession of satisfactory harbors on the sea demand outlets, and cannot and ought not to be contented till they get them. Nations desiring to extend their colonial enterprises entertain those ambitions for commercial reasons, either to possess markets from which they cannot be excluded, or to develop such markets for themselves and be able to exclude others from them when they so determine. [Sidenote: Desire for commercial privilege is the primary cause of war.] The generalization from these statements of fact is expressed in the formula, “The desire for commercial privilege and for freedom from commercial restraint is the primary cause of war.” Now, that the foreign policies of nations are, in fact, determined mainly by these commercial and financial considerations, and that the desire to secure economic privilege and to escape economic restraints is a chief cause of war, are indisputable propositions. So long as these motives are left free to work in the future as in the past there will be constant friction among the commercially developed nations, giving rise to dangerous quarrels that will strain, perhaps to the breaking-point, any arrangements for arbitration that may be made.... [Sidenote: International trade is restricted.]