I am forced by these contrasts to the question: “Suppose America patches up a fairly stable peace with Japan; lets Japan accumulate in Manchuria, Siberia, and finally China; cuts her naval expenditure to nothing, and allows the rest of the world, including the old English-speaking home, to slide and go over into the abyss—apart from the moral loss, will she suffer very greatly?” That is a very interesting speculation. I think she may adjust herself to a self-contained system and, in a sense, pull through. It may involve some very severe stresses. At present she grows more food than she can eat or waste; she exports foodstuffs. The American farmer sells so much of his produce for export, not a very great percentage, but enough to form an important item in his affairs. Given a Europe and Asia too impoverished and broken up to import food stuffs, that trade goes. The American farmer will have to sell to a shrunken demand; he will have either to shrink himself or undersell his fellow farmer. This will mean bad times for the American farmer as Europe sinks; farmers will be unable to buy as freely as usual; many agriculturists will be going out of business. Firms like Ford will be embarrassed by overproduction. American manufacturers are also, to a very marked but not overwhelming extent exporters and much of their internal trade is to the farmers—whose purchasing power will be diminishing. Bad times for the industrial regions also will follow the European disaster, perhaps even very bad times. New York and the Eastern cities, so far as the overseas traffic goes, may suffer exceptionally. For them there may be less power of recovery, for with the fall of Europe into barbarism, the centre of American interests will shift to the interior. But after a series of crises, a lot of business failures and so on, I do not see why the United States—if there is no war with Japan—very little reduced from the large splendor of its present habits, should not still be getting along in a fashion. America is not tied up to the European system, to live and die with it, as France or Britain is tied. And there is a limit also to the areas of the Old World affected by the collapse of the cash and credit system in Europe. Outside the European seacoast towns, Asia Minor is not likely to go much lower than it is at present, though most of Europe sink to the level of the Balkans and Asia Minor. The dissolution of Asia Minor resulted from the great wars of the Eastern Empire and Persia; all that land was ruined country before the days of Islam. It has never recovered and Europe may never recover.