Then, in the next place, science has found uses for many commodities which were previously of little value, and many of which are mainly produced in the undeveloped regions of the earth.  Some of these, like rubber, or nitrates, or mineral and vegetable oils, have rapidly become quite indispensable materials, consumed by the industrial countries on an immense scale.  Accordingly, the more highly industrialised a country is, the more dependent it must be upon supplies drawn from all parts of the world; not only supplies of food for the maintenance of its teeming population, but, even more, supplies of material for its industries.  The days when Europe, or even America, was self-sufficient are gone for ever.  And in order that these essential supplies may be available, it has become necessary that all the regions which produce them should be brought under efficient administration.  The anarchy of primitive barbarism cannot be allowed to stand in the way of access to these vital necessities of the new world-economy.  It is merely futile for well-meaning sentimentalists to talk of the wickedness of invading the inalienable rights of the primitive occupants of these lands:  for good or for ill, the world has become a single economic unit, and its progress cannot be stopped out of consideration for the time-honoured usages of uncivilised and backward tribes.  Of course it is our duty to ensure that these simple folks are justly treated, led gently into civilisation, and protected from the iniquities of a mere ruthless exploitation, such as, in some regions, we have been compelled to witness.  But Western civilisation has seized the reins of the world, and it will not be denied.  Its economic needs drive it to undertake the organisation of the whole world.  What we have to secure is that its political principles shall be such as will ensure that its control will be a benefit to its subjects as well as to itself.  But the development of scientific industry has made European control and civilised administration inevitable throughout the world.

It did not, however, necessarily follow from these premises that the great European states which did not already possess extra-European territories were bound to acquire such lands.  So far as their purely economic needs were concerned, it would have been enough that they should have freedom of access, on equal terms with their neighbours, to the sources of the supplies they required.  It is quite possible, as events have shown, for a European state to attain very great success in the industrial sphere without possessing any political control over the lands from which its raw materials are drawn, or to which its finished products are sold.  Norway has created an immense shipping industry without owning a single port outside her own borders.  The manufactures of Switzerland are as thriving as these of any European country, though Switzerland does not possess any colonies.  Germany herself, the loudest advocate of the necessity