And war we have. In former times when there was war, men knew at least in what cause they were killing one another. Men fought in the quarrels of their kings. It was foolish, but then these kings could only enlist for such purposes a few thousand men. But why, nowadays, should we have whole peoples flying at each other's throats.
Kings count for nothing now in questions of war.
Similarly in the East. The rivalries of kings have been supplanted by the rivalries of bourgeois cliques. We should at least know whom we were killing for. The opening of new markets, the forcing of products, good and bad, upon the foreigner, is the principle underlying all the politics of the present day throughout our continent, and the real cause of the wars of the nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century England was the first nation to introduce the system of extensive production for export.