Evening star., 1937-10-11
Stupidity Perils World
Strongest Nations of Future Will Be Those Who
Press Scientific Research to Utmost

empire that such Is the case. Nowhere
in the commonwealth does England
enjoy monopoly OF exploitation or
OF the market. Japan undersells
England in the markets Of India all
the time. What England has from
her colonies she has to buy Just as
anybody else must.
And is it not clear that what con-
stitutes not having depends entirely
upon what one demands for ones self?
There is no absolute scarcity Of raw
materials anywhere. There Is only
relative scarcity. II, for instance, Ger
many spends $l2,00O,000.OO0 in three
years on ornaments, as she is esti-
mated to have done in the last three
years, she will suffer a shortage which
she would not suffer If she were using
her available foreign currency to buy
food and materials for houses, to raise
the standard of living of her popula-
ton. II Italy is to engage in perennial
wars OF conquest. or set out to put
down communism-or the threat Of
it-wherever she thinks it may be ap-
pearing in the world. she will need
more raw materials than are essen-
tial to the maintenance of her people
at very decent level.
And, according to this argument,
certain states like Switzerland and
Denmark ought to be starving to death,
their populations reduced to the level
of coolies. Instead, these have-not
nations enjoy an exceptionally high
standard of both culture and life.
Riches Depend on Science.
The world is not growing poorer.
1t is growing richer-or would be II
science and invention were allowed
to flourish, and their fruits more uni
versally shared, without political in
terventions in the form OF exclusive
tariffs, monopolies and the diversion
OF huge percentage OF wealth into
the productive business OF arma-
ments. Germany is not poorer than
she was in 1914. She Is. essentially.
richer. The cheap process of extract
ing nitrates from air has prodipiouslv
increased the fertility Of her soil. while
nlochemistry has made it possible for
her 10 grow, economically, foods that
a generation ago could only be pro-
duced at huge cost. Germany TODAY
can actually feed her own population
on her own land, If absolutely neces-
sary, and this despite the fact that
she has less land than in 1914 And
tomorrow chemistry will no doubt have
MADE such strides that soil is hardly
essential to the growing Of foods.
Coal Is being transformed int. oil:
acetylene gas into plastic substitutes
for wood: all sorts of fibers into silk
industry is being divorced from de-
pendency upon steam, and therefore
from dependence upon either coal or
oil. Electric light, which Yesterday
demanded tungsten, to be found in only
a few spots in the world. can be con-
veyed today by neon gas, which is an
lnexhaustible element OF air. The
richest nations tomorrow will not he
the ones with the farthest scattered
empires to defend. They will be
those countries with the greatest
scientists, the most brains, the most
PNPuidtAO1io hIlu tne most
eIncient social organization.
Stupidity Greatest Dancer.
The have-not argument is sillv and
reactionary. No part of the world
today is in danger Of collapse from
poverty. We are in danger Of collapse
from stupidity and villainy-from war.
According to a recent report of the
agricultural attache Of the American
Embassy in Berlin, the German gov
ernment has taken more land out of
cultivation for flying fields. parade
grounds and military roads than it has
put into cultivation by swamp drainage
and other conservation measures
What Italy has already spent in
Ethiopia would make Sicily one biz
garden. At time when world science
ought to be collaborating for the
prosperity Of every one, even that
world is breaking up into theological
camps, with Communist science, NaN
science and Fascist science, dedicated
not to the human spirit, but to theo-
logical doctrines.
Copyright, 1879