It  is  but  a  natural  consequence  that  the
progress  of  the  technical  means  of  communi-
cation lead  to  a  world's  commerce,  a  world's
market,  and  an  international  system  of
finance  and  banking.  I  have  already  given
too  many  dry  figures,  and  I  shall  refrain  from
tiring  the  reader  with  the  amounts  demon-
strating the  development  of  international
traffic  and  commerce;  its  rapid  progress  is
known  to  all  readers  of  newspapers.  An  ever-
growing number  of  articles  of  merchandise
find  their  prices  fixed  by  the  world's  market.
The  protective  tariff  itself,  according  to  the
conception  of  many  present-day  economists,
is  considered  no  longer  a  means  of  excluding
foreign  imports  from  a  country,  but  an


ABOLITION  OF  DISTANCE  33

agency  for  equalizing  the  local  prices  of
domestic  products  with  those  of  the  world's
market.  Capital  is  international.  Inter-
national combinations  of  capitalism  are  noth-
ing uncommon.  By  the  Sugar  Convention,
which  will  be  referred  to  further  on,  they
have  received,  so  to  speak,  official  sanction.
The  international  "Steel  Association,"
founded  in  1911,  by  which  the  steel  manu-
facturers of  seven  nations  came  to  an  agree-
ment as  to  the  distribution  of  their  markets
over  well-defined  territories,  is  a  world-
syndicate  of  vast  conception.
Similar  international  syndicates  exist,  or
are  about  to  be  formed,  in  connection  with
the  production  and  sale  of  cotton  thread,
iron  rails  for  railroads,  plate  glass,  copper,
saltpeter,  silk,  and  other  commodities.  We
may  also  mention  in  this  connection  the
International  Union  for  the  Settling  of  the
Price  of  Grain.  The  war  may  dissolve  some
or  all  of  them  for  the  time-being,  but  they
will  reappear.
