Expenditures of the Russo-Japanese war / by Gotaro Ogawa.

vi

NOTE BY THE DIRECTOR

state to encroach on the rights of others, we may say that it
doubtless was inevitable. The victory of the defending
countries has saved them from an immediate and intolerable
domination, but it can not be taken as an assured fact that
similar attempts will never again be made. The economic
inducement continues and the means may at some time be
forthcoming.
War has both centralized and somewhat democratized industry within the several states-a change that if continued
will entail momentous consequences; but still greater effects
have been produced on the relations of states to each other.
The world as a whole has changed more than its component
parts and the new relation of the parts to one another is the
critical element in the situation. The great increase in the
economic functions of governments is one cause of this condition. Within the great international community in which
the several states are units extensive economic functions
have gravitated into the hands of governments and caused
them to face each other as business rivals and to deal with
each other in a multitude of ways in which the merely selfseeking policy of private business is intolerable. Power to
invoke principles of justice and international law as interpreted by a competent court has become an indispensable
means of allaying strife and this fact exalts to supreme
importance the high court of nations which has just been
established. It magnifies also the importance of the economic facts and principles with which the law itself will
have to deal. It is not merely individual men or private
corporations who now meet each other in the rough and
tumble of a world-wide mart but states themselves, each
representing its own population and seeking to foster its
interests as a zealous and faithful agent The chances of
friction that are inherent in ordinary commerce inhere today
in vast international transactions and will increase in the
measure in which the intercourse grows. All this means a
great increase in incentives to warfare, on the one hand, and
in the motives for preventing it, on the other. Private com