INTRODUCTION 
to retain their hold on the important and growing markets of South 
America. 
38. An inevitable feature of war, especially war on a gigantic scale 
like that of 1914-18, is the extension of government control of industry, 
and even the direct participation of the government in industry, How 
much of that is to remain in this country after the war is still uncertain. 
On the one hand, it has to be kept in mind that such success as was 
achieved by the government in industry during the war was secured 
at the expense of the tax-payer, whereas industry must be able normally 
not merely to maintain itself by its own produce, but also to provide 
for its own growth. On the other hand, one cannot forget that for 
a long time the tendency in many parts of the world, and above all 
perhaps in some of the self-governing dominions of the British Empire, 
has been towards a great extension of the share taken by the state in 
industries of various kinds. In most of the colonies the railways 
belong to the state ; and indeed the private ownership of railways, as 
in the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Argentine Republic, 
is now rather exceptional. The Canadian government is an owner 
also of elevators and steamships, and ships for trading purposes are 
owned by other governments. The Queensland government carries 
on the business of timber-milling, trawling, insurance, cattle-rearing, 
and even keeps retail butcher shops. The constitution of the new 
German republic gives to the state not only the railways, bub also 
the lignite and electrical industries. Our own government still hangs 
back for the most part from direct participation in trade and industry. 
Still it has been a large proprietor of shares in the Suez Canal since 1875, 
and during the war it became a partner in the Anglo-Persian Oil Co., 
and gave financial support to companies engaged in the manufacture 
of dye-stuffs (608). 
39. Several of these means of retaining and promoting commerce 
remind us forcibly of the closeness of the bonds with which commerce 
is steadily drawing different countries together, and of the complicated 
action and reaction between different parts of the world to which com- 
merce gives rise. The improvement of machinery, of processes of 
production, of means of communication, the better organisation of 
industry, the advancement of education in one country, demand similar 
advances in other countries. New wheatfields in America necessitate 
improved systems of agriculture and the advancement of agricultural 
education in England, the introduction of better agricultural machinery 
into Russia. The perfecting of the processes in the refining of beet- 
sugar in Germany demands better organisation among the cane-planters 
of the West Indies and Guiana. The working classes more and more 
clearly recognise that any advantage secured for themselves in one 
country must be extended also to other countries. The United States 
consul for Dundee in his report for 1885 states that the longer hours 
worked in the Calcutta jute-mills were believed to be the determining 
cause of the depression in the jute industry of Dundee, arising from 
(4