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is responsible for it? Surely no one individual; nor does one find any diabolical plot on the part of: the capitalists to bring about this frightful death roll. The havoc being worked is incidental to the system of the private ownership of the means that mankind is dependent upon for its existence. And this guilty monster is the system of capitalism, whose very life depends upon its carnivorous, cannibalistic nature, It has encircled the globe and fastened its poisonous claws deep into the very vitals of Mother Earth. Wherever it touches blank desolation and misery prevail. It devours millions of beings and is particularly fond of Httle children because of their cheapness. Its appetite can never be appeased; the longer it lives the more hideous, destructive and ferocious the monster becomes.
The industrial system of modern capitalism had scarcely touched China yet; but the havoc wrought through the opium traffic was considerably more destructive to the people of China than up-to-date capitalism has proven to be to such countries as it has fastened itself upon.
It took the Christian opium merchants more than a century to weaken and debauch the oldest nation on earth.
While the capitalist system has in some countries been in existence for a longer period, it has not as yet brought about such dire results. Capitalism has the whole earth as a field of operation. It is highly developed in Germany, England, Italy, France, Austria, Japan and the United States, and preparations are just being made for its entrance into South America and Russia, while in China it is now making its initial bow. India and Egypt are hopelessly in the rear.
While the competitive system has been abolished, in so far as most nations are concerned, there is active competition between nations for the world markets. Each nation strives to monopolize its own home market and unload its surplus abroad. The capitalists of the United States have erected a tariff wall with which to bar out foreign competition, and spend over two hundred million dollars annually for an army and navy whose principal functions are to find a market to unload the surplus goods upon, and once the market is secured, to hold it no matter what the cost to human life. It is estimated that war and preparations for war cost the nations of the earth, called civilized, one-fifth of their total product of wealth.
The expenditure for military and naval purposes of
