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THE RIVALRY OF EMPIRES
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be exchanged. Both, therefore, can claim to be in harmony with the dominant tendency of thought in the nineteenth century as expressed by Darwin. They differ only in the unit of competition. In Political Economy that unit is the individual or firm; in National Economy it tends to become the State among States. This was the fact appreciated by List, the founder of German National Economy, under whose impulse the Prussian Zollverein or Customs Union was broadened until it included most of Germany. The British Political Economists welcomed the Zollverein, regarding it as an instalment of their own Free Trade. In truth, by removing competition in greater or less degree to the outside, National Economy aimed at substituting for the competition of mere men that of great national organisations. In a word, the National Economists thought dynamically, but the Political Economists in the main statically.

This contrast of thinking between Kultur and Democracy was not at first of great practical significance. In the fifties and sixties of last century the Germans were at their wars. The British Manufacturer was top dog, and, as Bismarck once said. Free Trade is the policy of the strong. It was not until 1878, the date of the first scientific