This survival is given strength by class inter-
ests, pride of race, and by the manipulations of
plutocratic control. Where affairs are handled
by a narrow circle of men, no matter how high-
minded and how thoroughly conscious of their
public responsibility, yet with the necessary limi-
tations of the human mind, they cannot but be
influenced at every turn by the opinions of others
with whom they are actually in contact; so that
in decisions on these momentous matters, the
thing which is concretely present is very often
an interest comparatively narrow in itself, and
related to the public welfare only by a series of
remote inferences which are accepted at their face
value. The most successful statesman of the
nineteenth century said that the whole Balkan
question was not worth the bones of one Pom-
eranian grenadier; yet his successors in power
risked the very existence of the nations of Europe
for one phase of that question.
Powerful interests will always have means, for- mal or informal, to lay their needs and desires before the men in power. They may indeed be very important and may deserve special atten- tion, but unfortunately, many cases have hap- pened in which their point of view has been adopted without making sure that there existed a
