They come as near the rule of Live and Let Live as any national establishment well can and still remain a national establishment actuated by notions of competitive self-help. But all the while the national administration runs along, with nothing better to show to any impartial scrutiny than a considerable fiscal burden and a moderate volume of hindrance to the country's industry, together with some incidental benefit to the vested interests and the kept classes at the cost of the underlying community. These Scandinavians occupy a peculiar position in the industrial world.
They are each and several too small to make up anything like a self-contained industrial community, even under the most unreserved pressure of national exclusiveness. Their industries necessarily are part and parcel of the industrial system at large, with which they are bound in relations of give and take at every point. Yet they are content to carry a customs tariff of fairly grotesque dimensions and a national consular service of more grotesque dimensions still. This situation is heightened by their relatively sterile soil, their somewhat special and narrow range of natural resources, and their high latitude, which precludes any home growth of many of the indispensable materials of industry under the new order. Yet they are content to carry their customs tariff, their special commercial treaties, and their consular service -- for the benefit of their vested interests.
It should seem that this elaborate superfluity of national outlay and obstruction should work great hardship to the underlying community whose industry is called on to carry this burden of lag, leak, and friction. And doubtless the burden is sufficiently real. It amounts, of course, to the nation's working at cross-purposes with itself, for the benefit of those special interests that stand to gain a little something by it all. But in this as in other works of sabotage there are compensating effects, and these should not be overlooked; particularly since the case is fairly typical of what commonly happens. The waste and sabotage of the national establishment and its obstructive policy works no intolerable hardship, because it all runs its course and eats its fill within that margin of sabotage and wasteful consumption that would have to be taken care of by some other agency in the absence of this one. That is to say, something like the same volume of sabotage and waste is indispensable to the prosperity of business under the conditions of the new order, so long as business and industry are managed under the conditions imposed by the price system. By one means or another prices must be maintained at a profitable level for reasons of business; therefore the output must be restricted to a reasonable rate and volume, and wasteful consumption must be provided for, on pain of a failing market. And all this may as well be taken care of by use of a princely court, an otiose church, a picturesque army, a well-fed diplomatic and consular service, and a customs frontier. In the absence of all this national apparatus of sabotage substantially the same results would have to be got at by the less seemly means of a furtive conspiracy in restraint of trade among the vested interests.
There is always something to be said for the national integrity.
The case of these Scandinavian nations, taken in connection and comparison with what is to be seen elsewhere, appears to say that a national establishment which has no pretensions to power and no imperialistic ambitions is preferable, in point of economy and peaceable behavior, to an establishment which carries these attributes of self-determination and self-help. The more nearly the national integrity and self-determination approaches to make believe the less mischief is it likely to work at home and the more nearly will it be compatible with the rule of Live and Let Live in dealing with its neighbors. And the further implication is plain without argument, that the most beneficent change that can conceivably overtake any national establishment would be to let it fall into "innocuous desuetude." Apparently, the less of it the better, with no apparent limit short of the vanishing point.
Such appears to be the object-lesson enforced by recent and current events, in so far as concerns the material fortunes of the underlying community at large as well as the keeping of the peace. But it does not therefore follow that all men and classes will have the same interest in so neutralising the nation's powers and disallowing the national pretensions. The existing nations are not of a homogeneous make-up within themselves --
