That such views of the relation of industry to war are in the main correct can hardly be doubted. Industrial relations create strains among nations, but when as a result of these strains war occurs it must be regarded as a disaster from the point of view of the industrial interests. Industry we say thrives upon the wealth that it creates. A war which destroys half the wealth of the world must be a calamity for all great industries except at the most a very few having peculiar relations to the activities of war.
But there is another aspect of the relations of industry to war. Industrialism as a great institution and movement of modern life becomes in itself a political power. Howe (100) says that with the end of Bismarck's wars personal wars and nationalistic wars came to an end. The old aristocracy of the land merged with the new aristocracy of wealth and this wealth has become the great political power in the world. But this is only a half truth. Industry has become a factor in the foreign relations of nations, and has become a power in politics, but the motives and powers we call political are exceedingly complex, and the interests of business, industry and finance are by no means the whole of or coincident with political interests. There are of course certain industries and financial interests which may even instigate wars, and some writers give them a high place among the causes of war. Especially the makers of munitions and armaments are credited with a baneful influence in the world. With their international understandings, their influence in legislative bodies, their control of newspapers, they are open to the charge of manipulating public sentiment, and bringing influence to bear upon governments. They are accused of equipping small countries and setting them against one another, of deliberately encouraging the race for military and naval supremacy. No one can doubt that their opportunities for trouble-making are many and enticing, but to think of these influences as anything more than the incidental and secondary causes of war seems to be a curious way of understanding history (100).
The inside history of the great financiering projects would no doubt give us some of the main clews to the present diplomatic relations of nations to one another. If we take into account the various intrigues in connection with the building of the Bagdad route, the financing of the Balkan States in their wars, the bargaining of the Powers in Turkey for financial concessions, the great business interests involved in the Russo-Japanese war, the loans to China and all the rest of the financial history of a few decades we should have in hand materials that no one could deny the importance of for an understanding of current history. Diplomacy has had added to its already complex duties the art of securing financial advantages. In general the art of this diplomacy is to secure these advantages without war, but there can be no doubt that financial relations have multiplied the points of contact and strain among peoples, and that these financial relations have become the main occasional causes of wars. Howe (100) thinks that surplus capital is to blame for a great many of the great disasters of modern times--that it destroyed Egyptian independence, led France into Morocco, Germany into Turkey, and into the farther East, embroiled the Balkan States; and that the great war has been a conflict over conflicting interests of Russia, England and Germany in Turkey. Under the guise of expansion of trade this invisible wealth has been exploiting the most vital interests of foreign countries. Veblen would go so far as to say that wars are government-made, that patriotism is exploited by governments in advance of pre-arranged hostilities to produce the spirit of war (97).