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430 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
•
for mischief would be limited by the sma~ness of the
measures as yet suggested, of which the ineffectual
colonial preferences Mr. Chamberlain has talked of are
specimens. The dose of protection would of course be
of a poisonous nature, but a sntall dose, after all, might
leave our substantial business comparatively untouched.
Big doses of protection are in truth impossible under
modern conditions.! There is more serious danger per-
haps to our commercial prosperity, as to that of other
nations, in the chances of war among the great civilised
powers. But these we may forbear to discuss. They
are on the knees of the gods. Still, it is impossible not
to think of wars and what may come of them in the
midst of the Russo-Japanese debates and the strained
preparations of al] the leading powers. War may thus
alter the entire economic development of the century,
as it affected beyond a doubt at the very beginning the
developments of the century which has just come to an
end.
1 See supra, vol. ii., p. 159.

THE END.