| CHAPTER I STATEMENT OF THE ECONOMIC CASE FOR WAR | PAGES |
| Where can the Anglo-German rivalry of armaments end?—Why peace advocacy fails—Why it deserves to fail—The attitude of the peace advocate—The presumption that the prosperity of nations depends upon their political power, and consequent necessity of protection against aggression of other nations who would diminish our power to their advantage—These the universal axioms of international politics | 3–13 |
| CHAPTER II THE AXIOMS OF MODERN STATECRAFT |
| Are the foregoing axioms unchallengeable?—Some typical statements of them—German dreams of conquest—Mr. Frederic Harrison on results of defeat of British arms and invasion of England—Forty millions starving | 14–27 |
| CHAPTER III THE GREAT ILLUSION |
| These views founded on a gross and dangerous misconception—What a German victory could and could not accomplish—What an English victory could and could not accomplish—The optical illusion of conquest—There can be no transfer of wealth—The prosperity of the little States in Europe—German Three per Cents. at 82 and Belgian at 96—Russian Three and a Half per Cents. at 81, Norwegian at 102—What this really means—If Germany annexed Holland, would any German benefit or any Hollander?—The "cash value" of Alsace-Lorraine | 28–49 |
| CHAPTER IV THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CONFISCATION |
| Our present terminology of international politics an historical survival—Wherein modern conditions differ from ancient—The profound change effected by Division of Labor—The delicate interdependence of international finance—Attila and the Kaiser—What would happen if a German invader looted the Bank of England—German trade dependent upon English credit—Confiscation of an enemy's property an economic impossibility under modern conditions—Intangibility of a community's wealth | 50–67 |
| CHAPTER V FOREIGN TRADE AND MILITARY POWER |
| Why trade cannot be destroyed or captured by a military Power—What the processes of trade really are, and how a navy affects them—Dreadnoughts and business—While Dreadnoughts protect British trade from hypothetical German warships, the real German merchant is carrying it off, or the Swiss or the Belgian—The "commercial aggression" of Switzerland—What lies at the bottom of the futility of military conquest—Government brigandage becomes as profitless as private brigandage—The real basis of commercial honesty on the part of Government | 68–87 |
| CHAPTER VI THE INDEMNITY FUTILITY |
| The real balance-sheet of the Franco-German War—Disregard of Sir Robert Giffen's warning in interpreting the figures—What really happened in France and Germany during the decade following the war—Bismarck's disillusionment—The necessary discount to be given an indemnity—The bearing of the war and its result on German prosperity and progress | 88–106 |
| CHAPTER VII HOW COLONIES ARE OWNED |
| Why twentieth-century methods must differ from eighteenth—The vagueness of our conceptions of statecraft—How Colonies are "owned"—Some little-recognized facts—Why foreigners could not fight England for her self-governing Colonies—She does not "own" them, since they are masters of their own destiny—The paradox of conquest: England in a worse position in regard to her own Colonies than in regard to foreign nations—Her experience as the oldest and most practised colonizer in history—Recent French experience—Could Germany hope to do what England cannot do | 107–130 |
| CHAPTER VIII THE FIGHT FOR "THE PLACE IN THE SUN" |
| How Germany really expands—Where her real Colonies are—How she exploits without conquest—What is the difference between an army and a police force?—The policing of the world—Germany's share of it in the Near East | 131–151 |
