ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors show how the economic necessities created by new circumstances have given rise to the very formidable competition of the peoples of the East, who from being consumers have become producers. Gradually expelled from the Eastern markets, the peoples of the West are reduced to quarrelling over the European markets which remain open to them. The symptoms of this falling behind are clearly to be seen in all the Latin peoples, which prove that authors are considering a racial phenomenon. Slight though the commercial, industrial, and colonising abilities of the Latin races may be, nevertheless, sufficient at a time when there was little or no competition between the nations. For a long time the progress of civilisation demanded certain special qualities: courage, a warlike spirit, a fine language, literary and artistic tastes, which the Latin nations possess in a high degree, and in consequence of which they were long at the head of civilisation.
