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.Therefore, though we may postpone theevil hour of distress for a certain time, it will arrive at last.The first phenomenon will be the recurrence offamine periods from time to time, after bad harvests, etc.The intervals between these famines will becomeshorter and shorter the more the population increases; and, finally, the famine times will disappear only inthose rare years of plenty when the granaries are full.And a time will ultimately come when even in those77 Mein Kampfyears of plenty there will not be enough to go round; so that hunger will dog the footsteps of the nation.Nature must now step in once more and select those who are to survive, or else man will help himself byartificially preventing his own increase, with all the fatal consequences for the race and the species whichhave been already mentioned.It may be objected here that, in one form or another, this future is in store for all mankind and that theindividual nation or race cannot escape the general fate.At first glance, that objection seems logical enough; but we have to take the following into account:The day will certainly come when the whole of mankind will be forced to check the augmentation of thehuman species, because there will be no further possibility of adjusting the productivity of the soil to theperpetual increase in the population.Nature must then be allowed to use her own methods or man maypossibly take the task of regulation into his own hands and establish the necessary equilibrium by theapplication of better means than we have at our disposal to-day.But then it will be a problem for mankind asa whole, whereas now only those races have to suffer from want which no longer have the strength anddaring to acquire sufficient soil to fulfil their needs.For, as things stand to-day, vast spaces still lieuncultivated all over the surface of the globe.Those spaces are only waiting for the ploughshare.And it isquite certain that Nature did not set those territories apart as the exclusive pastures of any one nation or raceto be held unutilized in reserve for the future.Such land awaits the people who have the strength to acquire itand the diligence to cultivate it.Nature knows no political frontiers.She begins by establishing life on this globe and then watches the freeplay of forces.Those who show the greatest courage and industry are the children nearest to her heart andthey will be granted the sovereign right of existence.If a nation confines itself to internal colonization while other races are perpetually increasing their territorialannexations all over the globe, that nation will be forced to restrict the numerical growth of its population at atime when the other nations are increasing theirs.This situation must eventually arrive.It will arrive soon ifthe territory which the nation has at its disposal be small.Now it is unfortunately true that only too often thebest nations or, to speak more exactly, the only really cultured nations, who at the same time are the chiefbearers of human progress have decided, in their blind pacifism, to refrain from the acquisition of newterritory and to be content with internal colonization. But at the same time nations of inferior qualitysucceed in getting hold of large spaces for colonization all over the globe.The state of affairs which mustresult from this contrast is the following:Races which are culturally superior but less ruthless would be forced to restrict their increase, because ofinsufficient territory to support the population, while less civilized races could increase indefinitely, owing tothe vast territories at their disposal.In other words: should that state of affairs continue, then the world willone day be possessed by that portion of mankind which is culturally inferior but more active and energetic.A time will come, even though in the distant future, when there can be only two alternatives: Either the worldwill be ruled according to our modern concept of democracy, and then every decision will be in favour of thenumerically stronger races; or the world will be governed by the law of natural distribution of power, andthen those nations will be victorious who are of more brutal will and are not the nations who have practisedself-denial.Nobody can doubt that this world will one day be the scene of dreadful struggles for existence on the part ofmankind.In the end the instinct of self-preservation alone will triumph.Before its consuming fire thisso-called humanitarianism, which connotes only a mixture of fatuous timidity and self-conceit, will meltaway as under the March sunshine.Man has become great through perpetual struggle.In perpetual peace hisgreatness must decline.For us Germans, the slogan of internal colonization is fatal, because it encourages the belief that we have78 Mein Kampfdiscovered a means which is in accordance with our innate pacifism and which will enable us to work for ourlivelihood in a half slumbering existence.Such a teaching, once it were taken seriously by our people, wouldmean the end of all effort to acquire for ourselves that place in the world which we deserve.If.the averageGerman were once convinced that by this measure he has the chance of ensuring his livelihood andguaranteeing his future, any attempt to take an active and profitable part in sustaining the vital demands of hiscountry would be out of the question.Should the nation agree to such an attitude then any really usefulforeign policy might be looked upon as dead and buried, together with all hope for the future of the Germanpeople.Once we know what the consequences of this internal colonization theory would be we can no longerconsider as a mere accident the fact that among those who inculcate this quite pernicious mentality amongour people the Jew is always in the first line.He knows his softies only too well not to know that they areready to be the grateful victims of every swindle which promises them a gold-block in the shape of adiscovery that will enable them to outwit Nature and thus render superfluous the hard and inexorable strugglefor existence; so that finally they may become lords of the planet partly by sheer dolce far niente and partlyby working when a pleasing opportunity arises.It cannot be too strongly emphasised that any German internal colonization must first of all be considered assuited only for the relief of social grievances.To carry out a system of internal colonization, the mostimportant preliminary measure would be to free the soil from the grip of the speculator and assure thatfreedom.But such a system could never suffice to assure the future of the nation without the acquisition ofnew territory.If we adopt a different plan we shall soon reach a point beyond which the resources of our soil can no longerbe exploited, and at the same time we shall reach a point beyond which our man-power cannot develop
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