American World Policies Part 6

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CHAPTER VIII

IMPERIALISM AND WAR

If the entire imperialistic process could be directed by one omniscient individual, representing the interest of all industrial and agricultural countries, the progress of imperialism would be regular, rapid and easy. Or if one nation, say England, could take over all colonies and run them in the common interest of the industrial nations alone, imperialism would be robbed of its greatest peril, that of embroiling the nations in war. Unfortunately we have hit upon no such device for preserving the common interest of imperialist nations, while safe-guarding their separate interests. Each nation desires the biggest share for itself. Imperialism is directed by the conflicting ambitions, crude pretensions and confident vanities of selfish nations, and in the conflicts of interest that break out, the soup is spilled before it is served.

From an economic point of view, this special interest of the nations in imperialism, like their common interest, is three-fold: markets for manufactured products, opportunities to invest capital and access to raw materials. If trade never followed the flag, if India imported as much from Germany as from Great Britain, and Madagascar as much from Austria as from France, if there were an absolutely open door in each colony and a real as well as legal equality for all merchants, there would be a weaker compet.i.tion for the dominion of backward countries.

{100} Germans, Englishmen and Frenchmen might then compete on equal terms in Morocco, Egypt and Southwest Africa as they compete to-day in Chile or Argentina. But no such equality exists in countries controlled by European powers, and many of these colonies are consciously utilised in a bitter economic compet.i.tion between the nations.

To what such compet.i.tion may lead is suggested in a sensational article in the _Sat.u.r.day Review_ of almost twenty years ago. Says the anonymous author of this article: "In Europe there are two great, irreconcilable, opposing forces, two great nations who would make the whole world their province, and who would levy from it the tribute of commerce. England, with her long history of successful aggression, with her marvellous conviction that in pursuing her own interests she is spreading light among nations dwelling in darkness, and Germany, bone of the same bone, blood of the same blood, with a lesser will-force, but, perhaps, with a keener intelligence, compete in every corner of the globe. In the Transvaal, at the Cape, in Central Africa, in India, and the East, in the islands of the Southern sea, and in the far Northwest, wherever--and where has it not?--the flag has followed the Bible and trade has followed the flag, the German bagman is struggling with the English pedlar. Is there a mine to exploit, a railway to build, a native to convert from breadfruit to tinned meat, from temperance to trade-gin, the German and the Englishman are struggling to be first. A million petty disputes build up the greatest cause of war the world has ever seen. If Germany were extinguished to-morrow, the day after to-morrow there is not an Englishman in the world who would not be richer. Nations have fought for years over a city or a right of succession, must {101} they not fight for two hundred and fifty million pounds of yearly commerce?"[1]

No doubt this a.s.sertion of a complete opposition between British and German commerce and investment contains an element of exaggeration. In 1913 England was the greatest consumer of German goods and Germany an excellent customer of Great Britain and the British colonies. If Germany were to be extinguished, Englishmen would be poorer, not richer. Yet the compet.i.tion between German bagman and English pedlar is real, and this commercial compet.i.tion is merely an expression of a far more significant industrial compet.i.tion. As German organisation, science, and technical ability build up iron, steel, machinery, chemical and other industries, British industry, though still growing, finds itself circ.u.mscribed. If national colonies can be utilised for special national advantage, financial, industrial or commercial, the attempt will be made. If trade and investment can be made to follow the flag, the nation has an interest in securing colonies.

There is always a certain presumption that colonials, partly from tradition, and partly from commercial patriotism, will deal with their home country. The merchant in British colonies is familiar with British firms and trademarks and rather resents the necessity of becoming acquainted with foreign wares and the standing of foreign merchants. Prices being equal, we patronise the people we know and like. Investment also leads to trade. The Englishmen who control the vast resources of India, tend, without compulsion, to buy of British merchants. The possession of even a free-trade colony often insures the retention of its most profitable commerce.

It is true that this presumption in favour of the home {102} nation may be overborne. Lower prices, better service, a more active and intelligent business propaganda may divert trade to foreign merchants.

Before the war, German manufacturers found an increasing market in British colonies, overcoming colonial prejudice as they overcame the prejudice in Great Britain itself. Geographical nearness is even more decisive. Thus Canada is economically far more closely bound to the United States than to England. In 1913-14 we sold Canada $3.11 worth of goods for every dollar sold by the United Kingdom.[2] To Jamaica our exports exceeded those of the United Kingdom, while our imports from the island were over three times as great as the British imports.[3] The United States profits far more immediately from the economic development of Canada and Jamaica than does the United Kingdom.[4]

In the main, however, even under free trade, subtle influences are constantly at work to bring the colony into closer commercial relations with the home country. Thus in 1913-14, 64 per cent. of the imports of British India came from the United Kingdom, and other British dependencies showed a similar preponderance of trade with Great Britain.[5] The volume of the entire traffic between the home country and its colonies is overwhelming. In 1914, the United Kingdom imported from British {103} possessions no less than 205,173,000, or over 29 per cent. of its total imports, and exported to these British possessions 179,350,000 or almost 42 per cent. of its total exports (of British produce).[6] This trade, which is increasing faster than the total trade of the United Kingdom, is peculiarly valuable. From her overseas dominions Great Britain secures a far larger proportion of food products and raw materials than from foreign countries, and to these overseas dominions she sends a large proportion of manufactured goods, containing a high percentage of labour. Thus, says Prof.

Reinsch,[7] "From the point of view of the development and prosperity of national industry it is important that the exports of the nation should be composed largely of manufactured goods, the value of which includes as high as possible an amount of labour cost. The export of raw material, of coal, of food materials, and of machinery used in factories, cannot be considered of the highest advantage to the industrial life of a manufacturing country, nor is it most profitable from a national point of view to furnish foreign countries with s.h.i.+ps, which help to build up their merchant marines." But according to the figures of 1903 "only 10 per cent. of the exports of British goods to the colonies consist of those commodities which the national industry derives relatively the least profit from, while for foreign countries the figure is 27 per cent."[8]

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The general colonial trend has been in the direction of deliberately securing by legislative means a preferential advantage for the home country. "France," writes Dr. Wilhelm Solf, former German Secretary of State for the Colonies, "has a.s.similated Algeria and a portion of her colonies from the point of view of customs. She regards them almost completely as within her tariff boundaries, which fact gives French commerce the advantage over that of other nations trading with these colonies. In regard to her other colonies France has introduced preferential tariffs favouring the motherland, and reciprocally the colonies, which amount to as much as 85 per cent. of the normal duties.

In Tunis, likewise, France has favoured her own trade in important lines, such as grain, by admitting them free of duty when carried in French bottoms. Portugal has introduced discriminating customs rates up to 90 per cent. of the regular tariff in favour of her own colonial s.h.i.+pping. Spain has acted similarly. England also enjoys tariff advantages as high as 33 per cent. of the normal rate in her self-governing colonies. She has in this manner secured for British industry a market which, without this preference, she would not have been able to maintain to the same degree. Likewise, the United States has to a large extent a.s.similated its colonies in customs matters.

Belgium has, it is true, no preferential tariff, but by means of her extensive system of concessions she has practically precluded the compet.i.tion of other states and secured a monopoly in the trade with her own colonies."[9]

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No such colonial preference amounts to a complete exclusion of the trade of compet.i.tors. The Germans, not the English, are the chief purchasers of India cotton, and from the German colonies, diamonds go chiefly to Antwerp, West African copper to the United States and Belgium, and East African skins and hemp to North America. In many colonies and dependencies a complete legal equality of trade is maintained. On the whole, however, whether as a result of tariffs or of quiet discrimination by local authorities, the foreign merchant finds obstacles placed in his way and the trade goes to the home country. Thus in 1914, of Algerian imports 84 per cent. came from France, while of her exports 79 per cent. went to France.[10] The trade of all the other French colonies and dependencies tends also to go to France. Thus of the import of all French colonies and dependencies (exclusive of Algeria and Tunis) 45 per cent. in 1913 came from France and French colonies, while of the exports 42 per cent. went to France and French colonies.[11] Similarly in 1909 of the entire import and export trade of German colonies (exclusive of Kiau-Chau), 65.3 per cent. were with Germany.[12]

To the citizens of the home country go also the investment opportunities, the chances to secure concessions for mines, railroads and tramways. The legal right to these lucrative monopolies inheres in the nation that develops the backward country. This preferred position, this a.s.sured possession of a sole and undivided privilege is of the essence of imperialism. All the economic arguments for peace based upon the theory that trade heals enmities, {106} shatter upon this fact. Free traders never tire of insisting that trade is reciprocally advantageous, blessing him who sells and him who buys; that the more trade there is, the more there is to get. They argue that England, Germany, America and j.a.pan might continue until the end of time amicably exporting pianos and gingham ap.r.o.ns to the backward peoples, and receive in return unimaginable quant.i.ties of sugar, rubber and tobacco. But modern imperialism, extending its dominion ever further, is dreaming not alone of this field for compet.i.tive selling, but of concessions, monopolies, exclusive privileges, immensely lucrative pre-emptions. There are whole worlds to exploit, and whoever rules garners. When France extends her sway over North Africa and develops these lands, the valuable concessions go to French corporations. The actual capital used comes in last a.n.a.lysis from the great capital fund of Western Europe, from French, English, Belgian, Dutch and German capitalists, and whoever wishes to make four or five per cent. may lend his money to the banks that lend to the development companies that invest in the new country. But the big profit--the cream--does not go to these petty ultimate investors but to the political and high finance promoters, and these are French if the enterprise is French. Moreover, trade accompanies and follows investment, and if France secures control, the imported locomotives, rails, cars and mining machinery come from France. In Morocco, France keeps the inside track, as does England in Egypt and India, and Germany in Togo and East Africa. Let who will pick up the sc.r.a.ps.[13]

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This prevailing monopolistic character of colonial exploitation led prior to the War of 1914 to great dissatisfaction among those powers, which were least favoured colonially. In Germany liberal imperialists like Paul Arndt and Friedrich Naumann bewailed the fact that Germany was industrially handicapped because of the meagreness of her colonial possessions. "Germans," complained Prof. Arndt, "receive no railway, harbour, s.h.i.+pping, telegraph or similar concessions in English, Russian, French, American and Portuguese colonies. Everywhere citizens are preferred to foreigners, which is easily explicable and in fact natural...."[14] As colony after colony is formed, the field for the free compet.i.tion of Germany with the world is narrowed, so that at last only countries like Abyssinia, Siam, China and above all the southern half of America remain independent and open. The French success in gaining and closing colonies arouses German envy. Why is France's colonial empire more than two and a half times as large as that of Germany? asks Dr. Naumann. How is France ahead of us? "We have beaten her in the field of battle, but she has recovered diplomatically. She is weaker in a military sense but in a political sense stronger."[15]

Between envying France her colonial empire and determining at some favourable opportunity to redress the inequality is but a short step.

To discontent with the present is added fear for the {108} future.

Those nations, which are least blessed with colonies and which lack at home a broad agricultural base for the support of their industries, look anxiously towards a possible development, which will rob them not only of their markets and investment opportunities but also of their necessary raw materials. To the country ruling the colony belongs in last instance the right to decide what shall be done with its food and raw materials. Suppose that Australia, by a special arrangement with the mother country, lays a heavy duty upon all wool exported to other countries than Great Britain, and thus makes German compet.i.tion in the woollen industry impossible. Suppose the cotton supply of the United States is rendered dearer by some scheme of valorisation, like that which Brazil applied to coffee exports, or by action of financial groups in America, or, given a change in the Federal Const.i.tution, by an export duty on raw cotton. How then will Germany compete? What could Germany do if foreign nations shut her off from access to ores, foods and textiles? How could she solve the problem of a dwindling supply of iron ore? As population outstrips home production of raw materials, the dependence of industrial nations upon the countries producing such materials increases, and the fear arises that such foreign resources will be monopolised, and the excluded industrial nations forced to stop their advance and to descend in the scale of power. As this fear grows, the backward countries cease to be regarded as a common agricultural base and become merely separate national preserves. Each nation strives by means of an exclusive possession of colonies to become self-sufficing. The compet.i.tion for colonies becomes a struggle for national existence.

In such a struggle for national existence, all vested rights go by the board. A nation needing outlets will pay {109} small heed to maxims concerning peace, internationalism and the status quo; it will ask for the t.i.tle deeds of the nations that own what it wants. So long as Germany, for example, felt that colonies were absolutely essential to her future prosperity, it mattered little to her that England and France had been first in the field, that they had planted and sowed in foreign fields while she was still struggling to secure national unity.

"Where were you when the world was divided?" the Germans asked themselves, and they came to the belief that their own economic needs justified their colonial ambitions, wherever those ambitions might lead them. Rather than have the world shut to them they were willing to make sacrifices and incur dangers. War, they held, was better than stagnation, poverty and famine.

But for a country like Germany colonial ambitions conflicting with those of other European powers are especially dangerous, because a struggle for Africa or Asia means battles in Champagne, Westphalia or Posen. "The future of Germany's world policy," said an author who wrote under the pseudonym "Ruedorffer," "will be decided on the continent. German public opinion has not yet fully comprehended the interdependence of Germany's military peace in Europe and her freedom of action in her foreign enterprises."[16]

Though Bismarck understood this interrelation, he was primarily interested in the European and not in the colonial situation.

"Bismarck," wrote Ruedorffer, "looked upon the consolidation of Germany's newly acquired unity as the first and princ.i.p.al task after the fortunate war with France. To divert the attention of France from the Rhine {110} border, he favoured, as much as he could, French expansion in Africa and Asia. When, toward the end of his career, he attempted to secure, for a future colonial activity of Germany, a few African tracts which had not yet been claimed by any other power, he was extremely careful not to encroach upon England's interests. He avoided pus.h.i.+ng Germany's claims beyond Southwest Africa and annexing the _hinterland_ of the Cape Colony, a territory to-day known as Rhodesia.... Bismarck kept Germany's world policies within the limits which, according to his opinion, were prescribed by her continental policies."

As German colonial ambition grew, however, partly as a result of her fear of exclusion from colonial markets and sources of supply, she began to fear that she might raise up enemies in Europe itself. "In every enterprise," wrote Ruedorffer, "whether on African, Turkish, Persian, or Chinese soil, Germany's policy will necessarily have to take account of the presumable reaction on the European political constellation. If Germany encounters Russian interests in Turkey, in Persia, or in China, she will thereby bind Russia still more closely to immutable France; if she infringes upon England's interests in Mesopotamia, she will see England on the side of her opponents." "This reciprocal dependence of world policies and continental policies const.i.tutes, if you please, a _circulus vitiosus_, the vicious circle of Germany's foreign policy. German enterprises abroad react on the continental policy, and it is under pressure from the continental policy that Germany's world policies find their limitations."

As a result Germany, with potential enemies on all sides, was constantly oppressed by the _cauchemar des coalitions_, the nightmare of jealous hostile alliances.

It is this dependence of colonial upon continental politics that intensifies the dangers of imperialism, increases {111} its ruthlessness and recklessness, and causes it to become a deadly conflict, with diplomacy _a la maniere forte_ in the foreground, and in the background, war.

The danger of war as a result of imperialism is immensely increased by the disunion and disequilibrium of Europe. The continental nations are always embattled and ready to strike. It is not an accidental or transient condition but is rooted deep in geographical, historical and economic causes. Europe, since history began, has been overfilled with clas.h.i.+ng peoples and races with variant beliefs, traditions and languages, and with opposed economic interests. To grow, to prevent others from growing, these crowded groups went to war.

It was no fault or vice of the Europeans, but merely the tragic fact that there was no firm basis for European union. After the downfall of the Western Roman Empire, no power was strong enough to dominate Europe. The dreams of universal dominion of a Charlemagne and of a Rudolf of Hapsburg remained dreams; the great, loose federations like the Holy Roman Empire were no match for the smaller but more compact nations, which grew up after the Middle Ages. These new nations, moreover, inevitably meant increased antagonism, a perpetual struggle for more territory, more trade, more gold; a despotic, militaristic, fighting society. The age of the rise of nations was also that of professional armies under the direction of a despot, and of wars for the spoliation of still unorganised peoples, like the Germans and the Italians.

If European union was difficult to achieve in past centuries, it has become even more difficult to-day. The last century has been the century of nationalities, a period during which nations and nationalistic groups developed consciousness. Group consciousness is, of course, no new thing, for all groups, possessing survival quality, have {112} conceit, self-esteem and veneration for the bond that unites them and for all qualities, characteristics, experiences and inst.i.tutions which distinguish them. To-day this group consciousness has become national consciousness, and the impulse towards nationalistic expression spreads and makes itself felt not only in organised nations but also among submerged, conquered and dispersed peoples like the Czechs, Poles, Finns and Irish. The clash of Europe's hundreds of millions for a satisfactory existence upon an insufficient area is intensified by the marshalling of these millions into nationalistic groups, speaking different languages and ruled by hostile traditions.

The antagonism is the worse because in many parts of Europe history and geography have conspired to jumble ethnic and linguistic groups without mixing them. In Bohemia, East Prussia, Dalmatia, Macedonia and Lorraine, hostile groups intermingle without fusing. Though the last century has brought about a certain approximation of state boundaries to the boundaries of nationalities, the process is far from complete.

About many nations there is a fringe of people of like nationality subject to other states. Roumania, Servia, Italy, each has its _Irredenta_; Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey are loose bundles of nationalities, hating each other, while the Balkan States cannot discover any nationalistic principle upon which to divide up Macedonia.

Each nationality seeks independence and strength to maintain itself against the encroachment of rivals, and this desire for self-preservation through size, causes a nationality, which has attained to nationhood, to oppress smaller nationalistic groups within its borders. The condition is artificial and anomalous. Absurd nationalistic claims are advanced in defence of aggression, and while learned Pan-Slavs convert Balkan {113} dwellers into Russians, the Dutch, Flemings and Danes are proved by Pan-Germans to be only Germans once removed.

The progress of democracy has intensified this nationalistic strife and made it a matter of _amour propre_. So long as no citizen had rights, it mattered little whether the King were German or Hungarian. With the partic.i.p.ation of the people in government, however, the subject nationalities feel themselves disgraced. The Pole longs for a free democratic Poland; he is not content to become German, Austrian or Russian. Rather than surrender his nationality he is willing to tear up the map of Europe and thrust the world into war.

In this condition we have the seeds of perpetual conflict in Europe.

Partly for the sake of increasing the national strength and partly for the benefit of certain financial groups, the lesser nationalities are ruthlessly exploited by the dominating nationality within a given country. The oppression of Roumanians and Slavs by the Magyar ruling cla.s.ses of Hungary causes a deep revulsion of feeling in Roumania, Servia and other countries across the border, just as the ambitions of Pan-Germans to make Germany a nationalistic state arouse the indignation of the French and the fears of the Dutch and Danes.

Moreover the nationalistic groups often discover that they have antagonistic economic interests.

The danger of this situation is immensely increased by the fact that all these hostile nations impinge territorially on one another, and modern warfare gives an enormous advantage to the nation gaining the initial success. Austria, Belgium, France may be overrun and permanently defeated by a campaign of six or seven weeks, and it is difficult thereafter to retrieve these early defeats. {114} European nations therefore live in the fear of immediate attack and conduct a hair-trigger diplomacy.

This is the true interpretation of _Realpolitik_, of a nationally selfish policy, devoid of sentiment and laying an excessive emphasis upon immediate and material ends. A nation in danger of annihilation cannot indulge in the luxury of sentiment, cannot consider long time views, cannot be over-generous or trust to the generosity of rivals.

Each nation is compelled to enter into offensive and defensive alliances, and these alliances, perpetually suspecting each other, are compelled to prepare for instant war.

But preparation for war under such conditions makes war inevitable. If a nation believes that it is to be a.s.sailed, five, ten or fifteen years from now, it is tempted to precipitate the "inevitable" war at the moment when its chances are the best. The doctrine of "the war of prevention," however perilous, is, in the prevailing circ.u.mstances, natural. It is meeting a supposedly inevitable danger half way.

Still another element adds to the menace of imperialism. Just as a successful imperialistic policy depends upon the ability of the European nation to defend itself at home, so also it depends upon access to the colonies, upon a control of the seas. Had Spain been a hundred times as powerful on land as the United States, she still could not have defended Cuba. Were Germany to secure valuable colonies, she could not be sure of their retention against England (which lies on Germany's lines of communication), so long as the British possessed an overwhelming naval supremacy. It was therefore natural, and indeed inevitable, that, sooner or later, German colonial ambitions should find expression in a naval expansion, which, whatever the intentions of its promoters, was potentially a menace to the British Empire and even to the very {115} existence of England. The desire for imperialistic expansion thus led, in the absence of any formula of reconciliation upon a higher plane, to an irrepressible conflict between England and Germany, in short, to a world war.

Herein lay and still lies the peril of imperialism, the danger that for fifty years to come Europe, and perhaps America also, will be again and again embroiled in wars immeasurably more destructive than were the long colonial wars of the eighteenth century. The present world war does not automatically end the imperialistic struggle. There is China to consider, there is the independence of Latin America, to say nothing of colonies securely held for the time being by one or another of the European powers. The allies, if successful in this war, will not necessarily remain allies. The ambitions of England, of Russia, of j.a.pan, not to speak of France, Germany, Italy and perhaps the United States, may come into conflict. Nor upon the signing of a treaty of peace will the forces making for imperialism become extinct. In the future, as in the past, a nationalistic compet.i.tion for colonies will carry with it the seeds of war.

[1] The _Sat.u.r.day Review_, Volume Lx.x.xIV, Sept. 11, 1897.

[2] Our exports to Canada in that year amounted to $410,786,000; those of the United Kingdom, $132,071,000. Our imports from Canada were $176,948,000; the imports of the United Kingdom, $222,322,000 (Canadian figures). Statesman's Year Book, 1915, p. 285.

[3] Jamaican imports (1913-14). From the U. S., 1,326,723; from the U. K., 1,088,309. Exports: to the U. S., 1,396,086; to the U. K., 424,491 (Jamaican figures). Statesman's Year Book, 1915, p. 327.

[4] Naturally our proportion of the trade would be still greater if Canada and Jamaica were within the American customs union.

[5] Statesman's Year Book, 1915, p. 149.