American World Policies

Even with the addition of the self-governing colonies, the population of the United Kingdom is increased by less than a third,90 and the sixty millions of the six British nations are little more capable of defending the British Empire than are the forty-five millions of the United Kingdom. The advantage of far more than doubling the population back of the British Empire is therefore apparent. As compared with the United States, Great Britain is growing slowly. Moreover she is in a permanently perilous situation, lying near the strongest military powers and unable to recover, once her navy is destroyed. Great Britain preserves her empire only by alliances which prevent the forming of a hostile European coalition, and in the future an American alliance may seem indispensable to the maintenance of the Empire and even to the safety of Britain. At such time it may appear better to divide and rule than risk the chance of ruin by carrying the burden alone.

This problem of defence is not one of valour but of economic resources and geographical position. The men of Britain are as courageous to-day as were their forefathers, but just as the brave Hollanders could not maintain supremacy on the sea because with their small numbers they were forced to make front against the French, so the English are now compelled to face an increasingly difficult international situation. In war, bulk, territory and weight of numbers count, and how these factors will affect the relation between Great Britain (even with her colonies) and other strong powers a half-century hence is a serious question. There is always the unpleasant possibility that a failure of the clever diplomacy by which Great Britain has hitherto divided her enemies will some day incite an attack from an overwhelming coalition of land-hungry powers.

To American imperialists an invitation to share in the profits, prestige and cost of maintenance of the British Empire might prove an overwhelming temptation. America would become an imperialistic people by adoption. Without having laboured and fought we should overnight enter upon a joint control of the greatest imperium the world has seen. Together with Britain it would be ours to enjoy, and in the common possession of these vast domains the divisive forces between the British and American peoples would vanish. Our American historians would forget that there had ever been a Revolutionary War or would interpret that incident as a purely internal conflict, which temporarily lost us a few excellent islands, since regained.

But if the British Empire, to say nothing of new rights, privileges and possessions would be ours to enjoy, it would also be ours to defend. An Anglo-American Empire would arouse the envy and the fear of other nations. We should have to defend not only our new joint dependencies but the most distant approaches to them. We could not rest quietly unarmed with these possessions in our house.

An Anglo-American imperialism, indeed any Anglo-American alliance which does not include France, Germany, Russia and other powers, thus brings us no nearer to peace or to a solution of the international problem. It is but the prelude to a new balance of power, a new alignment of hostile national ambitions. If Great Britain and the United States grow and prevent other nations from growing, exploit and prevent other nations from exploiting, we shall be merely reproducing the present fatal scission of Europe upon a large scale.

As against this ideal of American Imperialism, on its own account or in alliance with the greatest imperialistic power, stands the ideal of internationalism. It is an ideal which looks forward towards the creation of a concert of interest among the nations, the growth of international law and the more equal utilisation of the world by the nations. It is an ideal which can be realised only as nations perceive that their ultimate advantage lies in compromising their extreme demands and merging national interests in a larger international interest.

To-day an overwhelming majority of Americans desire a foreign policy looking towards internationalism. They prefer to strive for peace in America and Europe rather than to attempt any imperialistic expansion likely to perpetuate the war-breeding competition between nations.

To realise this ideal, indeed to make any progress whatsoever towards its realisation, we must seek to alter the economic web in which the nations of the world now live. There is at present a conflict between two principles, economic nationalism and economic internationalism. Each nation seeks to obtain for itself security, progress and a favoured position; each has its separate national ambitions. At the same time all the industrial nations have a common interest in maintaining themselves upon the resources of the agricultural countries, and in building up a vast system, in which the world's resources will be utilised most efficiently for the benefit of the world inhabitants.

The problem, therefore, is to promote this economic internationalism and to limit as far as possible the disturbing influence of the divisive national interests. We cannot destroy and we cannot ignore nationalism. We cannot resolve humanity into a mass of denationalised atoms, citizens of the world with no economic or political allegiance to any state. All we can do is so to compromise and adjust strong and vital national claims, as to permit the growth of the international interest. The progress of economic internationalism, without which a permanent peace cannot be maintained, is to be furthered only as each nation attains to a political and economic security, both in the present and for the future. If a reasonable degree of industrial, commercial and colonial progress can be guaranteed, so that the great industrial nations do not live in constant peril, the vast forces which make for an international exploitation of the world's resources will be unchained. A common right to the use of the highway of the sea, a joint imperialism, an international development of commerce and of industry, a mutual insurance of the nations against war, and against national aggression likely to lead to war, will be factors in the establishment of an economic internationalism, which is the next stage in the economic development of the world.

The United States cannot by itself create a new economic world system; all that it can do is to contribute with other nations to the removal of obstacles that retard the coming development. The opportunity to advance this movement, however, is greater in the case of the United States than in that of the nations of Europe. A nation tends to prefer its immediate national interest to its larger but more distant international interest directly in proportion to the economic or political danger in which it lives. Because of our wealth, our sparse population and our relative immunity from attack, it devolves upon us to be the leader in the promotion of an economic internationalism.

This potential leadership of ours, however, may be lost as a result of an unfavourable economic and social development in the future. What our attitude towards internationalism, nationalism, imperialism and war is to be ten, thirty or fifty years from now will depend upon our internal development. We cannot decide for a policy of internationalism if we grow to be an over-populated country of impoverished men, with great capitalists pushing us out towards foreign adventures, economic and military. An imperialistic war-like spirit will arise if the internal pressure upon the population becomes excessive.

In measuring this pressure, we are dealing with relatives, not absolutes. During many centuries the Chinese coolies have become so accommodated to a meagre life that they do not seek to conquer other nations but choose rather to starve quietly within their walls. There is a higher standard of living in Germany to-day than in the more pacific Germany of seventy years ago, but desires have increased more rapidly than wages. As a result the nation is forced outwards.

Though in many respects conditions of life in America are improving, discontent and frustrated ambition increase. As our numbers grow, farms become relatively scarce, and a class of tenant farmers and an agricultural proletariat develop. The chances of success for both these classes are slighter than a generation ago. Manufacturing is conducted on an ever larger scale and the opportunity to rise is becoming less. The openings in retail trade, though many, are small, and there are vast numbers of failures. Wages are less in relation to the standards of living surrounding the workman, and fear of unemployment is chronic. The country is full of poor men with no firm purchase on life. Income, it is true, is more evenly distributed than property, but even here a crass inequality reigns. Upon the wage-earners falls the heavy incidence of industrial injuries, disease, and unemployment.

It is of such conditions that imperialism and wars are made. To develop millions of landless men without wealth and with precarious jobs is to create a material superlatively inflammable. You can appeal to such men for a "strong" policy that will conquer foreign markets and therefore "jobs." There is a group much lower in economic status—the men submerged below the poverty line. These men, with no money in their pockets and no steady employment, but with voices, votes and newspaper organs, are susceptible to jingoism. They have a high narrow sensibility created by precariousness and hunger. Here we are creating a culture for war bacteria. The concentration of wealth at the top of our society acts similarly. We are developing in America, the type of big business adventurer, who desires an aggressive foreign policy, not only for his direct business interests, but also to allay unrest at home by pointing a minatory finger at the foreigner beyond our borders.

Already we have many of the elements that go to make up the war spirit. In the present conflict we have been pacific owing to the division of our sympathies, the deadening realisation of the immense forces engaged and losses incurred, and the realisation that our interests were not involved. To these factors there was added a sudden prosperity contingent upon our remaining at peace. But even as early as 1898, when the proletarisation of America was less developed, we had millions of inflamed patriots, who would willingly have fought all Europe rather than "haul down our flag" in the Philippines. What will happen twenty years from now, when our export trade is greater and more necessary and when (unless we change conditions) there will be more poverty and insecurity than to-day? If at such a time Germany, Japan or Russia, or all three, determine upon an action, which will injure our pretensions and throw many of our citizens out of work, we shall surely feel resentment. We cannot safely predict that we will adopt a gentle attitude. Like France in 1870, like Russia in 1905, we may stumble into a war over our rights and pretensions, may be rushed into it not only because of a conflict of interests which we did not foresee but because of a vicious internal development which we did not avert.

All our customary self-assurances that we shall never fight nations now friendly are mere deception. So we thought just before the war of 1812. We were never more pacific than in 1895 when we ventured on a desperate challenge to England, or in 1898 when we attacked Spain. Though we averted war with Germany over the Lusitania matter, our public mind was so uninformed that we might easily have been pushed into the conflict by a more bellicose President. We should have a better chance of keeping the peace if we were not so blindly confident of our peacefulness. It takes only one to make a quarrel, and the aggressor might not impossibly be ourselves. Nor can peace be predicted on the ground that we have given no offence and do not intend to give offence. The other nation will be the judge of that. And if we become imperialistic we shall have given offence enough.

Neither will our religion, our almost universal Christianity, strike the weapons from our hands. It is doubtful whether religion ever kept a nation out of war. The Germans and the English are both Christian peoples and therefore quite willing to fight God's battle, which is their battle. If a crisis arose in America out of our economic conflicts with Europe and our own psychological instability, we should find the ministers of the Gospel on the same side as the editors, politicians, and the people generally, as they have been at most times when peace has been threatened. A war rooted perhaps in the rival interests of American and foreign oil companies in Venezuela would be hailed on both sides as a battle for civilisation and the Lord. Not even our diversity of racial stocks would prevent such a war, though it would no doubt make us hesitant. We should be loath to fight against Germany, Austria, Italy or England, because of the presence in our midst of natives of these lands. Once the fighting had begun, however, all opposition would be overcome, and the war would go on despite its spiritual costs.

If we are to decide therefore not for imperialism and imperialistic wars but for a policy which will mean peace for ourselves and peace and international reorganisation for Europe and the World, we must begin our labours at home. Unless we are able to build a democratic civilisation upon the basis of a thoroughly scientific utilisation of our own resources, unless we so direct our American development that we shall not be forced to fight for a larger share of the remaining exploitable regions, we shall make little progress towards a settlement of the grave problems which now divide the nations. To promote an economic internationalism we must make our own internal economic development sound; to help cure the World we must maintain our own health. Internationalism begins at home.

PART III

TOWARDS ECONOMIC INTERNATIONALISM

CHAPTER XIII

NATURAL RESOURCES AND PEACE

For the United States to attempt to secure an economic internationalism, which shall form the basis of an enduring peace, is to enter upon a task which bristles with difficulties. These difficulties fall into two classes, those which tend to deprive America of her freedom of action and disqualify her for leadership, and those which are found in deep antagonisms among the nations to be reconciled. America cannot succeed in her efforts to bring about an economic internationalism if she herself is economically or psychologically unstable or if her own foreign policy is grasping, aggressive and imperialistic. Nor can she succeed unless her efforts are wisely directed towards the solution of the real problems which now divide the world.

In all such discussions we are likely to take America's pacific intentions in the future for granted. Such an assumption, however, is unwarranted. To-day the peace-maker is the organiser of the world and no nation can lead in the peace movement, nor even be assured of its own peace, unless it has reached a certain stage of economic stability and is organised on a reasonably satisfactory economic basis. Our danger of war lies partly within. If we launch out upon an imperialistic policy, placing our vital national interests within the area of keen international rivalry, we shall be in peril of a war, evoked by ourselves.

The time to prevent such a conflict is not immediately before its threatened outbreak but during the period in which the forces making for war are slowly maturing. These forces, in our case at least, take their rise in home conditions. Our chance of peace with England, Germany, Japan or Russia twenty or thirty years from now depends upon what we do with our own territory and our own resources to-day.

This may at first glance seem a paradox. Why should we fight Germany or Japan because our agriculture is inefficient or our fiscal policy inadequate or because our wealthy are too wealthy and our poor too poor? Yet the connection is close. Bellicosity is not spontaneous, a thing evolved out of nothing. Peoples do not fight when they have what they want, but only when they are frustrated and cramped and need air and elbow room. War is like emigration. The individual migrant leaves home for personal reasons, but the great movement of emigration is nothing but an escape from worse to better economic conditions. If the natural resources of a nation are too small or are badly utilised the resulting insecurity and poverty may lead to international conflicts. Or if the national economy though otherwise efficient and self-contained is so ordered that huge masses of the population are impoverished and destitute, there will always be a centrifugal force inciting to foreign adventures and wars. Where there is no place at home for "younger sons" they will seek a place outside.

Nowhere can one study this tremendous internal outward-driving pressure better than in Japan. That nation, though extremely poor, spends huge sums upon armies, navies and fortifications, and engages in a dangerous and perhaps eventually fatal conflict with other powers. But it is not pride of race or dynastic ambition which compels Japan to enter upon these imperialistic courses, but a sheer lack of economic reserves. Her area, not including Korea, Formosa, Sakhalin, etc., is 149,000 square miles, or less than that of California, while her population (1914) is 56,000,000. Moreover, Japan is so extraordinarily mountainous that the greater part of her area is unfitted for agriculture. Despite a very low standard of living, therefore, and a highly intensive culture, the land cannot feed the population, and foodstuffs must be imported. The population is growing with great rapidity, the excess of births over deaths amounting to over six hundred thousand a year.

Nor has Japan a sufficient outlet through emigration. The immigration of Japanese into Australia, British Columbia, the United States and South Africa is practically prohibited. Most parts of Eastern Asia are too crowded with men living still lower in the scale to permit any large infiltration of Japanese. To Japan, therefore, there are but two alternatives to an ultimate famine: the settlement of Korea and Manchuria, and industrialism. For industrialism, however, Japan is rather ill-fitted by tradition and lack of raw materials. Her best chance is to sell to China and to develop Manchuria and Korea, in both of which directions she runs counter to European ambitions. As a result, Japan becomes imperialistic and militaristic.

The American temptation to imperialism is far weaker than is that of Japan. There is for us no overwhelming necessity to enter upon a scramble for new territories or to fight wars to secure such territories. Our aggressiveness is latent, though with a capacity for growth. There are two ways to lessen this potential aggressiveness. The first is to weaken economic interests favouring imperialism and war and strengthen opposed interests; the second is to build up in the people a tough intellectual and emotional resistance to martial incitement. The remedy resolves itself into two factors, economic completeness and internal stability and equality.

Economic completeness depends in the first place upon a certain relation between natural resources and population. If the fields and mines of a country are too unproductive or its population excessive, there will be an inevitable leaning upon the resources of foreign countries and an intense competition for new territory, trade or investment facilities. A nation, however, may possess most of the elements of economic completeness and yet suffer through a bad geographical position. Its commerce, even its coast-wise commerce, may be at the mercy of a foreign country, or it may not control the mouths of its own rivers, or may be shut off completely from the sea. Switzerland, Hungary, Bohemia cannot secure their economic independence of Spain or France, but must depend upon the good will of other nations. Because of such geographical conditions an otherwise pacific nation may fail completely to build up a resistance to war.

An event in our own history will illustrate this point. From 1783 to 1803, our settlers in the Ohio Valley were entirely dependent for the sale of their products upon an outlet through the Mississippi River. Unless Spain and later France would permit the rude arks, laden with tobacco, flour and bacon, to unload at New Orleans, the West would be shut off from markets. Railroads had not yet been invented and there were no good roads over the mountains. Animosity towards the owner of New Orleans was therefore inevitable,91 since unless we could control the mouth of the Mississippi, we could not secure the allegiance of our own settlers west of the Alleghenies. The interests of our citizens lay beyond our borders; the key to our door was in the hands of a foreign power. But for the lucky accident that peacefully gave us Louisiana, we should sooner or later have been forced into war. The cession of this territory tended to establish for us an economic completeness.

An economic completeness for the United States does not of course mean that we should become a hermit nation, absolutely shut up within our tariff walls. It would be manifestly undesirable to prohibit foreign commerce or the foreign investment of American capital and no such sacrifice, even if possible, would be necessary to prevent a too violent friction with Europe. There is a more direct way in which to increase America's economic reliance upon herself and diminish her dependence upon the accidents and hostilities of the world competition. It can be done by a better utilisation of our own resources. As yet we have merely skimmed the cream of one of the richest parts of the earth, and have exploited, rather than developed, our great continental territory. We have been superficial not thorough, hasty not scientific, in our utilisation of our resources. We have still a margin in which further to develop agriculture and other great extractive industries in order to lay at home the basis for a population which is bound to increase during the coming decades.

How great our friction with Europe is to be will depend on whether our economic development in the main is to consist of activities which impinge upon those of the great industrial countries or of activities which do not so impinge, whether for example, five per cent. or thirty per cent. of our people are to be engaged in industries which actively compete in foreign markets with the industries of Europe. Certain of our economic activities are for us pacific in tendency, inasmuch as they do not affect industrial Europe or actually benefit her. Of such a nature is agriculture. Every added bushel of wheat or bale of cotton raised in the United States improves the chances of European industry, lessens our competition with Europe and increases our market for European wares. The same is largely true of our production of copper, gold, silver, petroleum and other natural products. Upon these extractive enterprises, including coal and iron ore, is based a vast manufacturing industry which supplies our home population, and an immense transportation and commercial system which has its roots in our home resources. Our railroads do not appreciably compete with those of England and Germany; on the contrary the industrial progress of those countries is hastened by the development of our transportation system, which cheapens their food and raw materials. On the other hand a development of the American carrying trade, a growth of ship-building, shipping and export trade, however necessary or desirable, trenches immediately upon British and German shipbuilding, carrying and export trade, and leads directly and inevitably to economic conflict.92

The dependence of our economic mutuality with Europe upon our agriculture may be illustrated by an hypothesis. Assume that our agricultural products were permanently cut in half while our population remained constant. We should have no food to export and would be obliged to import food. Millions of men would be forced out of agriculture into manufacturing industries, and as the home demand for these industries would be lessened a foreign market would be essential. Our railroad traffic would diminish, and railroad workers, thrown out of employment, would enter the export trade. We should be forced to secure foreign markets, and if political pressure were necessary, it would be forthcoming. Similarly, our chances for investment in agriculture and in railroad and industrial companies being lessened, capital would be forced to find an outlet in other countries, especially in semi-developed lands to which European capital flows. The rate of interest would fall, big risks would be taken, and if American investments were endangered by unrest or disorder in the backward country, our government would intervene. We should have no choice and could afford no scruples. Given such a fall in our agricultural product, the country would become imperialistic and bellicose, and there would be not the remotest possibility of our taking the lead in a policy to promote international peace.