Part 9 (2/2)
”The New Socialism,” New York and London, p. 156.
[3] Quoted by William English Walling, ”The Socialists and the War,”
New York, 1915, p. 19.
[4] ”The improvement of the lot of the workers has as a necessary condition the prosperity of the industrial development; the ruin of commerce and industry would encompa.s.s their own ruin. In a speech delivered at Stuttgart, Mr. Wolfgang Heine, a socialist member of the Reichstag, declared that 'the economic solidarity of the nation exists despite all antagonism of interest between the cla.s.ses, and that if the German fatherland were conquered, the workers would suffer like the employers and even more than these.'” ”The alliance between trade union socialism and military imperialism was manifested for the first time at the Stuttgart (International Socialist) Congress in 1907. The majority of German delegates, composed above all of trade union representatives, were opposed to the Marxist resolution condemning colonial wars.”--”L'imperialisme des socialistes allemands,” _La Revue_, vol. cxii. Paris, 1915.
[5] In their admirable ”History of Trade Unionism” Sidney and Beatrice Webb ascribe the rapid increase in the growth and power of British trade unions after 1850 in large part to the development of British commerce and industry. ”This success we attribute mainly to the spread of education among the rank and file, and the more practical counsels which began, after 1842, to influence the Trade Union world. But we must not overlook the effect of economic changes. The period between 1825 and 1848 (in which ”magnificent hopes ended in bitter disillusionment”) was remarkable for the frequency and acuteness of its commercial depressions. From 1850 industrial expansion was for many years both greater and steadier than in any previous period.”
[6] This is the real but not the avowed policy of a large section of the workers, especially of trade unionists, in the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
[7] French Yellow Book, No. 5. The doc.u.ment, according to the German commentators is falsely dated.
[8] French Yellow Book, No. 1. Annexe I.
{151}
CHAPTER XII
THE AMERICAN DECISION
We have seen how in Europe the outward expansion, which leads to international friction and war, has been due to deep-lying economic motives acting on ordinarily peace-loving populations. We have seen how national interest, blended with cla.s.s interest, has distorted this expansion and has turned a wholesome process of world-development into a reckless scramble for territory and a perpetually latent warfare.
Lastly we have seen how in all countries broad sections of the population have been sickened by the stupid brutality and imminent peril of this unenlightened nationalic compet.i.tion and have groped for some plan by which commerce might expand and industry grow without the nations going to war.
Such a plan must involve a basis of agreement, if not a community of interest, among nations requiring economic security and industrial growth. The choice does not lie between national expansion and contraction but between an expansion which ranges the nations in hostile camps and one which affords more equal opportunities of development to all competing powers. For each nation it is a choice between a headlong national aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, which takes no account of the needs and ambitions of other powers and the development of an economic world system, in which the industrial growth of one nation does not mean the stagnation or destruction of its neighbours.
Like the nations of Europe, the United States is faced {152} with the necessity of making this decision. The problem presents itself less clearly to us, since in the past we have largely expanded within; we have been able to grow by a more intensive utilisation of what was already conceded to us instead of spreading out into regions where international compet.i.tion was intense. Those cla.s.ses which in other countries are strongly driven by economic interest towards imperialism were in America otherwise occupied. But to-day we are beginning to overflow our boundaries, and we tend already to do instinctively what in the future we may do of set purpose. The men who wish to use army and navy to obtain American concessions in Mexico, South America and China are not distantly related to the imperialists of Germany, who believed that Kiau-chau was a fair exchange for two dead missionaries, or to those of Great Britain and France who drove their nations into the Boer War and the Morocco imbroglio. Our anti-imperialists also are animated by ideals similar to those of European anti-imperialists.
The issue between these two groups and these two policies and ideals does not result in a single act of the national will. We do not go to the polls and vote once for all to be imperialistic or non-imperialistic, to grab what we can or seek a concert of the world.
The issue resolves itself into many immediate and seemingly unrelated decisions. What we shall do in Mexico to-day, what action we shall take in regard to a railroad concession in China, opposed by j.a.pan, what part we shall take in the coming peace negotiations are a few of the many decisions, which slowly crystallise into a national state of mind and finally into a national policy. The policy need not be absolutely rigid or consistent. While in the early days America decided upon a policy of isolation, we did occasionally interfere in Europe, and despite our emphatic Monroe {153} Doctrine, we made at least one agreement--the Clayton Bulwer Treaty--in flat contradiction to its principles.
The decision, which we are now making between Nationalistic Imperialism and Internationalism[1] is of vast moment. It is a decision which determines not only our foreign but our domestic policy. For Europe it is equally important, since it influences the balance of power between those groups that are fighting for and those fighting against imperialism and militarism. By our comparative freedom of action, we can exert an immense influence either in accentuating the struggle between the industrial nations or in promoting a concert of action, based upon a discovered community of interest.
How we shall in the end decide is not yet certain. Though we are still upon the whole anti-imperialistic, voices already are raised in favour of a vigorous imperialistic policy. ”The imperialism of the American,”
writes one defender of a policy of indefinite expansion, ”is a duty and credit to humanity. He is the highest type of imperial master. He makes beautiful the land he touches; beautiful with moral and physical cleanliness.... There should be no doubt that even with all possible moral refinement, it is the absolute right of a nation to live to its full intensity, to expand, to found colonies, to get richer and richer by any proper means such as armed {154} conquest, commerce, diplomacy.
Such expansion as an aim is an inalienable right and in the case of the United States it is a particular duty, because we are idealists and are therefore bound by establis.h.i.+ng protectorates over the weak to protect them from unmoral Kultur.”[2]
It is not given to all imperialists to present their case with so nave a self-deception. Not all would argue that it is our duty ”to get richer and richer by ... armed conquest” to avert the ”unmoral Kultur”
of some other nation which also desires to get richer and richer. Yet in many other forms our imperialistic drift appears. Voices call upon us to perform deeds of blood and valour, which bring national renown.
Ardent prophecies reveal that we shall become the first maritime power of the world and that we ”are born to rule seas, as the Romans were to conquer the world.” But in the main American imperialistic sentiment is not vocal. It manifests itself in a vague determination to push American ”interests” everywhere; to control Mexico and the Caribbean countries, to exert an increasing influence in South America, to be a decisive factor in China's exploitation. Just how all these ambitions are to conflict with those of other imperialistic nations, our imperialists have not yet determined. Let us be strong enough in our own might and in our alliances and we can take what we want and find excellent reasons for the taking.
Such a policy is not less dangerous because inchoate and undirected.
It is all the more dangerous on that account. Without thoroughly understanding the World into which they inject their undefined ambitions, our imperialists have not advanced far beyond a mental att.i.tude. They are {155} anxious to conquer and rule, to exert economic, financial and military dominion, but their future domains are not yet surveyed.
This new spirit has been strengthened by the pa.s.sing of our isolation.
Since we cannot hold aloof, our imperialists believe that we must do as other nations do, seize our fortune at any risk. We must repudiate ”our idealistic past,” cease to be a dilettante in international relations.h.i.+ps, take our share of the burden and get our share of the profits in the scrimmage which we call nationalistic imperialism. If we cannot live by ourselves, let us live as do other aggressive nations.
<script>