Part 17 (1/2)

Clearly we cannot solve the problem by permanently {259} maintaining the _status quo_. For the _status quo_, being based upon the relative power of nations in the past, does not conform to the power of the same nations to-day or to-morrow. Moreover, the maintenance of the _status quo_ means the perpetuation of absurd anachronisms. It is undesirable as well as impossible. Nations are not static. You can no more a.s.sure exclusive economic advantages to a weak and unprogressive nation than you could have preserved the American continent to the aborigines.

Even if there were no single economic principle to apply, it would not follow that some approach to an economic equilibrium would be impossible. As law develops out of an endless chaos of human relations by means of decisions (based on temporary exigencies) until a rule of law is established, as the market-price grows out of the innumerable hagglings of the market, so even without the aid of a fundamental principle, some _modus vivendi_, some approach to an economic concert, could be attained. Economically considered, war is an attempt to solve the problem of the utilisation of the world's resources. If the world's wealth and income can be so distributed among the world's inhabitants, grouped into nations, as to render those nations, not indeed satisfied, but sufficiently satisfied not to go to war, a basis for peace results, even though the arrangement is not ideal. If, however, the distribution is obviously at variance with the relative power and needs of the nations, then one nation or group seeks to overturn the arrangement by force.

To secure such a distribution requires the establishment of certain canons of international policy and modes of international procedure.

The decision must in some degree conform to the median expectations of the powers. Back of any particular economic arrangement also, there {260} must be the force of tradition, a sense of security, a sense of justice. The redistribution must be such that the resulting motive to war will be weaker than the motive to peace.

But before we can even approach such a plan to prevent war by reducing the economic incentive, we must frankly recognise that in certain circ.u.mstances a nation may have a direct economic interest in war. To deny such an interest is not only fallacious but even dangerous. For if we believe that nations have no economic motive to war, when in truth they have, we are likely to neglect to do things necessary to reverse such motives. Our international task is to make arrangements which will cause nations to lose their interest in war. It is not that of trying to persuade nations that they have no such interest.

There is much ambiguity and incoherence in most discussions concerning the economic advantages of war. On the whole, while the world does not usually gain by war, but loses through the destruction of capital and through industrial deterioration, an individual nation may clearly gain. England gained from the Seven Years' War, the United States from the war with Mexico, Germany from the war of 1870, j.a.pan from its war with China. By war nations may secure markets, access to raw materials, better opportunities for investment and a firm basis for industrial progress; they may cripple troublesome compet.i.tors; they may exact indemnities. Much that is accounted gain on this score may in the end prove to be loss, but it is false to state that there can be no profit at all.

The discussion whether or not a war is profitable often takes the superficial form of a comparison between the indemnity received and the money expended on the war. It is pointed out, for example, that in 1895 j.a.pan received a larger sum from China than {261} had been spent on the war, while on the other hand it is emphasised that thereafter the military expenditures of j.a.pan increased so rapidly that much more than this profit was spent. But the indemnity was the smallest part of j.a.pan's gain and the military expenditures were made necessary, not by the Chinese War nor by the payment of the indemnity but by a concrete military policy, which was largely based on concrete economic needs.

Either an expansion into Asia was necessary and in the end possible for j.a.pan or it was not; if it was, the expenditure of a few hundred million dollars on the wars against China, Russia and Germany were a paying investment, irrespective of indemnities; if it was not the wars would have been a bad investment even had they shown a clear balance on the books.

The problem is not whether every war is advantageous to the victor but whether any war is of benefit. It is highly improbable that the war of 1914 will in the end pay most if any of the combatants, but if Germany by a victory as easy as that of 1870 could have secured from France an indemnity of four or five billion dollars and the cession of Northern Africa, it would surely have paid. A war between Germany and Holland, if the other powers held off, would be equally profitable to the stronger power. If a coalition of nations could defeat and blockade Great Britain, they could easily recoup themselves for any expenditures involved. It is true that they could not physically remove British railways and mines, but they could confiscate the navy, the merchant marine, a part of the foreign and colonial investments and a certain part of the profits of business within the kingdom. To a.s.sert that a nation can never gain at war is merely to state that nations never have conflicting interests, whereas in truth some nations are cramped economically by other nations, {262} and a large part of the wealth and income of most nations can be diverted by means of physical compulsion.

The problem of internationalism is therefore not solely to teach the nation its own interest but so to change the conditions that the nation's interest in war will disappear. The temptation to war can be overcome only by reversing the motives of the nation, either by making war no longer profitable, or by making the nation harmless. Within the nation the same problem exists with regard to cla.s.ses. Either the bellicose cla.s.s must be satisfied in some other way, must have its energies directed to some other task, or it must be made impotent.

The first problem, that of destroying the economic root of war, can be solved only by securing a community of interest among great nations, an economic internationalism. Not, of course, a complete community; there is perhaps no such thing in the world. The inter-cla.s.s relations within a nation ill.u.s.trate this point. These social cla.s.ses, wage-earners and capitalists, industrialists and agriculturalists, are separated by many differences and have no complete community of interest, yet are sufficiently united to prevent a complete dissolution of the state. So, internationally, a community of interest may be partial and tentative if it suffices to give the countries enough, or the promise of enough, to discourage them from easily resorting to the costly and dangerous expedient of war.

In securing this concert, we must work upon the general principle that wherever possible, a joint use of a given resource by various nations is better than an exclusive use by any one nation. The progress of society within the last few centuries has been toward an extension of this principle of joint use. More and more things are held by society for the benefit of the nation. {263} Similarly an increasing number of the things for which nations compete might be held by the nations of the world for the joint use of humanity. While such a joint use is not always possible, especially when it runs counter to long usage, an immense opportunity for such joint use remains.

This principle of joint use might advantageously be applied to the development of backward countries. Nothing has been more difficult than the distribution among industrial nations of the advantages accruing from colonial exploitation. There are three methods by which nations, if they can agree at all, may seek to adjust their rival claims. The first is to do nothing nationally; to permit the backward countries to be exploited at will by individual compet.i.tors. The second is to divide the new territories among the rival powers. The third is to secure a joint development by all the great powers.

The first method usually means both a ruthless exploitation of natives and a constant conflict among the interested nations. The nationals of one country conspire against those of another for a control of the native government. If, for example, we were to leave the Philippines entirely alone, various enterprising capitalists would immediately organise and support corrupt native governments, lend money at usurious rates and secure exclusive concessions. To upset these arrangements, financiers of a rival nation would foment revolutions, and the country would be split up into political factions, supported by money from various European capitals. The political leaders though talking grandiloquently of independence and native sovereignty, would be, and perhaps would know that they were, merely p.a.w.ns in a financial chess game.

The second method, now more or less usual, of {264} establis.h.i.+ng national spheres of influence, also leads to friction and the threat of force. The crucial difficulty of this plan lies in the fact that great nations which have come late into the colonial compet.i.tion are left without a sufficient agricultural base for their industry and live in fear of having the colonies of rival powers shut against them. The whole plan is based upon the a.s.sumed right of each nation to monopolise the resources of colonies, in other words, to use exclusively what might be used jointly. As a result of this method the temptation to go to war over colonies is immensely great. If by a single war, Germany could secure enough colonial territory from France to maintain her industry for three or four generations, it might well be worth her while to fight. It is the lives of one or of two million men to-day against tens of millions of lives a generation hence. A nation which would not fight for a somewhat larger share in the exploitation of a given colony would be tempted to fight for a sole and monopolistic possession.

The third plan of distribution is what may be called the internationalisation of colonies. It is a step in the direction of an international imperialism, as opposed to the nationalistic imperialism of to-day. There have been numerous proposals to secure a machinery for such internationalism in colonies. Especially during the last decade or two many men in Europe and America have come to the conclusion that the danger of the present international scramble for colonies is so great that any change, even though not in itself una.s.sailable, is better than the present anarchy. Even among Socialists the belief is now expressed that the colonial problem is to be solved, not by leaving it alone, but by a concerted action of the Great Powers, which will give each nation the a.s.surance of a {265} certain stake in colonial development, and will lessen the temptation to wage imperialistic wars.

Of the various recent plans two concrete proposals are worth citing.

Thus Mr. Walter Lippmann[1] suggests a permanent international conference of the great powers which would act as a senate to the native legislative body of the backward country, let us say Morocco, and would in time supervise the budget, fix salaries and make appointments. It is hoped by Mr. Lippmann, though not confidently predicted, that such a body would guarantee the open door and give equal opportunities to the investors of all nations in the particular colony. A broader plan, proposed by Mr. H. W. Brailsford[2] involves the union into a permanent international syndicate of all companies and individuals seeking railroad, mining and other concessions in a backward country.

Fundamentally the plan of Mr. Brailsford is based on the open door for colonial trade and the equal (and automatic) partic.i.p.ation of the great nations in colonial investment. ”The remedy,” he says, ”is so simple that only a very clever man could sophisticate himself into missing it, and it is as old as Cobden. It is not necessary to establish universal free trade to stop the rivalry to monopolise colonial markets; it would suffice to declare free trade in the colonies, or even in those which are not self-governing.” ”It ought not to be utterly beyond the statesmans.h.i.+p of Europe to decree some limited form of colonial free trade by general agreement--to apply it, for example, to Africa.” ”For the plague of concession-hunting the best expedient would probably be to impose on all the competing national groups in each area the duty of {266} amalgamating in a permanently international syndicate. If one such syndicate controlled all the railways and another all the mines of China and Turkey, a vast cause of national rivalry would be removed.

The interests of China and Turkey might be secured by interposing a disinterested council or arbitrator between them and the syndicate to adjust their respective interests. Short of creating a world State or a European federation, the chief constructive work for peace is to establish colonial free trade and internationalise the export of capital.”[3]

Both the plans mentioned are limited in scope and difficult of application, but each contains the germ of a possible development.

That of Mr. Brailsford seems on the whole the more promising. It is likely that a senate such as is proposed by Mr. Lippmann would go to pieces over the question whether a certain valuable and exclusive concession should go to a French or to a German syndicate or whether a punitive expedition should or should not be sent against the tribes in the interior. On the other hand the plan of Mr. Brailsford, which by no means excludes the other, has the advantage of making once and for all a fixed and certain distribution of all eventual profits and thus effecting a real community of interest among the promoters and investors of all nations. It is an economic rather than a political solution, and it is along the line of a present trend, the evolution of international investment and of economic internationalism generally.

It would seem easier for the capitalists of six great nations to form a great international trust for specific purposes than for an international senate to make a mult.i.tude of decisions each affecting strong national interests.

A difficulty, inhering in all plans, is that there is no rule of law or morals that will decide how much each {267} nation should secure from the profits of exploitation. To what extent shall American, Dutch, Belgian, Austrian or j.a.panese capitalists contribute to the international syndicate which is to exploit the backward countries?

But this problem, though difficult, is less hopeless than that of equitably distributing colonies _en bloc_. For there is no principle on which to divide such colonies. Neither national wealth nor population nor the strength of the national army and navy will serve as a criterion, though all perhaps would be factors in determining the shares of the different countries. A still greater difficulty however arises from the fact that the most valuable colonies are already distributed. Even if Germany were to receive a share in Moroccan opportunities, might she not still seek by war to obtain the exclusive possession of the immense French colonial empire. Perhaps no arrangement for a joint exploitation of new and presumably less valuable colonies would wholly satisfy the imperialists of great European powers, so long as the old colonies are so unevenly divided.

To satisfy the nations without colonies, some arrangements must also be made for a redistribution of rights in colonies already belonging to the great powers.

But against such redistribution immense forces are opposed. Algeria is now safely French; India has been British for more than a century and a half. Whatever rights are conceded in these countries to foreign investors, whatever division of profits is granted, will be effected only under the political control of the French and British governments.

The best concessions have long since been given out, and the nation which has had political control has in the main favoured its own nationals.