Part 17 (2/2)
The essential problem here, however, is the open door. If the nations without colonies or sufficient agricultural resources at home can sell their products and buy their {268} raw materials on the same terms as do the nations owning colonies, a large part of the present bitterness and discontent would disappear. There are of course two difficulties in the way of the establishment of such an open door. The first is that commerce may be legally free and yet be hampered by a ma.s.s of local, illegal discriminations, and the second is that the trend at the present time is opposed to such equality in colonial commerce. The first difficulty is not unsolvable; the second const.i.tutes an obstacle, which will only be removed when the forces making for an internationalisation of colonies become stronger than they are to-day.
Even a settlement of the colonial problem would not solve all the economic questions dividing the nations; equally perplexing difficulties are found nearer home. A generation or two from now Germany might be completely ruined by a refusal on France's part to grant her access to the iron mines of Lorraine. At any moment Russia may prohibit the temporary emigration of agricultural laborers upon whom the prosperity of the East Prussian agriculture largely depends.
Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and other countries can be ruined by adverse tariff legislation. In very few countries is there such a balanced economic structure, such a complete control over the essentials of industry as to render an economic a.s.sault by other nations innocuous.
It is not essential, however, in working out an economic concert that all the problems that separate the nations be completely and finally settled. Given a satisfactory solution of the chief difficulties, some way will be sought to prevent secondary problems from leading nations to war. A single instance of a joint successful enterprise of the powers in a single economic field would act as a powerful inducement to attempt joint action in other {269} cases. It is not to be a.s.sumed that all the questions dividing Europe are to be solved in a day or by a single decision. What is required is not one plan which will safeguard all the nations all the time but an inclination or desire to afford a measure of economic security to all and a gradual working out of a machinery, which will effect a settlement here and a settlement there and will in the end develop certain general lines of policy. It is not for a single economic setback that nations go to war, nor even because of a slower development than that of rivals; the chief animus is an ever present fear of industrial _debacle_. Economic insecurity, even more than present economic distress, forces nations to resort to arms. The way out is towards some form of internationalisation of the great external opportunities upon which the home industry of the nation depends.
Is such a development probable? Will the nations in this generation or in five generations agree to make sacrifices to permit their rivals to live? It is a question not lightly to be answered. We cannot be dogmatic concerning the future development of industry and of international relations when we cannot see clearly a dozen years ahead.
Yet the very intensity, the almost pathological intensity, of the nationalistic economic struggle to-day is an indication that it may be approaching a change. In the midst of this struggle, there appears below the surface the signs of a growing economic internationalism.
[1] ”The Stakes of Diplomacy,” New York, 1916, pp. 132-135.
[2] The _New Republic_, May 8, 1915.
[3] The _New Republic_, May 8th, 1915.
{270}
CHAPTER XX
THE FORCES OF INTERNATIONALISM
An internationalism, which will bind the nations together into one economic unit, can be secured only as a result of a further political and economic development, limiting the power and autonomy of the several nations. Without pressure, external or internal, no union or agreement among the nations can be expected. The thirteen American colonies would not have been willing to live together had they been able to live separately, and, similarly, to-day the great powers would make no concessions to internationalism were it safe and profitable to retain a complete liberty of action. But no such plenary independence is longer possible. Forces are at work which circ.u.mscribe national autonomy and compel each nation to act with reference to the will of others.
In the case of small nations this tendency is manifest. Belgium before 1914 was a neutralised state, a ward of Europe. It had surrendered its right to declare war or form alliances. Switzerland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, while preserving their technical liberty, were by their weakness precluded from entering upon policies disapproved by stronger nations. Even the six Great Powers were forced to pool issues.
Austria dared not carry out a programme which Germany opposed, nor could Russia or France act without the other's acquiescence. Group policies were subst.i.tuted for purely nationalistic aims.
{271}
Economically a similar interdependence is being created. No nation is wholly self-sufficing. Italy must import coal and iron, Germany cotton, wool, leather and fodder. France requires Germany's coal and Germany the iron of France. A safe access to these markets and sources of raw material can only be a.s.sured by alliance with other powers.
The economic dependence of one nation, moreover, influences the policies of its neighbours. The stress of a country suffering from industrial disequilibrium is transmitted to other nations. If, when Germany has exhausted her iron ore, she is prevented from obtaining a supply, let us say from French Lorraine, she will be faced with the alternative of dismantling her works in Westphalia and Silesia or of forcing France to sell ore to her. Germany's stringency will thus vitally affect France's international policy. Equally, if Russia or Austria cannot obtain what it needs from abroad, the nations which close the gates are endangered. Caution alone must prevent a nation from allowing its neighbour to risk starvation. However ill-founded in precedent, the right to secure what it imperatively needs is a right that every people will fight for.
From this political and economic interdependence among nations potentially hostile, there results a vague community of interest in peace. This common interest is strongly reinforced by the staggering costs of modern war. The present conflict is teaching us that Europe cannot continue to live and fight, since more than what it fights for is lost in the fighting. On the other hand it cannot stop fighting until it evolves principles of settlement based on the economic security of the vanquished. What the industrial powers will gain from this conflict is but an insignificant part of its cost. Compared with the billions {272} of dollars which France has spent upon this war, how insignificant are the few tens of millions that she may have gained from a monopolistic administration of her colonies! How little would the open door have cost the successful colonial nations as compared with the losses of this war! Not that colonial administration was the only or the main cause of the conflict; other factors contributed, such as the megalomania of the Pan-Germans. It seems probable, however, that Pan-German fanaticism was rendered infectious only by the fear that Germany was to be economically encircled and undermined. This fear may well outlast the war. A German defeat, however crus.h.i.+ng, will not solve the peace problem, for defeat without security means militarism and reaction in Germany, which in turn means militarism and reaction in Europe. The special advantages which the nations, possessing colonies, may in the future secure will be dearly bought at the expense of new wars, as costly and decivilising as that under which we now live.
This is the chief sanction of internationalism, the price which is exacted from both beneficiaries and victims of a narrow nationalistic policy. Whether a liberal internationalism would not pay better, even on the plane of dollars and cents, is a question that admits of but one rational answer.
At this moment[1] there is small likelihood that that rational answer will be given. Fighting inhibits thinking, and in the allied countries the belief is held that Germany provoked the war through mere wantonness and not because of economic pressure, and that security can come only by ending Prussian militarism. In Germany there is an a.n.a.logous conception of her opponents.
The theory that the war was merely wanton has the {273} merit of simplicity, but like other simple interpretations, it does not cover the facts. There were in Germany certain current ideas concerning racial dominion, the natural mission of the German and the absolute supremacy and moral self-sufficiency of the State, which intensified the war spirit. The Pan-Germans harangued in press and on platform to a people intoxicated by former military and economic triumphs and rendered susceptible by army discipline to martial intoxication. Had it not been for a real sense of insecurity, however, peaceable Germans would have been less receptive to such martial ideas. For a generation after 1870 Germany, though armed, had been pacific because secure; her economic centre of gravity lay within. It was not until her national interests extended beyond her boundaries that this sense of insecurity arose. Pan-Germanism was the intellectual and emotional expression of an economic malaise.
To boycott Germany after the war will neither decrease her anxiety nor improve the prospects of peace in Europe. Such a ”war after the war,”
as it is now proposed, is a flat denial of the economic interdependence of nations. Its obvious result would be to intensify, rather than moderate, the industrial compet.i.tion. Driven from the markets of the allies, Germany would be forced to dump her goods into all neutral countries (at the expense of the trade of the boycotting nations), as well as to form a counter economic alliance and if possible a military coalition. A permanent economic injury to the Central Powers would at the first convenient moment provoke military retaliation. And, parenthetically, a nation like Germany, with its growing population and resources, cannot remain crushed. Even if too weak to make headway against a powerful group of nations, it will always be strong enough to act as a make-weight between two opposed coalitions. {274} Thus if England and Russia, no longer united by a common peril, were to clash in the Mediterranean or in Persia, the presence of an economically threatened and therefore bellicose Germany would tend to precipitate hostilities. If a boycotted Germany by an economic or military alliance could detach one or more of her present enemies, the international situation created would be as dangerous as that of 1914.[2]
The argument that economic insecurity does not tend toward war is thus seen to halt on all fours. There is, however, a stronger or at least a more obvious argument against the promotion of economic internationalism. It is the claim that wars are caused by nationalistic strife. If the incessant struggle between nationalities cannot be appeased but must lead again and again to world-wide wars, then it is futile to seek to avert war by the creation of an economic internationalism. No agreement among the great nations about trade or colonies will avail so long as Poles, Bulgars and Southern Slavs can throw the world into war to fulfil their nationalistic aspirations.
Until this nationalistic problem is solved no sure advance towards a permanent peace is possible.
<script>