Part 18 (1/2)
Undoubtedly the struggle of subject nationalities to be {275} free, and of independent nations to annex their kin, has been a fruitful source of strife during the last century. The sense of nationality has been intensified by the nation's mobilisation of the economic interests of its citizens; it has become almost pathological as a result of petty nationalistic fragments competing for separate existence. Bulgarians, Greeks and Serbians want the same tract in Macedonia; Roumanians, Italians and Serbs wish to redeem their subject brethren in the Austro-Hungarian Empire; France seeks to rescue the Francophile though German-speaking Alsatians and Lothringians, and Germany would gladly welcome the Dutch and Flemings back to their putative German allegiance. There is no limit to these nationalistic claims; no room for arbitration; no fixed principle to determine to which nation each group shall be awarded. The result, quite apart from any action among the Great Powers, seems war--inevitable and endless.[3]
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It is impossible to withhold one's admiration for the inspiring fight which oppressed peoples all over the world are making for their independence. We thrill over the old story of the Grecian revolt against Turkey, of the great risorgimento of Italy, of the long slow struggle of Germany to achieve statehood. The century since the Vienna Congress has marked an almost uninterrupted victory for the principle of nationality. Yet though we sympathise with the aspirations of Poles, Finns, Armenians and Bohemians, an unlimited independence cannot always be desired. Nationalities are not sundered geographically, but men of diverse stocks and traditions are interspersed, as though a malign power had wished to make concord forever impossible. Ireland cannot secure autonomy, to say nothing of independence of Great Britain, without encountering Ulster's demand to be independent of Ireland. Similarly a Great Roumania, a Greater Serbia, a Poland, an independent Bohemia can be secured only by denying the equal rights of lesser racial groups. To-day Hungarians misrule the Roumanians of Transylvania; to-morrow a Greater Roumania may misrule the Transylvania Hungarians. The principle of the independence of nationalities collides with itself.
It also collides with overwhelming economic facts. Racially Trieste is semi-Italian, but if Italy acquires the city (and includes it in her customs union), a vast Austrian and German _hinterland_ is deprived of a necessary commercial outlet. Italy can hold the East Adriatic only by smothering Serbia. Moreover many of these foetal nationalities are too weak and geographically too insecure for independent political existence. What reality would attach to an independent Bohemia held in a vice between two hostile German neighbours, and with a German population in its own territory? Even in peace the {277} Teutonic powers could gently strangle the new nation by means of discriminating tariffs.
Finally many of the claims for nationalistic expansion are inspired by a motive quite different from what appears on the surface. What the nation usually wants is not merely its own unredeemed brethren, but more territory and people. Its unredeemed brethren are the easiest to take. But while Roumania demands sovereignty over the Roumanians of Transylvania, she will not let the Bulgarians of the Dobrudja go. In the one case she upholds the sacred principle of nationality; in the other she discards that principle for the sake of a strategic frontier.
Serbians and Greeks ask not only for the right to recover their ancient territory but also for the right to rule over Bulgarians and Turks.
What they really desire is access to the sea, ample resources for an adequate population, and the national power, without which an independent existence is an illusion.
It is too late to dream of a really independent existence for each pigmy nationality, strewn about in Eastern Europe. In the absence of a Balkan Confederation, Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Greece may preserve their separate sovereignties, though only if they submit to the ”advice” of greater nations, as Portugal submits to Britain.
But for such nations to have conflicting nationalistic aspirations, to wage b.l.o.o.d.y wars for larger territory and more subjects, is a ridiculous and a tragic situation. Servia, dreaming of the restoration of the empire of Tsar Stephen Dushan, whose armies marched to the walls of Constantinople, Greece aspiring to the Empire of the East, are a menace to the peace of the world. It is doubtful whether all of these ambitious nationalities can even preserve their separate national existence. If the welfare of Europe conflicts with the {278} independence of a Montenegro or a Bohemia, some lesser form of self-government must be discovered.
That lesser form of self-government might be sought in a local autonomy under a federal government. It is not improbable that the political development, of south-eastern Europe for example, will tend towards group organisations based on the co-operation of diverse nationalities and stocks somewhat on the Swiss model. If the political question could be divorced from the question of the economic exploitation of these small nations, and if each nationalistic group were permitted to retain its language, traditions and _Kultur_, the result might be better than a mere _morcellement_ of south-eastern Europe, with petty nationalities fighting the battles of their big backers. In such a larger Switzerland, each group might be represented in proportion to its numbers, and the worst evils of the present racial contests be avoided.
The important question in the present connection, however, is not what the particular solution is to be, but whether any solution is possible.
It need not be a perfect but only a permanent settlement. Such a settlement presupposes a concert among the Great Powers, an agreement concerning their own problems. Given such an agreement, however, the Powers could in time work out a Balkan arrangement, which neither Servia nor Bulgaria, Roumania nor Greece would dare resist. In the end, if the arrangement were definite, practicable, in reasonable conformity with nationalistic lines, and with a strong and certain sanction, the small nations would become resigned. To-day they have boundless ambitions because the division among the Great Powers gives them a chance of realising ambitions, and what ambitions they have not to start with, Austria or Russia will lend to them on short notice. In this sense and to this extent, the {279} nationalistic problem in its worst form is an appendage to the vast struggle between the powers, and it may cease to be provocative of great wars once a basis of agreement is established among these larger nations.
With the best will such a basis of international agreement among the Great Powers cannot be established in a few years. It requires a gradual development, a progressive give and take, a continuous widening of the principle of joint use. An international convention, altering the rules of maritime warfare, would be a long step in this direction; a congress of the nations for opening up the trade of colonies (like our international postal conventions) would be another step. The internationalisation of Panama, Kiel, Gibraltar, Constantinople, would immensely enhance security, and advance the progress of internationalisation. So also an economic convention between France and Germany, or between Germany and Russia, in which reciprocal industrial advantages were accorded. Such specific arrangements, which permit of international interpretation and enforcement, would help to bring about a larger economic internationalism.
But for the real foundations of peace we must look far below the level of all these diplomatic and political arrangements, in the world industry itself. To-day we are still in the full momentum of an economic development that makes for war, but we are also at the beginning of an economic trend towards peace. In the present world-economy the nation is the unit and international friction the rule, but the movement, at what rate we do not know, tends towards a world business in which the unit will be international and there will be peace between partners. We are already in the first beginnings of the internationalism of capital.
This development is in part the cause of a general {280} phenomenon, the growth of an internationalism of cla.s.s. Each social group seeks to establish relations with similar groups across the border, for the protection of interests that traverse national boundaries. Thus we have a certain internationalism of the wage-earning cla.s.s, of finance, of various scientific groups. The possibility of this internationalism grows with the integration of the world through commerce, industry, communication and the spread of knowledge.
The most obviously international of social groups is the proletariat.
Though sundered on the question of immigration, though (in some countries) nationalistic and even militaristic in spirit, the wage-earners on the whole have less to gain from imperialism and national aggression than have wealthier cla.s.ses, while they share disproportionately in the burdens that war entails. On the other hand workers have less influence in the making of diplomatic decisions than do their employers. In the end, moreover, their decision, like that of the capitalist cla.s.s, is chiefly determined by economic forces largely beyond their control. It is the nascent internationalism of capital, not of capitalists or of wage-earners, that is the supreme element making for peace.
We must beware, however, of welcoming all foreign investment as a portent of a growing internationalism of capital. Much that is accounted economic internationalism is in truth merely an extended nationalism, an extra-nationalism. For investments to allay international discord they should create a community of interest between nations potentially hostile. If Britain invested freely in Germany and Germany in Britain there would be created a mutuality of interest which would render peace probable. Each nation would have a stake in the prosperity of the other; each would have given hostages to peace. {281} But when the London financier puts his money in India, Canada or the Argentine, he is not co-operating but competing with potentially hostile nations. The process is an extension of the national economy to outlying districts, a transition to a larger national unit, like that created in the Middle Ages when the free cities ruled adjoining farm territory. Such an economic extension exacerbates national antagonisms and leads to war.
While foreign investment is preponderatingly of this sort, however, there also exist the beginnings of a movement more truly international.
The securities of one nation are dealt with upon the stock exchanges of another, capital flows across national borders and great international business concerns are created. The movement in favourable circ.u.mstances is likely to accelerate, either by the mutual economic interpenetration of nations, as when the French build factories in Germany or the Germans in France, or by the amalgamation of the capitals of two countries and their use in joint enterprises. The formation of large international syndicates for the exploitation of backward countries, whatever its other consequences, tends towards the creation of a community of interest. If the powers unite, for example, and can agree upon a Chinese loan, a step forward will have been taken towards an internationalism of capital.
The process of trust formation tends in the same direction. As competing industries within a nation frequently end by combining, so in many great industries the competing national units may develop a gentleman's agreement to regulate output and finally may establish an international cartel. Considerable progress has already been made in the division of the international field. A further development along these lines, though not easy, is by no means impossible or even improbable.
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We may seek to understand this eventual international evolution of business by visualising a world organisation of the steel industry.
Either one corporation might be formed or a common control might be established among national steel companies through an interchange of stock. The result might be somewhat as follows: In the United States we should have an organisation comprising all American steel concerns, its directors representing const.i.tuent companies as well as the government, labour and consumers. In its domestic affairs, it would be under governmental jurisdiction. Its capital might amount to a few billion dollars, of which a part would represent holdings of European companies in return for American stock, transferred to European companies.
Such a world corporation would be a financial aggregation immensely greater than any in the past. Its principles of organisation, however, would not materially differ from those with which we are familiar. In each country a board of directors would hold control over const.i.tuent companies, and at London, Paris or New York a high Federal Council would settle controversies and make arrangements for the business of the world. Each company would have two elements of protection against unfair treatment; a community of interest secured through an interchange of stock and a representative on the Federal Council.
A development, such as is here outlined, is in advance of the psychological preparation of the world. We have not yet succeeded in regulating corporations, and there would remain innumerable difficulties and inequalities as between nations, which could not easily be settled. The price which such concerns might be allowed to pay for ores or charge for finished products and the pressure which they might put upon workmen might cause financial {283} quarrels, leading to international controversies. If the governments held hands off, even greater evils might result. The various peoples would hesitate to turn over their basic industries to a private corporation beyond the regulation either of compet.i.tors or of their own government.
But we are here concerned not with the end but with the direction of international capitalism, and this direction tends to be the same as that of national capitalism. Division of the field, interchange of stock, community of interest, co-operation and combination in one form or another are as much a temptation in the relation of firms separated by a frontier as between those within one customs union. Capital is fluid. It is quant.i.tative. It is potentially international. A hundred dollars is indistinguishable from a certain number of pounds, marks or francs. The machinery for an international combination of capital is already present, the beginnings of international investment have already been made. Further progress waits only upon the removal of barriers, in part traditional. The larger economic interests of the nations, and of most of the cla.s.ses within the nations, lead towards the removal of these barriers and towards the gaining of that security without which international investment is dangerous and conventions and agreements almost worthless.
Given such an economic co-operation and such an economic interpenetration of rival European nations, and the political and diplomatic conflicts would grow less acrid and dangerous. As the process continued the interest of each nation in the welfare of its neighbours would become so great as to make international war as unthinkable as a war of Pennsylvania against New York. A vital and powerful international spirit, which already exists but is held in check by the fear and insecurity of each {284} independent nation, would be given full sway. There would be a new Europe and a new world, in which war would be but a vague and hateful memory.