Part 6 (1/2)

There is another phase of this general question of the _status {39} quo_ which is sometimes discussed by those who seem to have a natural antipathy to the words and that is what I may call the ”raw materials”

phase. There is, let us say, no coal in Switzerland, and yet Switzerland must have coal for her people to exist. There are no oil wells in Norway, and yet in Norway there must be, if civilization is to continue, automotive engines. It is obvious that there can be no physical change in such a _status quo_. People who live in the territory that is now Switzerland must get their coal somewhere else, and motor transport in Norway must get its gasoline from other lands.

What is the international phase of such situations as this? There are perhaps three possibilities. One is a war of conquest commenced by a country in the situation of Norway in order to obtain dominion over foreign oil lands; the second is some kind of agreement such as has been suggested in a vague way by the Italians and others for some sort of an international supervision in such matters; and the third is that the situation shall continue as it is now--a matter of bargain and sale, of supply and demand.

There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that, among these three, the first would be as impossible as it would be wicked; the second is wholly outside the realm of practical politics for centuries to come; the third is the _status quo_, which has not in any case of world peace resulted in any serious injustice.

Of course, if we go beyond such cases as Norway and Switzerland and take countries much less favored, it is always a mystery as to why people live in them. It is very difficult to understand, for example, why there are settlers in Labrador, or why people are fond of Greenland as a home; none the less these things are so. And under the existing system of exchange of commodities there has perhaps never been a time when even the people who live in these countries without certain particular natural resources have not generally been able to obtain sufficient of them as a result of their own efforts in the occupations which the character of those lands permits.

Of course some countries are naturally richer than others and {40} must remain so. In the Delta of the Nile, the land produces as many as four crops a year and sells for something like $3,000 an acre. Such a condition cannot be duplicated in a climate where only one crop is possible.

But the notion that _any_ State or any combination of States, less than world-wide, _could_ be substantially self-sufficient in respect of _all_ raw materials is untenable. Even the United States lacks (mentioning minerals only) nickel, cobalt, platinum, tin, diamonds.

Its supplies of the following are inadequate: antimony, asbestos, kaolin, chromate, corundum, garnet, manganese, emery, nitrates, potash, pumice, tungsten, vanadium, zirconium. Outside of minerals we lack jute, copra, flax fiber, raw silk, tea, coffee, spices, etc. This mere enumeration suggests the absurdity of the ”raw materials” argument against the _status quo_.[13]

Without going into it in detail, the mere fact that there are no copper mines in Germany[14] or in England has never prevented either country from obtaining all the copper that it needed by means of the exchange of its own commodities and its own labor for the copper, say, of Spain, or of the United States, or of Chili; and from any possible point of view that is now conceivable it is only by the continuance of such a system that the deficiency of particular articles in particular countries can be supplied.

All that we can say is, in other words, that so long as the people in a particular country are able to produce enough of something that the rest of the world needs, so long will they be able to supply their own necessities. And if in any country, in Labrador, for example, the people are unable, because of the situation of the country, to produce a sufficiency of consumable and exchangeable commodities, the inevitable result will be the evacuation of that country by civilized human beings. If such a result could be changed by conquest, the change would be only temporary. To attempt to change it by agreement would be to attempt a sort of international charity by means of which {41} people would be able to live in Labrador by the use of part of the surplus production, say, of Kentucky, given to them for nothing.

There is a very exaggerated notion in the minds of some as to the effect of what is called ”control of raw materials.”

Of course, in time of war, control of raw materials _has_ importance.

But this does not mean ”control” in the sense of _owners.h.i.+p_ of foreign supplies, as, _e. g._, British owners.h.i.+p of Persian oil fields or American owners.h.i.+p of Bolivian tin mines. It means merely either (1) the possession of adequate domestic supplies, or (2) safe and unimpeded _access_ to foreign sources of supply, as, _e. g._, German access, during the war, to Swedish iron ore. The military significance of raw materials, aside from purely domestic supplies, is related to such things as naval power, blockade, ”freedom of the seas,” ”free transit,”

etc., rather than to national _owners.h.i.+p_ of sources of supplies.

_Access to the market_ is the important thing, although the question of finance may be more difficult in respect of foreign supplies than of domestic.

But in time of peace, the ”control of raw materials” in the last a.n.a.lysis means that the owners of those materials can do only two things with them, use them or to sell them. This is perhaps most obvious in the case of such raw materials as are perishable, but it is true of all.

Take such a product as copper, for example. Some countries have copper mines, others have none. But the owners.h.i.+p of a copper mine is of no possible advantage unless the copper produced from that mine is manufactured into something else or is sold. Of course temporarily a mine owner may leave his ore in the ground or may store a supply of copper above ground; but these are expedients to be resorted to only in some time of over-production and impossible of continuance. If the product of the mine is not either used or sold, its advantage is purely a theoretical possibility of the future. It has no more value in present reality than a bank note on a desert island.

The really important factor, as to raw materials, is _access to the market_ on an _equal footing_.

{42}

In practice there are only two ways in which a State or its citizens can be discriminated against, in time of peace, so far as the State's access to supplies of raw materials is concerned. They are as follows:

(1) By discriminatory export duties, or similar duties. In practice these are _not_ important.

(2) By discrimination in respect of prices, or similar matters, by _monopolistic_ producers. To achieve this result it is necessary not merely that one _State_ should have a ”monopoly” of the supply of some raw materials, but also that _within_ that State, the production and sales of the raw materials should be in the hands of monopoly.

Further, the domestic monopolistic organization, must, in order that discrimination should be an outcome of the situation, find it _profitable_ (not merely ”patriotic”) to discriminate in favor of the domestic market. There is _no_ important instance of such discrimination.

Such conjunction of circ.u.mstances is one which is exceedingly unlikely to occur. There is more chance that there will be discrimination _in favor of_ the foreign buyer. In short, the matter is not one of great practical importance, for

(1) a raw material supplied only by one State and (2) controlled, _within_ the State, by a monopoly, which also (3) finds it profitable to discriminate against foreign buyers

is something to be found only in imagination.

I venture to say that there has never been a time in modern civilization when the people of any country have been prevented by the international situation from obtaining any raw material whatever for which they had the capacity to pay. The only possible exception to this statement has been in time of war[15]; and the only possible change in the situation in time of peace would, as I have suggested, amount to some form of compulsory international charity.