XVII The New Imperial Alignment
1. A Survey of the Evidence
Through the centuries empires have come and gone. In each age some nation or people has emerged—stronger, better organized, more aggressive, more powerful than its neighbors—and has conquered territory, subjugated populations, and through its ruling class has exploited the workers at home and abroad.
Europe has been for a thousand years the center of the imperial struggle,—the struggle which called into being the militarism so hated by the European peoples. It was from that struggle that millions fled to America, where they hoped for liberty and peace.
The eighteenth century witnessed the rise of Great Britain to a position of world authority. During the nineteenth century she held her place against all rivals. With the assistance of Prussia, she overthrew Napoleon at Waterloo. In the Crimean War and the Russo-Japanese War she halted the power of the Czar. Half a century after Waterloo Germany, under the leadership of Prussia won the Franco-Prussian War, and by that act became the leading rival of the British Empire. Following the war, which gave Germany control of the important resources included in Alsace and Lorraine, there was a steady increase in her industrial efficiency; the success of her trade was as pronounced as the success of her industries, and by 1913 the Germans had a merchant fleet and a navy second only to those of Great Britain.
Germany’s economic successes, and her threat to build a railroad from Berlin to Bagdad and tap the riches of the East, led the British to form alliances with their traditional enemies—the French and the Russians. Russia, after the breakdown of Czarism in 1917, dropped out of the Entente, and the United States took her place among the Allies of the British Empire. During the struggle France was reduced to a mere shell of her former power. The War of 1914 bled her white, loaded her with debt, disorganized her industries, demoralized her finances, and although it restored to her important mineral resources, it left her too weak and broken to take real advantage of them.
The War of 1914 decided the right of Great Britain to rule the Near East as well as Southern Asia and the strategic points of Africa. In the stripping of the vanquished and in the division of the spoils of war the British lion proved to be the lion indeed. But the same forces that gave the British the run of the Old World called into existence a rival in the New.
People from Britain, Germany and the other countries of Northern Europe, speaking the English language and fired with the conquering spirit of the motherland, had been, for three centuries, taming the wilderness of North America. They had found the task immense, but the rewards equally great. When the forces of nature were once brought into subjection, and the wilderness was inventoried, it proved to contain exactly those stores that are needed for the success of modern civilization. With the Indians brushed aside, and the Southwest conquered from Mexico, the new ruling class of successful business men established itself, and the matter of safeguarding property rights, of building industrial empires and of laying up vast stores of capital and surplus followed as a matter of course.
Europe, busy with her own affairs, paid little heed to the New World, except to send to it some of her most rugged stock and much of her surplus wealth. The New World, left to itself, pursued its way—in isolation, and with an intensity proportioned to the size of the task in hand and the richness of the reward.
The Spanish War in 1898 and the performance of the Canadians in the Boer War of 1899 astounded the world, but it was the War of 1914 that really waked the Europeans to the possibilities of the Western peoples. The Canadians proved their worth to the British armies. The Americans showed that they could produce prodigious amounts of the necessaries of war, and when they did go in, they inaugurated a shipping program, raised and dispatched troops, furnished supplies and provided funds to an extent which, up to that time, was considered impossible. The years from 1914 to 1918 established the fact that there was, in the West, a colossus of economic power.
2. The New International Line-Up
There are four major factors in the new international line-up. The first is Russia; the second is the Japanese Empire; the third is the British Empire and the fourth is the American Empire. Italy has neither the resources, the wealth nor the population necessary to make her a factor of large importance in the near future. France is too weak economically, too overloaded with debt and too depleted in population to play a leading rôle in world affairs.
The Russian menace is immediate. Bolshevism is not only the antithesis of Capitalism but its mortal enemy. If Bolshevism persists and spreads through Central Europe, India and China, capitalism will be wiped from the earth.
A federation of Russia, the Baltic states, the new border provinces, and the Central Empires on a socialist basis would give the socialist states of central and northern Europe most of the European food area, a large portion of the European raw material area and all of the technical skill and machinery necessary to make a self-supporting economic unit. The two hundred and fifty millions of people in Russia and Germany combined in such a socialist federation would be as irresistible economically as they would be from a military point of view.
Such a Central European federation, developing as it must along the logical lines that lead into India and China would be the strongest single unit in the world, viewed from the standpoint of resources, of population, of productive power or of military strength. The only possible rivals to such a combination would be the widely scattered forces of the British Empire and the United States, separated from it by the stretches of the Atlantic Ocean. Against such a grouping Japan would be powerless because it would deprive her of the source of raw materials upon which she must rely for her economic development. Great Britain with her relatively small population and her rapidly diminishing resources could make no head against such a combination even with the assistance of her colonial empire. Northern India is as logical a home for Bolshevism as Central China or South-eastern Russia. Connect European Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Siberia, India and China with bonds that make effective coöperation possible and these countries—containing nearly two-thirds of the population of the world, and possessed of the resources necessary to maintain a modern civilization—could laugh at outside interference.
Two primary difficulties confront the organizers of the Federated Socialist Republics of Europe and Asia. One is nationality, language, custom and tradition, together with the ancient antagonisms which have been so carefully nurtured through the centuries. The other is the frightful economic disorganization prevalent throughout Central Europe,—a disorganization which would be increased rather than diminished by the establishment of new forms of economic life. Even if such an organization were perfected, it must remain, for a long time to come, on a defensive basis.
3. The Yellow Peril
The “yellow peril” thus far is little more than the Japanese menace to British and American trade in the Far East. The Japanese Archipelago is woefully deficient in coal, iron, petroleum, water power and agricultural land. The country is over-populated and must depend for its supplies of food and raw materials upon continental Asia. There seems to be no probability that Japan and China can make any effective working agreement in the near future that will constitute an active menace to the supremacy of the white race. Alone Japan is too weak in resources and too sparse in population. Combined with China she would be formidable, but her military policy in Korea and in the Shantung Province have made any effective coöperation with China at least temporarily impossible.
Furthermore, the Japanese are not seeking world conquest. On the contrary, they are bent upon maintaining their traditional aloofness by having a Monroe Doctrine for the East. This doctrine will be summed up in the phrase, “The East for the Easterners,”—the easterners being the Japanese. Such a policy would prove a serious menace to the trade of the United States and of Great Britain. It would prove still more of a hindrance to the investment of American and British capital in the very promising Eastern enterprises, and would close the door on the Western efforts to develop the immense industrial resources of China. The recent “Chinese Consortium,” in which Japan joined with great reluctance, suggests that the major capitalist powers have refused to recognize the exclusive right of Japan to the economic advantages of the Far East. How seriously this situation will be taken by the United States and Great Britain depends in part upon the vigor with which Japan prosecutes her claims and in part upon the preoccupation of these two great powers with Bolshevism in Europe and with their own competitive activities in ship building, trade, finance and armament.
4. The British and the American Empires
The two remaining major forces in world economics and politics are the British Empire and the American Empire,—the mistress of the world, and her latest rival in the competition for world power. Between them, to-day, most of the world is divided. The British Empire includes the Near East, Southern Asia, Africa, Australia and half of North America. Dogging her are Germany, France, Russia and Italy, and, as she goes to the Far East,—Japan. The United States holds the Western Hemisphere, where she is supreme, with no enemy worthy the name.
The British power was shaken by the War of 1914. Never, in modern times, had the British themselves, been compelled to do so much of the actual fighting. The war debt and the disorganization of trade incident to the war period proved serious factors in the curtailment of British economic supremacy. At the same time, the territorial gains of the British were enormous, particularly in the Near East.
The Americans secured real advantages from the war. They grew immensely rich in profiteering during the first three years, they emerged with a relatively small debt, with no great loss of life, and with the greatest economic surpluses and the greatest immediate economic advantages possessed by any nation of the world.
The British Empire was the acknowledged mistress of the world in 1913. Her nearest rival (Germany) had one battleship to her two; one ton of merchant shipping to her three, and two dollars of foreign investments to her five. This rivalry was punished as the successive rivals of the British Empire have been punished for three hundred years.
The war was won by the British Empire and her Allies, but in the hour of victory a new rival appeared. By 1920 that rival had a naval program which promised a fleet larger than the British fleet in 1924 or 1925; within three years she had increased her merchant tonnage to two-thirds of the British tonnage, and her foreign investments were three times the foreign investments of Great Britain. This new rival was the American Empire—whose immense economic strength constituted an immediate threat to the world power of Great Britain.
5. The Next Incident in the Great War
Some nation, or some group of nations has always been in control of the known world or else in active competition for the right to exercise such a control. The present is an era of competition.
Capitalism has revolutionized the world’s economic life. By 1875 the capitalist nations were in a mad race to determine which one should dominate the capitalist world and have first choice among the undeveloped portions of the earth. The competitors were Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia and Italy. Japan and the United States did not really enter the field for another generation.
The War of 1914 decided this much:—that France and Italy were too weak to play the big game in a big way, that Germany could not compete effectively for some time to come; that the Russians would no longer play the old game at all. There remained Japan, Great Britain and the United States and it is among these three nations that the capitalist world is now divided. Japan is in control of the Far East. Great Britain holds the Near East, Africa and Australia; the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere.
The Great War began in 1914. It will end when the question is decided as to which of these three empires will control the Earth.
Great Britain has been the dominant factor in the world for a century. She gained her position after a terrific struggle, and she has maintained it by vanquishing Holland, Spain, France and Germany.
The United States is out to capture the economic supremacy of the earth. Her business men say so frankly. Her politicians fear that their constituents are not as yet ready to take such a step. They have been reassured, however, by the presidential vote of November, 1920. American business life already is imperial, and political sentiment is moving rapidly in the same direction.
Great Britain holds title to the pickings of the world. America wants some or all of them. The two countries are headed straight for a conflict, which is as inevitable as morning sunrise, unless the menace of Bolshevism grows so strong, and remains so threatening that the great capitalist rivals will be compelled to join forces for the salvation of capitalist society.
As economic rivalries increase, competition in military and naval preparation will come as a matter of course. Following these will be the efforts to make political alliances—in the East and elsewhere.
These two countries are old time enemies. The roots of that enmity lie deep. Two wars, the white hot feeling during the Civil War, the anti-British propaganda, carried, within a few years, through the American schools, the traditions among the officers in the American navy, the presence of 1,352,251 Irish born persons in the United States (1910), the immense plunder seized by the British during the War of 1914,—these and many other factors will make it easy to whip the American people into a war-frenzy against the British Empire.
Were there no economic rivalries, such antagonisms might slumber for decades, but with the economic struggle so active, these other matters will be kept continually in the foreground.
The capitalists of Great Britain have faced dark days and have surmounted huge obstacles. They are not to be turned back by the threat of rivalry. The American capitalists are backed by the greatest available surpluses in the world; they are ambitious, full of enthusiasm and energy, they are flushed with their recent victory in the world war, and overwhelmed by the unexpected stores of wealth that have come to them as a result of the conflict. They are imbued with a boundless faith in the possibilities of their country. Neither Great Britain nor the United States is in a frame of mind to make concessions. Each is confident—the British with the traditional confidence of centuries of world leadership; the Americans with the buoyant, idealistic confidence of youth. It is one against the other until the future supremacy of the world is decided.
6. The Imperial Task
American business interests are engaged in the work of building an international business structure. American industry, directed from the United States, exploiting foreign resources for American profit, and financed by American institutions, is gaining a footing in Latin America, in Europe and Asia.
The business men of Rome built such a structure two thousand years ago. They competed with and finally crushed their rivals in Tyre, Corinth and Carthage. In the early days of the Empire, they were the economic masters, as well as the political masters of the known world.
Within two centuries the business men of Great Britain have built an international business structure that has known no equal since the days of the Cæsars. Perhaps it is greater, even, than the economic empire of the Romans. At any rate, for a century that British empire of commerce and industry has gone unchallenged, save by Germany. Germany has been crushed. But there is an industrial empire rising in the West. It is new. Its strength is as yet undetermined. It is uncoördinated. A new era has dawned, however, and the business men of the United States have made up their minds to win the economic supremacy of the earth.
Already the war is on between Great Britain and the United States. The two countries are just as much at war to-day as Great Britain and Germany were at war during the twenty years that preceded 1914. The issues are essentially the same in both cases,—commercial and economic in character, and it is these economic and commercial issues that are the chief causes of modern military wars—that are in themselves economic wars which may at any moment be transferred to the military arena.
British capitalists are jealously guarding the privileges that they have collected through centuries of business and military conflict. The American capitalists are out to secure these privileges for themselves. On neither side would a military settlement of the issue be welcomed. On both sides it would be regarded as a painful necessity. War is an incident in imperialist policy. Yet the position of the imperialist as an international exploiter depends upon his ability to make war successfully. War is a part of the price that the imperialist must pay for his opportunity to exploit and control the earth.
After Sedan, it was Germany versus Great Britain for the control of Europe. After Versailles it is the United States versus Great Britain for the control of the capitalist earth. Both nations must spend the next few years in active preparation for the conflict.
The governments of Great Britain and the United States are to-day on terms of greatest intimacy. Soon an issue will arise—perhaps over Mexico, perhaps over Persia, perhaps over Ireland, perhaps over the extension of American control in the Caribbean. There is no difficulty of finding a pretext.
Then there will follow the time-honored method of arousing the people on either side to wrath against those across the border. Great Britain will point to the race-riots and negro-lynchings in America as a proof that the people of the United States are barbarians. British editors will cite the wanton taking of the Canal Zone as an indication of the willingness of American statesmen to go to any lengths in their effort to extend their dominion over the earth. The newspapers of the United States will play up the terrorism and suppression in Ireland and there are many Irishmen more than ready to lend a hand in such an enterprise; tyranny in India will come in for a generous share of comment; then there are the relations between Great Britain and the Turks, and above all, there are the evidences in the Paris Treaty of the way in which Great Britain is gradually absorbing the earth. Unless the power of labor is strong enough to turn the blow, or unless the capitalists decide that the safety of the capitalist world depends upon their getting together and dividing the plunder, the result is inevitable.
The United States is a world Empire in her own right. She dominates the Western Hemisphere. Young and inexperienced, she nevertheless possesses the economic advantages and political authority that give her a voice in all international controversies. Only twenty years have passed since the organizing genius of America turned its attention from exclusively domestic problems to the problems of financial imperialism that have been agitating Europe for a half a century. The Great War showed that American men make good soldiers, and it also showed that American wealth commands world power.
With the aid of Russia, France, Japan and the United States Great Britain crushed her most dangerous rival—Germany. The struggle which destroyed Germany’s economic and military power erected in her stead a more menacing economic and military power—the United States. Untrained and inexperienced in world affairs, the master class of the United States has been placed suddenly in the title rôle. America over night has become a world empire and over night her rulers have been called upon to think and act like world emperors. Partly they succeeded, partly they bungled, but they learned much. Their appetites were whetted, their imaginations stirred by the vision of world authority. To-day they are talking and writing, to-morrow they will act—no longer as novices, but as masters of the ruling class in a nation which feels herself destined to rule the earth.
The imperial struggle is to continue. The Japanese Empire dominates the Far East; the British Empire dominates Southern Asia, the Near East, Africa and Australia; the American Empire dominates the Western Hemisphere. It is impossible for these three great empires to remain in rivalry and at peace. Economic struggle is a form of war, and the economic struggle between them is now in progress.
7. Continuing the Imperial Struggle
The War of 1914 was no war for democracy in spite of the fact that millions of the men who died in the trenches believed that they were fighting for freedom. Rather it was a war to make the world safe for the British Empire. Only in part was the war successful. The old world was made safe by the elimination of Britain’s two dangerous rivals—Germany and Russia; but out of the conflict emerged a new rival—unexpectedly strong, well equipped and eager for the conflict.
The war did not destroy imperialism. It was fought between five great empires to determine which one should be supreme. In its result, it gave to Great Britain rather than to Germany the right to exploit the undeveloped portions of Asia and of Africa.
The Peace—under the form of “mandates”—makes the process of exploitation easier and more legal than it ever has been in the past. The guarantees of territorial integrity, under the League Covenant, do more than has ever been done heretofore to preserve for the imperial masters of the earth their imperial prerogatives.
New names are being used but it is the old struggle. Egypt and India helped to win the war, and by that very process, they fastened the shackles of servitude more firmly upon their own hands and feet. The imperialists of the world never had less intention than they have to-day of quitting the game of empire building. Quite the contrary—a wholly new group of empire builders has been quickened into life by the experiences of the past five years.
The present struggle for the possession of the oil fields of the world is typical of the economic conflicts that are involved in imperial struggles. For years the capitalists of the great investing nations have been fighting to control the oil fields of Mexico. They have hired brigands, bought governors, corrupted executives. The war settled the Mexican question in favor of the United States. Mexico, considered internationally, is to-day a province of the American Empire.
During the blackest days of the war, when Paris seemed doomed, the British divided their forces. One army was operating across the deserts of the Near East. For what purpose? When the Peace was signed, Great Britain held two vantage points—the oil fields of the Near East and the road from Berlin to Bagdad.
The late war was not a war to end war, nor was it a war for disarmament. German militarism is not destroyed; the appropriations for military and naval purposes, made by the great nations during the last two years, are greater than they have ever been in any peace years that are known to history.
The world is preparing for war to-day as actively as it was in the years preceding the War of 1914. The years from 1914 to 1918 were the opening episodes; the first engagements of the Great War.
There is no question, among those who have taken the trouble to inform themselves, but that the War of 1914 was fought for economic and commercial advantage. The same rivalries that preceded 1914 are more active in the world to-day than ever before. Hence the possibilities of war are greater by exactly that amount. The imperial struggle is being continued and a part of the imperial struggle is war.
8. Again!
This monstrous thing called war will occur again! Not because any considerable number of people want it, not even because an active minority wills it, but because the present system of competitive capitalism makes war inevitable. Economic rivalries are the basis of modern wars and economic rivalries are the warp and woof of capitalism.
To-day the rivalries are economic—in the fields of commerce and industry and finance. To-morrow they will be military.
Already the nations have begun the competition in the building of tanks, battleships and airplanes. These instruments of destruction are built for use, and when the time comes, they will be used as they were between 1914 and 1918.
Again there will be the war propaganda—subtle at first, then more and more open. There will be stories of atrocities; threats of world conquest. “Preparedness” will be the cry.
Again there will be the talk of “My country, right or wrong”; “Stand behind the President”; “Fall in line”; “Go over the top!”
Again fear will stalk through the land, while hate and war lust are whipped into a frenzy.
Again there will be conscription, and the straightest and strongest of the young men will leave their homes and join the colors.
Again the most stalwart men of the nations will “dig themselves in” and slaughter one another for years on end.
Again the truth-tellers will be mobbed and jailed and lynched, while those who champion the cause of the workers will be served with injunctions if they refuse to sell out to the masters.
Again the profiteers will stop at home and reap their harvests out of the agony and the blood of the nation.
Again, when the killing is over, a few old men, sitting around a table, will carve the world—stripping the vanquished while they reward the victors.
Again the preparations will begin for the next war. The people will be fed on promises, phrases and lies. They will pay and they will die for the benefit of their masters, and thus the terrible tragedy of imperialism will continue to bathe the world in tears and in blood.