American World Policies

Even with the addition of the self-governing colonies, the population of the United Kingdom is increased by less than a third,90 and the sixty millions of the six British nations are little more capable of defending the British Empire than are the forty-five millions of the United Kingdom. The advantage of far more than doubling the population back of the British Empire is therefore apparent. As compared with the United States, Great Britain is growing slowly. Moreover she is in a permanently perilous situation, lying near the strongest military powers and unable to recover, once her navy is destroyed. Great Britain preserves her empire only by alliances which prevent the forming of a hostile European coalition, and in the future an American alliance may seem indispensable to the maintenance of the Empire and even to the safety of Britain. At such time it may appear better to divide and rule than risk the chance of ruin by carrying the burden alone.

This problem of defence is not one of valour but of economic resources and geographical position. The men of Britain are as courageous to-day as were their forefathers, but just as the brave Hollanders could not maintain supremacy on the sea because with their small numbers they were forced to make front against the French, so the English are now compelled to face an increasingly difficult international situation. In war, bulk, territory and weight of numbers count, and how these factors will affect the relation between Great Britain (even with her colonies) and other strong powers a half-century hence is a serious question. There is always the unpleasant possibility that a failure of the clever diplomacy by which Great Britain has hitherto divided her enemies will some day incite an attack from an overwhelming coalition of land-hungry powers.

To American imperialists an invitation to share in the profits, prestige and cost of maintenance of the British Empire might prove an overwhelming temptation. America would become an imperialistic people by adoption. Without having laboured and fought we should overnight enter upon a joint control of the greatest imperium the world has seen. Together with Britain it would be ours to enjoy, and in the common possession of these vast domains the divisive forces between the British and American peoples would vanish. Our American historians would forget that there had ever been a Revolutionary War or would interpret that incident as a purely internal conflict, which temporarily lost us a few excellent islands, since regained.

But if the British Empire, to say nothing of new rights, privileges and possessions would be ours to enjoy, it would also be ours to defend. An Anglo-American Empire would arouse the envy and the fear of other nations. We should have to defend not only our new joint dependencies but the most distant approaches to them. We could not rest quietly unarmed with these possessions in our house.

An Anglo-American imperialism, indeed any Anglo-American alliance which does not include France, Germany, Russia and other powers, thus brings us no nearer to peace or to a solution of the international problem. It is but the prelude to a new balance of power, a new alignment of hostile national ambitions. If Great Britain and the United States grow and prevent other nations from growing, exploit and prevent other nations from exploiting, we shall be merely reproducing the present fatal scission of Europe upon a large scale.

As against this ideal of American Imperialism, on its own account or in alliance with the greatest imperialistic power, stands the ideal of internationalism. It is an ideal which looks forward towards the creation of a concert of interest among the nations, the growth of international law and the more equal utilisation of the world by the nations. It is an ideal which can be realised only as nations perceive that their ultimate advantage lies in compromising their extreme demands and merging national interests in a larger international interest.

To-day an overwhelming majority of Americans desire a foreign policy looking towards internationalism. They prefer to strive for peace in America and Europe rather than to attempt any imperialistic expansion likely to perpetuate the war-breeding competition between nations.

To realise this ideal, indeed to make any progress whatsoever towards its realisation, we must seek to alter the economic web in which the nations of the world now live. There is at present a conflict between two principles, economic nationalism and economic internationalism. Each nation seeks to obtain for itself security, progress and a favoured position; each has its separate national ambitions. At the same time all the industrial nations have a common interest in maintaining themselves upon the resources of the agricultural countries, and in building up a vast system, in which the world's resources will be utilised most efficiently for the benefit of the world inhabitants.

The problem, therefore, is to promote this economic internationalism and to limit as far as possible the disturbing influence of the divisive national interests. We cannot destroy and we cannot ignore nationalism. We cannot resolve humanity into a mass of denationalised atoms, citizens of the world with no economic or political allegiance to any state. All we can do is so to compromise and adjust strong and vital national claims, as to permit the growth of the international interest. The progress of economic internationalism, without which a permanent peace cannot be maintained, is to be furthered only as each nation attains to a political and economic security, both in the present and for the future. If a reasonable degree of industrial, commercial and colonial progress can be guaranteed, so that the great industrial nations do not live in constant peril, the vast forces which make for an international exploitation of the world's resources will be unchained. A common right to the use of the highway of the sea, a joint imperialism, an international development of commerce and of industry, a mutual insurance of the nations against war, and against national aggression likely to lead to war, will be factors in the establishment of an economic internationalism, which is the next stage in the economic development of the world.

The United States cannot by itself create a new economic world system; all that it can do is to contribute with other nations to the removal of obstacles that retard the coming development. The opportunity to advance this movement, however, is greater in the case of the United States than in that of the nations of Europe. A nation tends to prefer its immediate national interest to its larger but more distant international interest directly in proportion to the economic or political danger in which it lives. Because of our wealth, our sparse population and our relative immunity from attack, it devolves upon us to be the leader in the promotion of an economic internationalism.

This potential leadership of ours, however, may be lost as a result of an unfavourable economic and social development in the future. What our attitude towards internationalism, nationalism, imperialism and war is to be ten, thirty or fifty years from now will depend upon our internal development. We cannot decide for a policy of internationalism if we grow to be an over-populated country of impoverished men, with great capitalists pushing us out towards foreign adventures, economic and military. An imperialistic war-like spirit will arise if the internal pressure upon the population becomes excessive.

In measuring this pressure, we are dealing with relatives, not absolutes. During many centuries the Chinese coolies have become so accommodated to a meagre life that they do not seek to conquer other nations but choose rather to starve quietly within their walls. There is a higher standard of living in Germany to-day than in the more pacific Germany of seventy years ago, but desires have increased more rapidly than wages. As a result the nation is forced outwards.

Though in many respects conditions of life in America are improving, discontent and frustrated ambition increase. As our numbers grow, farms become relatively scarce, and a class of tenant farmers and an agricultural proletariat develop. The chances of success for both these classes are slighter than a generation ago. Manufacturing is conducted on an ever larger scale and the opportunity to rise is becoming less. The openings in retail trade, though many, are small, and there are vast numbers of failures. Wages are less in relation to the standards of living surrounding the workman, and fear of unemployment is chronic. The country is full of poor men with no firm purchase on life. Income, it is true, is more evenly distributed than property, but even here a crass inequality reigns. Upon the wage-earners falls the heavy incidence of industrial injuries, disease, and unemployment.

It is of such conditions that imperialism and wars are made. To develop millions of landless men without wealth and with precarious jobs is to create a material superlatively inflammable. You can appeal to such men for a "strong" policy that will conquer foreign markets and therefore "jobs." There is a group much lower in economic status—the men submerged below the poverty line. These men, with no money in their pockets and no steady employment, but with voices, votes and newspaper organs, are susceptible to jingoism. They have a high narrow sensibility created by precariousness and hunger. Here we are creating a culture for war bacteria. The concentration of wealth at the top of our society acts similarly. We are developing in America, the type of big business adventurer, who desires an aggressive foreign policy, not only for his direct business interests, but also to allay unrest at home by pointing a minatory finger at the foreigner beyond our borders.

Already we have many of the elements that go to make up the war spirit. In the present conflict we have been pacific owing to the division of our sympathies, the deadening realisation of the immense forces engaged and losses incurred, and the realisation that our interests were not involved. To these factors there was added a sudden prosperity contingent upon our remaining at peace. But even as early as 1898, when the proletarisation of America was less developed, we had millions of inflamed patriots, who would willingly have fought all Europe rather than "haul down our flag" in the Philippines. What will happen twenty years from now, when our export trade is greater and more necessary and when (unless we change conditions) there will be more poverty and insecurity than to-day? If at such a time Germany, Japan or Russia, or all three, determine upon an action, which will injure our pretensions and throw many of our citizens out of work, we shall surely feel resentment. We cannot safely predict that we will adopt a gentle attitude. Like France in 1870, like Russia in 1905, we may stumble into a war over our rights and pretensions, may be rushed into it not only because of a conflict of interests which we did not foresee but because of a vicious internal development which we did not avert.

All our customary self-assurances that we shall never fight nations now friendly are mere deception. So we thought just before the war of 1812. We were never more pacific than in 1895 when we ventured on a desperate challenge to England, or in 1898 when we attacked Spain. Though we averted war with Germany over the Lusitania matter, our public mind was so uninformed that we might easily have been pushed into the conflict by a more bellicose President. We should have a better chance of keeping the peace if we were not so blindly confident of our peacefulness. It takes only one to make a quarrel, and the aggressor might not impossibly be ourselves. Nor can peace be predicted on the ground that we have given no offence and do not intend to give offence. The other nation will be the judge of that. And if we become imperialistic we shall have given offence enough.

Neither will our religion, our almost universal Christianity, strike the weapons from our hands. It is doubtful whether religion ever kept a nation out of war. The Germans and the English are both Christian peoples and therefore quite willing to fight God's battle, which is their battle. If a crisis arose in America out of our economic conflicts with Europe and our own psychological instability, we should find the ministers of the Gospel on the same side as the editors, politicians, and the people generally, as they have been at most times when peace has been threatened. A war rooted perhaps in the rival interests of American and foreign oil companies in Venezuela would be hailed on both sides as a battle for civilisation and the Lord. Not even our diversity of racial stocks would prevent such a war, though it would no doubt make us hesitant. We should be loath to fight against Germany, Austria, Italy or England, because of the presence in our midst of natives of these lands. Once the fighting had begun, however, all opposition would be overcome, and the war would go on despite its spiritual costs.

If we are to decide therefore not for imperialism and imperialistic wars but for a policy which will mean peace for ourselves and peace and international reorganisation for Europe and the World, we must begin our labours at home. Unless we are able to build a democratic civilisation upon the basis of a thoroughly scientific utilisation of our own resources, unless we so direct our American development that we shall not be forced to fight for a larger share of the remaining exploitable regions, we shall make little progress towards a settlement of the grave problems which now divide the nations. To promote an economic internationalism we must make our own internal economic development sound; to help cure the World we must maintain our own health. Internationalism begins at home.