It is, not, then the indication of a formal political purpose, far less of anything like a threat, that is, from my point of view, to be recognized in the recent development of the navy. Nations, as a rule, do not move with the foresight and the fixed plan which distinguish a very few individuals of the human race. They do not practise on the pistol-range before sending a challenge; if they did, wars would be fewer, as is proved by the present long-continued armed peace in Europe. Gradually and imperceptibly the popular feeling, which underlies most lasting national movements, is aroused and swayed by incidents, often trivial, but of the same general type, whose recurrence gradually moulds public opinion and evokes national action, until at last there issues that settled public conviction which alone, in a free state, deserves the name of national policy. What the origin of those particular events whose interaction establishes a strong political current in a particular direction, it is perhaps unprofitable to inquire. Some will see in the chain of cause and effect only a chapter of accidents, presenting an interesting philosophical study, and nothing more; others, equally persuaded that nations do not effectively shape their mission in the world, will find in them the ordering of a Divine ruler, who does not permit the individual or the nation to escape its due share of the world's burdens. But, however explained, it is a common experience of history that in the gradual ripening of events there comes often suddenly and unexpectedly the emergency, the call for action, to maintain the nation's contention. That there is an increased disposition on the part of civilized countries to deal with such cases by ordinary diplomatic discussion and mutual concession can be gratefully acknowledged; but that such dispositions are not always sufficient to reach a peaceable solution is equally an indisputable teaching of the recent past. Popular emotion, once fairly roused, sweeps away the barriers of calm deliberation, and is deaf to the voice of reason. That the consideration of relative power enters for much in the diplomatic settlement of international difficulties is also certain, just as that it goes for much in the ordering of individual careers. "Can," as well as "will," plays a large share in the decisions of life.
Like each man and woman, no state lives to itself alone, in a political seclusion resembling the physical isolation which so long was the ideal of China and Japan. All, whether they will or no, are members of a community, larger or, smaller; and more and more those of the European family to which we racially belong are touching each other throughout the world, with consequent friction of varying degree. That the greater rapidity of communication afforded by steam has wrought, in the influence of sea power over the face of the globe, an extension that is multiplying the points of contact and emphasizing the importance of navies, is a fact, the intelligent appreciation of which is daily more and more manifest in the periodical literature of Europe, and is further shown by the growing stress laid upon that arm of military strength by foreign governments; while the mutual preparation of the armies on the European continent, and the fairly settled territorial conditions, make each state yearly more wary of initiating a contest, and thus entail a political quiescence there, except in the internal affairs of each country. The field of external action for the great European states is now the world, and it is hardly doubtful that their struggles, unaccompanied as yet by actual clash of arms, are even under that condition drawing nearer to ourselves. Coincidently with our own extension to the Pacific Ocean, which for so long had a good international claim to its name, that sea has become more and more the scene of political development, of commercial activities and rivalries, in which all the great powers, ourselves included, have a share. Through these causes Central and Caribbean America, now intrinsically unimportant, are brought in turn into great prominence, as constituting the gateway between the Atlantic and Pacific when the Isthmian canal shall have been made, and as guarding the approaches to it. The appearance of Japan as a strong ambitious state, resting on solid political and military foundations, but which scarcely has reached yet a condition of equilibrium in international standing, has fairly startled the world; and it is a striking illustration of the somewhat sudden nearness and unforeseen relations into which modern states are brought, that the Hawaiian Islands, so interesting from the international point of view to the countries of European civilization, are occupied largely by Japanese and Chinese.
In all these questions we have a stake, reluctantly it may be, but necessarily, for our evident interests are involved, in some instances directly, in others by very probable implication. Under existing conditions, the opinion that we can keep clear indefinitely of embarrassing problems is hardly tenable; while war between two foreign states, which in the uncertainties of the international situation throughout the world may break out at any time, will increase greatly the occasions of possible collision with the belligerent countries, and the consequent perplexities of our statesmen seeking to avoid entanglement and to maintain neutrality.
Although peace is not only the avowed but for the most part the actual desire of European governments, they profess no such aversion to distant political enterprises and colonial acquisitions as we by tradition have learned to do. On the contrary, their committal to such divergent enlargements of the national activities and influence is one of the most pregnant facts of our time, the more so that their course is marked in the case of each state by a persistence of the same national traits that characterized the great era of colonization, which followed the termination of the religious wars in Europe, and led to the world-wide contests of the eighteenth century. In one nation the action is mainly political,—that of a government pushed, by long-standing tradition and by its passion for administration, to extend the sphere of its operations so as to acquire a greater field in which to organize and dominate, somewhat regardless of economical advantage. In another the impulse comes from the restless, ubiquitous energy of the individual citizens, singly or in companies, moved primarily by the desire of gain, but carrying ever with them, subordinate only to the commercial aim, the irresistible tendency of the race to rule as well as to trade, and dragging the home government to recognize and to assume the consequences of their enterprise. Yet again there is the movement whose motive is throughout mainly private and mercantile, in which the individual seeks wealth only, with little or no political ambition, and where the government intervenes chiefly that it may retain control of its subjects in regions where but for such intervention they would become estranged from it. But, however diverse the modes of operation, all have a common characteristic, in that they bear the stamp of the national genius,—a proof that the various impulses are not artificial, but natural, and that they therefore will continue until an adjustment is reached.
What the process will be, and what the conclusion, it is impossible to foresee; but that friction at times has been very great, and matters dangerously near passing from the communications of cabinets to the tempers of the peoples, is sufficiently known. If, on the one hand, some look upon this as a lesson to us to keep clear of similar adventures, on the other hand it gives a warning that not only do causes of offence exist which may result at an unforeseen moment in a rupture extending to many parts of the world, but also that there is a spirit abroad which yet may challenge our claim to exclude its action and interference in any quarter, unless it finds us prepared there in adequate strength to forbid it, or to exercise our own. More and more civilized man is needing and seeking ground to occupy, room over which to expand and in which to live. Like all natural forces, the impulse takes the direction of least resistance, but when in its course it comes upon some region rich in possibilities, but unfruitful through the incapacity or negligence of those who dwell therein, the incompetent race or system will go down, as the inferior race ever has fallen back and disappeared before the persistent impact of the superior. The recent and familiar instance of Egypt is entirely in point. The continuance of the existing system—if it can be called such—had become impossible, not because of the native Egyptians, who had endured the like for ages, but because there were involved therein the interests of several European states, of which two principally were concerned by present material interest and traditional rivalry. Of these one, and that the one most directly affected, refused to take part in the proposed interference, with the result that this was not abandoned, but carried out solely by the other, which remains in political and administrative control of the country. Whether the original enterprise or the continued presence of Great Britain in Egypt is entirely clear of technical wrongs, open to the criticism of the pure moralist, is as little to the point as the morality of an earthquake; the general action was justified by broad considerations of moral expediency, being to the benefit of the world at large, and of the people of Egypt in particular—however they might have voted in the matter.
But what is chiefly instructive in this occurrence is the inevitableness, which it shares in common with the great majority of cases where civilized and highly organized peoples have trespassed upon the technical rights of possession of the previous occupants of the land—of which our own dealings with the American Indian afford another example. The inalienable rights of the individual are entitled to a respect which they unfortunately do not always get; but there is no inalienable right in any community to control the use of a region when it does so to the detriment of the world at large, of its neighbors in particular, or even at times of its own subjects. Witness, for example, the present angry resistance of the Arabs at Jiddah to the remedying of a condition of things which threatens to propagate a deadly disease far and wide, beyond the locality by which it is engendered; or consider the horrible conditions under which the Armenian subjects of Turkey have lived and are living. When such conditions obtain, they can be prolonged only by the general indifference or mutual jealousies of the other peoples concerned—as in the instance of Turkey—or because there is sufficient force to perpetuate the misrule, in which case the right is inalienable only until its misuse brings ruin, or until a stronger force appears to dispossess it. It is because so much of the world still remains in the possession of the savage, or of states whose imperfect development, political or economical, does not enable them to realize for the general use nearly the result of which the territory is capable, while at the same time the redundant energies of civilized states, both government and peoples, are finding lack of openings and scantiness of livelihood at home, that there now obtains a condition of aggressive restlessness with which all have to reckon.
That the United States does not now share this tendency is entirely evident. Neither her government nor her people are affected by it to any great extent. But the force of circumstances has imposed upon her the necessity, recognized with practical unanimity by her people, of insuring to the weaker states of America, although of racial and political antecedents different from her own, freedom to develop politically along their own lines and according to their own capacities, without interference in that respect from governments foreign to these continents. The duty is self-assumed; and resting, as it does, not upon political philanthropy, but simply upon our own proximate interests as affected by such foreign interference, has towards others rather the nature of a right than a duty. But, from either point of view, the facility with which the claim has been allowed heretofore by the great powers has been due partly to the lack of pressing importance in the questions that have arisen, and partly to the great latent strength of our nation, which was an argument more than adequate to support contentions involving matters of no greater immediate moment, for example, than that of the Honduras Bay Islands or of the Mosquito Coast. Great Britain there yielded, it is true, though reluctantly and slowly; and it is also true that, so far as organized force is concerned, she could have destroyed our navy then existing and otherwise have injured us greatly; but the substantial importance of the question, though real, was remote in the future, and, as it was, she made a political bargain which was more to her advantage than ours. But while our claim thus far has received a tacit acquiescence, it remains to be seen whether it will continue to command the same if the states whose political freedom of action we assert make no more decided advance towards political stability than several of them have done yet, and if our own organized naval force remains as slender, comparatively, as it once was, and even yet is. It is probably safe to say that an undertaking like that of Great Britain in Egypt, if attempted in this hemisphere by a non-American state, would not be tolerated by us if able to prevent it; but it is conceivable that the moral force of our contention might be weakened, in the view of an opponent, by attendant circumstances, in which case our physical power to support it should be open to no doubt.
That we shall seek to secure the peaceable solution of each difficulty as it arises is attested by our whole history, and by the disposition of our people; but to do so, whatever the steps taken in any particular case, will bring us into new political relations and may entail serious disputes with other states. In maintaining the justest policy, the most reasonable influence, one of the political elements, long dominant, and still one of the most essential, is military strength—in the broad sense of the word "military," which includes naval as well—not merely potential, which our own is, but organized and developed, which our own as yet is not. We wisely quote Washington's warning against entangling alliances, but too readily forget his teaching about preparation for war. The progress of the world from age to age, in its ever-changing manifestations, is a great political drama, possessing a unity, doubtless, in its general development, but in which, as act follows act, one situation alone can engage, at one time, the attention of the actors. Of this drama war is simply a violent and tumultuous political incident. A navy, therefore, whose primary sphere of action is war, is, in the last analysis and from the least misleading point of view, a political factor of the utmost importance in international affairs, one more often deterrent than irritant. It is in that light, according to the conditions of the age and of the nation, that it asks and deserves the appreciation of the state, and that it should be developed in proportion to the reasonable possibilities of the political future.
[ PREPAREDNESS FOR NAVAL WAR. ]
December, 1896.