(b) To show the relative commercial importance of the continents (excluding Oceania) at a certain time, as in 1913, the following method may be adopted. Rule a sheet of paper in equal squares, or procure a sheet of plotting paper already ruled. Draw on the paper a map of Europe to such a scale that the land area will include as nearly as possible 237 squares (89 imports plus 148 exports.) Exactness is impracticable, but a few experiments should make the result sufficiently accurate; an error of 10 or 20 squares is of little importance. Draw then the maps of the other continents so that each one contains the number of squares corresponding to its share in our trade (North America, exclusive of U. S., 98; Asia, 40; South America, 37, etc.). The contrast between the continents will be sufficiently striking even if other maps, showing the continents in their true proportions, are not made for comparison.
16. Methods similar to those already employed may be used in studying the commerce of the U. S. with separate countries. Full statistical information is comprised in the Reports on Commerce and Navigations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
See chapter li.
TOPICS FOR REVIEW
The following topics are suggested for use in a general review of American commerce: (a) history of American shipping; (b) transportation by road, river, canal and lake; (c) transportation by railroad; (d) production and exchange of wheat and flour; (e) cotton; (f) animal products; (g) textiles, (cotton, wool, silk); (h) iron and steel; (i) other mineral products; (j) commerce with European countries; (k) commerce with Asia; (l) commerce with the West Indies and South America; (m) history of American seaports; (n) tariff history.
PART VI.—THE WORLD WAR
CHAPTER LIV
COMMERCE AND THE WORLD WAR, 1914-1918
712. Commercial antecedents of the war.—To picture the World War of 1914-18 as a necessary result of the commercial conditions in the period immediately preceding would be a distortion of the facts. The recourse to arms is a voluntary act, and this war, like others preceding it, would not have taken place if one party to it had not consciously chosen to use force to obtain what it wanted. War is never a necessary and inevitable result of economic conditions. On the other hand, there are periods in which commercial competition is so intense that it puts a strain on international relations, tempting one or another party in the struggle to further the interests of its people by threats of force or by force itself. The economic strain is particularly likely to lead to rupture if the political system of the period is faulty, if international politics provide no effective way for the just settlement of differences, and if national politics fail to represent the interests of the people as a whole but sacrifice these to the selfish interests of a group. Keen competition does not cause war, but keen competition and faulty politics in combination are apt to do so.
713. Germany and the outbreak of war.—The danger-spot in the international situation before 1914 was Germany. That country had achieved extraordinary success in its recent economic development. Its progress, moreover, was due only in minor degree to its endowment of natural resources; it proceeded from the industrial virtues of the people, from the efficiency of the organization, and from the leadership of scientific experts. The Germans were proud, and had a right to be proud, of their success. They could not complain of the reward which had been accorded them. They were troubled, however, about their future. They had come to depend upon world-trade, and found the world largely under the political control of rival states. It is true that in that very world they enjoyed abounding prosperity; but the foundations of their prosperity appeared to them uncertain. Inheriting antiquated ideas about the power of the state to guide economic development and to further commercial interests, they imputed to other countries political designs which were the products of their own peculiar ways of thought. They saw in the high tariffs of the United States and Russia, in the spread of the idea of a customs union in the British Empire, in the expansion of French influence in Morocco, so many evidences of a plan of their rivals to hem them in, and misuse political power to rob them of their deserts. Should they not, before it was too late, “break through the iron circle,” establish a great state in central Europe extending down to the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, take the place in “world-politics” which accorded with their economic merits, and so—for this was the sincere conviction of many Germans—not merely win their own “place in the sun,” but also direct in the right path the civilization of the world as a whole? Given the prevalence of ideas like these, given an antiquated political system that allowed exaggerated influence to dynastic and military interests, and the forces impelling Germany to war were strong; given the old-fashioned and outworn system of international diplomacy, the stress was irresistible and the rupture came.