A fourth association, the Germanic League for South America, has been formed more recently for the purpose of uniting together persons of German speech and origin in Latin America and preserving their Germanic character, particularly by means of German schools. This institution has a special significance just at the time when the Brazilian Government has determined that all its citizens shall be Brazilians and nothing else.
The three leagues which have their headquarters in Berlin, Hamburg and Aix-la-Chapelle have been in active movement for some time, and there is evidence from South America that they do their work in a thorough and effective fashion and have won considerable success, particularly through cultivating the friendship of South American visitors to Germany.
But in estimating German designs, we must look beyond these German leagues, which are merely an incidental part of German economic organisation. That subject far transcends the present topic, but embraces it so closely that the main outlines may be indicated. Most of the German industries are consolidated into cartels or syndicates in such a way as to eliminate competition, regulate prices and output, distribute risks or losses, facilitate the export of surplus products, and apportion business between the members of the cartel. The whole body of industrialists is united in league; merchants or exporters are similarly united; a small group of great banks, practically constituting one power, manages the financial side of the national industry and commerce with a singular mixture of daring and judgment, guided by a wonderfully complete enquiry system, a veritable international secret service; the great shipping companies, which coalesce more and more into a single huge national concern, work in close co-operation with organised industry and organised trade; railway transport is managed by the state so as to dovetail into the same machine: and the whole forms altogether a carefully constructed system of co-operation, cohesion and united action. That organisation has not fallen into abeyance during the present war. On the contrary, month by month it is being perfected, rounded off. Lastly, Germany has appointed, as it were, an economic headquarters staff, a small group of expert business men who for two years past have been devoting themselves to the working out of means for transferring Germany from a war basis to a peace basis with the least possible disturbance and delay. This higher command has its hand upon the levers of the whole machine, which, upon the conclusion of peace, is at once to resume with redoubled energy its interrupted task, industrial and commercial recovery, and particularly the economic conquest of Latin America.
In order that we may know what Germany is doing, these German organisations have been noted here. It would be impertinent, in both senses of the word, to compare or to criticise British methods. The problem of British reorganisation is being studied by experts and worked out by those in authority, and it is constantly expounded in official publications. But, without attempting to give individual opinions, one may quote some of authority.
"Great nations do not imitate." We may learn much in detail from the Germans; but Englishmen could not adopt the German system unless by first turning themselves into Prussians. Our people would never submit to Prussian methods of state control. Moreover all British experience shows that in this country such control would be disastrous. Yet competent authorities agree that immediate organisation is a necessity. It cannot be beyond the wit of Englishmen to devise means whereby British individual enterprise, common sense and self-reliance may work through methods of systematic organisation, combination, united action. From the friends of Britain everywhere comes the same warning. It is most appropriate to conclude with one uttered by a South American of unimpeachable authority, Don Pedro Cosio, former Uruguayan Finance Minister, who recently represented the Republic of Uruguay in this country. In a report to his government on the organisation of labour in the United Kingdom he writes, "The nation which is the first to organise its industry for the commercial campaign will be the one which will occupy the forefront in foreign markets."
CHAPTER III
THE ECONOMIC WAR AND ITS PROPAGANDA
"Economic War":—This reiterated German phrase is not mere metaphor. The Germans pursued in peace the operations of war. To them commerce meant not merely the pursuit of trade in peaceful rivalry with others, but a sustained effort to defeat and oust rivals and reduce to economic subjugation the lands penetrated. By plunging into open war, which was meant to continue and to confirm that process, the Germans have risked their previous gains. Their own weapons are turned against them. The economic character of the actual war and the efficacy of the economic weapon in the hands of the Allies become more and more evident. In the early months of the war this weapon was not wielded with thorough decision, and Germans beyond the Atlantic were able to carry on considerable European trade. But today the German merchant is striving to defend, against an overwhelming weight of maritime pressure, the ground which he had won through a generation of laborious and patient effort.
This economic struggle covers all the shores of all the Oceans. Its Latin-American phase has a special interest owing to the remarkable position attained in those lands by the Germans, the high value which they attach to that position, and their special efforts to maintain it under present difficulties. The most varied ingenuity is called into play to circumvent the barrier which now cuts off those countries from Germany. Present risks and losses are viewed as part of the inevitable waste of war, as an outlay deliberately incurred in the all-important task of holding open the gate through which, upon the conclusion of peace, the fruits of German industry are at once to pour in an irresistible stream, in exchange for those raw materials which are urgently needed to feed the industrial life of Germany after the war. This is the constant preoccupation of German business circles—the need of raw materials. And this is the reason why Latin America, the great source of raw materials, is courted with eager hope and anxious apprehension.