Problems of the Pacific

by Frank Fox

THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC

That our civilisation is based on conditions of warring struggle is shown by the fact that even matters of production and industry are discussed in terms of conflict. The "war of tariffs," the "struggle for markets," the "defence of trade," the "protection of our work"—these are every-day current phrases; and the problem of the Pacific as it presents itself to the statesmen of some countries has little concern with navies or armies, but almost exclusively comes as an industrial question: "Will our national interests be affected adversely by the cheap competition of Asiatic labour, either working on its home territory or migrating to our own land, now that the peoples of the Pacific are being drawn into the affairs of the world?"

Viewed in the light of abstract logic, it seems the quaintest of paradoxes that the very act of production of the comforts and necessities of life can be considered, under any circumstances, a hostile one. Viewed in the light of the actual living facts of the day, it is one of the clearest of truths that a nation and a race may be attacked and dragged down through its industries, and that national greatness is lost and won in destructive competition in the workshops of the world. That industry itself may be turned to bad account is another proof that an age, in which there is much talk of peace, is still governed in the main by the ideas of warfare. The other day, to Dr Hall Edwards, known as the X-ray Martyr," a grateful nation gave a pension of £120 a year after he had had his second hand amputated. He had given practically his life ("for you do take my life when you take the means whereby I live") to Humanity. As truly as any martyr who died for a religious idea or a political principle, or for the rescue of another in danger, he had earned the blessing decreed to whomsoever gives up his life for his brother. And he was awarded a pension of £120 a year to comfort the remainder of his maimed existence! At the same time that Dr Hall Edwards was awarded his pension, an engineer thought he had discovered a new principle in ballistics. His bold and daring mind soared above the puny guns by which a man can hardly dare to hope to kill a score of other men at a distance of five miles. He dreamed of an electric catapult which "could fire shells at the rate of thousands per minute from London to Paris, and even further." The invention would have raised the potential homicidal power of man a thousandfold. And the inventor asked—and, without a doubt, if he had proved his weapon to be what he said, would have got—£1,000,000. The invention did not justify at the time the claims made on its behalf. But a new method of destruction which did, could command its million pounds with certainty from almost any civilised government in the world.

In industry also the greatest fortunes await those who can extend their markets by destroying the markets of their rivals, and nations aim at increasing their prosperity by driving other nations out of a home or a neutral market. There is thus a definitely destructive side to the work of production; and some foresee in the future an Asiatic victory over the White Races, not effected directly by force of arms but by destructive industrial competition which would sap away the foundations of White power. How far that danger is real and how far illusory is a matter worthy of examination.

At the outset the theoretical possibility of such a development must be admitted, though the practical danger will be found to be not serious, since it can be met by simple precautions. There are several familiar instances in European history of a nation being defeated first in the industrial or commercial arena, and then, as an inevitable sequel, falling behind in the rivalry of war fleets and armies. In the Pacific there may be seen some facts illustrating the process. The Malay Peninsula, for instance, is becoming rapidly a Chinese instead of a Malay Colony of Great Britain. In the old days the Malays, instinctively hostile to the superior industry and superior trading skill of the Chinese, kept out Chinese immigrants at the point of the kris. With the British overlordship the Chinaman has a fair field, and he peacefully penetrates the peninsula, ousting the original inhabitants. In Fiji, again, Hindoo coolies have been imported by the sugar-planters to take the place of the capricious Fijian worker. Superior industry and superior trading skill tell, and the future fate of Fiji is to be an Indian colony with White overseers, the Fijian race vanishing.

In both these instances, however, the dispossessed race is a coloured one. Could a White Race be ousted from a land in the same way, presuming that the White Race is superior and not inferior? Without doubt, yes, if the coloured race were allowed ingress, for they would instil into the veins of the White community the same subtle poison as would a slave class. The people of every land which comes into close contact with the Asiatic peoples of the West Pacific littoral know this, and in all the White communities of the ocean there is a jealousy and fear of Asiatic colonisation. The British colonies in the Pacific, in particular, are determined not to admit the Asiatic races within their border. That determination was ascribed by a British Colonial Secretary of a past era as due to "an industrial reason and a trade union reason, the determination that a country having been won by the efforts and the struggle of a White Race and rescued from barbarism should not be made the ground of competition by men who had not been engaged in that struggle." But I prefer to think that the reason lies deeper than the fear of cheaper labour. It springs rather from the consciousness that a higher race cannot live side by side with a lower race and preserve its national type. If the labouring classes have always been in the van of anti-Asiatic movements in the White colonies of the Pacific, it is because the labouring classes have come first into contact with the evils of Asiatic colonisation. It is now some years since I first put forward as the real basis of the "White Australia" policy "the instinct against race-mixture which Nature has implanted in man to promote her work of evolution." That view was quoted by Mr Richard Jebb in his valuable Studies in Colonial Nationalism, and at once it won some acceptance in Great Britain which before had been inclined to be hostile to the idea of "White Australia." Subsequently in a paper before the Royal Society of Arts Mr Jebb took occasion to say:

"Let me enter a protest against the still popular fallacy that the Pacific attitude (i.e. in regard to Asiatic labour) is dictated merely by the selfish insistence of well-organised and rapacious labour. Two circumstances tell decisively against this view. One is that responsible local representatives, not dependent upon labour suffrages, invariably argue for restriction or exclusion on the higher social and political grounds in relation to which the labour question is subsidiary, although essential. The second evidence is the modern adherence to the restriction movement of nearly all Australasians and an increasing number of Canadians, who are not 'in politics' and whose material interests in many cases are opposed to the extravagant demands of labour. Their insight contrasts favourably, I think, with that perverse body of opinion, to be found in all countries, which instinctively opposes some policy of enormous national importance lest the immediate advantage should accrue to persons not thought to deserve the benefit."

But whilst the industrial reason is not the only reason, nor even the chief reason, against Asiatic immigration into a White colony, there is, of course, a special objection on the part of the industrial classes to such immigration. It is for that reason that there has been in all the White settlements of the Pacific a small section, angered by what they considered to be the exorbitant demands of the workers, anxious to enlist the help of Asiatic labour for the quick development of new territories, and in some cases this section has had its way to an extent. Some of the Canadian railways were built with the help of Chinese labour: and Western Canada has that fact chiefly to thank for her coloured race troubles to-day—not so serious as those of the United States with the Negroes, but still not negligible altogether. In Australia it was at one time proposed to introduce Chinese as workers in the pastoral industry: and one monstrous proposal was that Chinese men should be mated with Kanaka women in the South Sea Islands to breed slave labour for sheep stations and farms in Australia.

Fortunately that was frustrated, as were all other plans of Asiatic immigration, and as soon as the Australian colonists had been allowed the right to manage their own affairs they made a first use of their power by passing stringent laws against Asiatic immigrations. A typical Act was that passed in 1888 in New South Wales. By that Act it was provided that no ship should bring Chinese immigrants to a greater number than one for every 300 tons of cargo measurement (thus a ship of 3000 tons could not bring more than ten Chinese): and each Chinaman on landing had to pay a poll tax of £100. Chinese could not claim naturalisation rights and could not engage in gold-mining without permission. Since then the Australian Commonwealth has passed a law which absolutely prohibits coloured immigration, under the subterfuge of an Education Test. New Zealand shares with Australia a policy of rigorous exclusion of Asiatics. In Canada the desire lately evinced of the Western people to exclude Asiatics altogether has been thwarted, so far, by the political predominance of the Eastern states, which have not had a first-hand knowledge of the evils following upon Asiatic immigration, and have vetoed the attempts of British Columbia to bar out the objectionable colonists. But some measures of exclusion have been adopted enforcing landing fees on Chinese; and, by treaty, limiting the number of Japanese permitted to enter. Further rights of exclusion are still sought. In the United States there have been from time to time rigorous rules for the exclusion of Chinese, sometimes effected by statute, sometimes by agreement with China, and at present Chinese immigration is forbidden. The influx of Japanese is also prevented under a treaty with Japan.

The industrial position in the Pacific is thus governed largely by the fact that in all the White settlements on its borders there are more or less complete safeguards against competition by Asiatic labour on the White man's territory: and that the tendency is to make these safeguards more stringent rather than to relax them. Nothing short of a war in the Pacific, giving an Asiatic Power control of its waters, would allow Asiatics to become local competitors in the labour markets of those White settlements.