Problems of the Pacific

by Frank Fox

THE RIVALS

The essential superiority of a White Race over a Coloured Race may fairly be accepted as a "first principle" in any discussion of world politics. There are numberless facts to be gathered from 2500 years of history to justify that faith, and there is lacking as yet any great body of evidence to support the other idea, that modern conditions of warfare and of industry at last have so changed the factors in human greatness that mere numbers and imitative faculty can outweigh the superior intellectual capacity and originating genius characteristic of the European peoples. Nevertheless it must be admitted that the conditions, in warfare and in industry, of life to-day as compared with life in past centuries, have increased the value of numbers and of a faculty of blind obedience, and have proportionately decreased the relative value of individual character. An Asiatic army to-day is relatively better fitted to cope with a European army; an Asiatic factory is relatively more efficient.

It is necessary, therefore, to call to aid all the reassuring records of history if one would keep a serene faith that the future of the Pacific, and with it the future of the world, is not destined to be dominated by the Asiatic rather than by the European. Japan with her fertile people and sterile soil has done so much since she discovered that the test imposed on a people by Christian civilisation is based on their powers of destruction, that there is good reason for the alarm expressed by many thinkers (with the German Emperor as their leader) as to "the Yellow Peril." China, too, awaking now after the slumber of centuries and grasping at the full equipment of a modern nation, reinforces that alarm. It is conceivable that White civilisation may be for a while worsted and driven from some of its strongholds by the arms which it has taught the Coloured Races to use. "Asia for the Asiatics," may be a battle-cry raised in the future not without avail. But in time European superiority must again assert itself.

There are many pessimists who foretell the doom of the White Races coming from a sterility self-imposed for the sake of better ease. They see in every advance of comfort a cause of further weakness, and they picture luxury as rapidly corroding the supports of our society. But it is comforting to recall that every age has had the same gloomy critics, and the Golden Age has always been represented in the past by the pessimists of the present. For myself, I am daring enough to think that the White Races of to-day are neither enervated nor decadent: that in physique, in good health and in sense of public duty they are improving rather than deteriorating; and that the Europe of next century will be more happy, more vigorous and more sane than the Europe of to-day. There was a time for the joy of pessimists, but it is a past time, that dismal past century when the industrial epoch rushed on man all unawares, when the clattering machine came to sweep away handicrafts, and the new economic idea of human beings as "hands" affected poisonously all social relations. It was as though a cumbrous wain, well-built for its slow and sedate rumbling, had suddenly been hitched to a rushing steam engine. There were disturbances, clatterings, groanings, and creakings. The period of adjustment was a painful one. But it is passing. Meliorism is the justifiable faith of the future.

The future of the Pacific, I hold then, is with the White Races. At the best, the Asiatic can hope to hold his own continent in security. Japan had the chance of securing a temporary dominance after the war with Russia, and at one time was said to have been on the verge of a struggle with the United States, as an assertion of that dominance. But the cloud passed over. With the opening of the Panama Canal, now a matter only of months, the opportunity of Japan will have finally passed. With the gradual re-establishment of British naval power in the ocean, a re-establishment which will come through the agency of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, if not through the Home Country, and which will be "anti-Asiatic" in purpose, a further veto will be put on any aggressive ambitions on the part of an Asiatic Power. The statesmen of Japan, indeed, seem to recognise that she has had her day of greatest power, and must be content for the future to be tolerated in her present position as one of the "Powers" forming the great council of the foremost nations. But in considering Japan, allowance must always be made for the danger of the people getting out of the hands of the oligarchy which rules them. The Japanese people, fed fat on praise of their own prowess, may one day force a mad course on statesmen asked to choose between civil and foreign war. Such a war would be doomed to failure for financial if for no other reasons. But it might leave a deep stain of blood on the Pacific.

China—a Federal Republic, and rid of the Manchus if present appearances (1912) are not belied—will have no aggressive ambitions for some years to come. She may insist, and rightly insist, on more honourable treatment from foreign nations. But it is not likely that she will set Fleets ranging over the Pacific in search of conquests. By the time that China has come to a warlike mood—if she does ever come—the White Races will be fully equipped for any struggle. The greatest Asiatic peril, so far as warlike forces are concerned, is of a Japanese-Chinese alliance: and the chance of that is slight, for the two peoples are not sympathetic. It will be noted that the very first official paper of the nascent Chinese Republic is a letter of complaint to the Japanese Government.

If it is agreed that the Pacific will fall, as the Mediterranean did, as the Atlantic did, to the rule of the White Man, the next step is to consider, which people? There is, in addition to much evidence, the temptation of race-pride to suggest that of all the European peoples the Anglo-Celtic (controlling the British Empire and the United States) is inherently the best equipped for world dominance. But that is not nearly so sure as is the superiority of the White over the Coloured Races. The Latin peoples—Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards—have in their day won to lofty greatness. The French—in the main Latin, but with a large element of Celtic and some element of Teutonic blood—were supreme in the world for many generations, and are not exhausted to-day. There is not an incident of Anglo-Saxon history; either of fighting against tremendous odds and winning a victory which the stars in their courses seemed to forbid; or of making disaster glorious by a Spartan death; or of pushing out on some frail plank into an unknown sea—which cannot be matched by some incident equally noble from the records of the Latin peoples or the French people. The Teutons are only now making their bid for mastery: the Slavs may have a great future. The future dominance of Europe may be for any one of the European peoples.

But the position in the Pacific can be simplified for the present by the elimination of all the European Powers but two. Spain and Portugal have had their day there, and have passed away. Neither France, Germany, Austria nor Italy can venture any great force from Europe. Nor is any one of them strongly established in the Pacific. Great Britain would be content with the Atlantic but that her overseas Empire gives her duties and advantages in the new ocean. The Pacific possessions of the British Empire were unsought. But they will be held. The other European Power in the Pacific is Russia, which has been checked but not destroyed there. That the supremacy of Europe—at present held, so far as any enterprises beyond its seas are concerned, by Great Britain—may pass to other hands is not impossible; and that would affect, of course, the position in the Pacific. Speculation on that point, however, is outside the scope of this book, which has attempted to deal with the Pacific conditions of the present and immediate future.

On the facts there must be a further elimination of European Powers in the Pacific, since Russia has no naval forces there and no design of creating such forces. There is at present a natural bewilderment in the Russian mind as a consequence of the recent war with Japan. That struggle destroyed her power in Europe as well as in Asia, and the European balance must be restored first. During the next five years—which will be the critical years—Russia will not count in the Pacific except as the useful ally of some powerful naval nation—either of Japan, the United States or Great Britain.

Great Britain is thus left as the sole European Power capable of independent effort in the Pacific. Clearly the rivalry for the dominance of the ocean lies between her and the United States. To discuss that rivalry is to discuss the real problem of the Pacific. It may be done frankly, I trust, without raising suggestions of unfriendliness. A frank discussion of the problem, carried out on both sides of the Atlantic, would be of the greatest value to civilisation. For the position seems to be that both Powers are preparing to capture the Pacific; that neither Power can hold it against the other; and that a peaceful settlement can only be founded on complete mutual understanding.