But there is something far more important than this. Unfold the map once more, and it will be clearly seen that Australia is not only in the centre of our own Empire, it is also in close touch with those countries whose awakening and rise to importance constitute a new and grave problem for the lands of the West and for America. Three decades ago Japan was known as “the hermit nation.” Its people lived in a long, narrow island, far enough removed from the important countries of the West to cause them any anxiety. They were a remote people, these Japanese; close in their habits, clever with their fingers, tinted with yellow on their skins, and for the rest—“heathen.” But they did not “reckon” in the councils of the West. And then suddenly there came a bolt from the blue—this small, remote people went to war with the biggest nation in Europe, and beat them. That was the surprise. In a day the prestige of the hermit nation was established. The triumph of Japan, it is not too much to say, served to disquiet the whole world of the West and America. A new problem arose. All eyes were fixed upon the Pacific. What ferment was at work in the distant East? And to what extent would it spread? From the East all the wisdom of the West had originally come. But for many centuries the East had been asleep, while the West marched on. Was a new epoch dawning? Was this victory of Japan an affair of chance, or did it indicate the appearance of a new era and a new order? Was time, with its whirligig, bringing things back to their beginning, and once more thrusting the East into the first place? Was Bismarck, after all, a true seer when he spoke of the coming “Yellow peril”?
After Japan came the awakening of China. Wise men from that country, impressed with the victory of Japan, and well knowing that Japan owed her position to the knowledge she had gained from Western civilisation, came over to Britain to study the state of affairs in the West. The mission bore immediate fruit. China began to turn over in her sleep, and eventually she awoke. In a day an ancient dynasty was overturned and a republic set up. The ways of the “foreign devils” were no longer resisted, they were accepted. Railways were laid down in all directions; a new army was created; the ancient skirts of the soldiers were exchanged for British khaki; the pigtail disappeared; Western education became common. The Pekin of to-day, with its railway stations and bustling Western life, would astound any person who saw it, say, ten short years ago. China is awake; she is strong; she is numerous; within her territory there live one-quarter of the world’s population. The West has for long enough insulted China. It has contemptuously spoken of the “heathen Chinee.” The odious opium traffic was forced upon her—shame to record—by British India. When insulted people turn, they are apt to become dangerous. If the four hundred millions of Chinese turn, and bear down upon the West, they can, as Bismarck said, crush, with the sheer force of millions of massed men, their opponents. There is a possible “Yellow peril.” It may not take much to make it actual.
There is a third factor, upon which it may not be advisable to dwell at length—the disquiet of India. It is a species of madness to pooh-pooh the outbursts of rebellion, the attempted assassinations, the inflammatory articles in native papers, and other symptoms of unrest as being mere local and unmeaning disturbances. The truth is, there is, or has been until the war, widespread discontent in India. Into the causes of this it is not proposed to enter here and now. Sufficient for the present purpose to take note of the fact and to treat it seriously.
Now, these three nations, between them, contain more than one-half of the world’s entire population. They are the nations of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. Australia lies within easy touch of them all. She is much nearer to them than is England, and if trouble broke out she might be the very first of the British possessions to feel it. Australia means that Britain is already in the Pacific—upon the spot, so to speak, where the trouble is gathering.
The creation of a new and a final factor in the situation is due to the opening of the Panama Canal. This mighty engineering work has now been completed, and the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at last mingle. The canal has primarily, so the majority seem to think, a mercantile importance. It has brought the eastern coastline of the United States into direct and rapid communication by water with Australia, China, the islands of the Pacific, and a rich tropical zone, the exploiting of which, commercially, will mean much for American, British, and other markets. For purposes of trade, the canal is one of the most important water highways ever constructed. A new centre of shipping activity has been opened up, with consequences the extent of which at present can hardly be computed.
The canal, however, has a political importance which surpasses all else. To use the words of an American statesman, “this canal means infinitely more than the opening of a passage between one sea and another; it may yet mean the transference of international interests from the Mediterranean to the Pacific.”[A] What part the canal will play in such an event need not be discussed here. The point is that a displacement of political power—an entire change of interests—is by no means improbable; and, indeed, if the East, awakening, comes into the possession of its proper inheritance, it is more than likely to happen. What, then, of our relative interests in the North Sea and in the Indian Ocean? We British are so accustomed to the idea of government from a centre in a little island called “Britain” that we should probably scoff at the suggestion that one day, owing to a change of interests and the presenting of new aspects of powerful Eastern life, we might find it convenient and necessary to make Australia and not Britain the governmental centre of the Empire. But the idea may be worth thinking over for all that. Similar things have happened to other peoples before, and they may happen again. Putting aside all opinions and predictions, the simple facts remain that Australia at present is situated in the very centre of the British Empire, and that it is within easy touch of those nations which, by every sign, have to be seriously reckoned with in the near future.
[A] This was written before the Great European War broke out. Whatever be the issue of this war, the main contention of the above paragraphs remains true.
Australia is in the possession of the British people. This is a trite enough remark to make, but the remarkable thing, when we really think about it, is that the remark can be so easily made. The wonder is that it is not Dutch or Spanish or French. Explorers from each of these lands discovered it, and left it unoccupied. When the Dutch were foraging in Southern waters, they were the finest seamen of their time. Small as a nation, they were great business people and fine colonists. Yet they left Australia behind, after a passing acquaintance with its coast. It was reserved for Captain Cook to claim the hitherto terra incognita in the name of the people of Britain. To people who recognise in historical events nothing but the collisions of chance, the exploit of Captain Cook was a lucky adventure. To those of us who try to look below the surface of things, the event was a providence. Let the enemies of Britain say their worst of us—and they can point to many a discreditable thing in our history—it remains true that British sentiment, enlightened by Christianity, has more and more tended towards liberty and justice for all the people who come under her sway. Under any other flag would Australia, with all its faults, have become the country that it is?
If Divine destiny, and not blind chance, has reserved for the British race this immense country of Australia, and the British people faithfully fulfil their Divine and human mission in the world, then it is easy to perceive that this new land in the Southern Ocean will become a centre of healthful influence for the entire Pacific. And if to British influence in the South there is joined—through the medium of the Panama Canal—a powerful American influence of the highest quality, the Pacific may yet lead the world’s future, as the Mediterranean has for hundreds of years led the past.