The twofold mandate from voters to those who represent them in matters of foreign policy is: make us secure, and make us prosper. That is why the struggle for the possession of coal, iron, oil, and world markets, and not international coöperation as embodied in the League of Nations and the Permanent Court of International Justice, underlies the history of Europe since 1918, and furnishes an appallingly sordid explanation of the policies followed by European statesmen in the Saar, the Ruhr, Upper Silesia, Eastern Galicia, the Banat of Temesvár, the Donetz region of Ukrainia, the Caucasus, northern Persia, and the Mosul region of Turkey. If Germany and Russia could be permanently deprived of the resources essential to war that abound in these disputed territories, their man-power would count for little. They would be reduced to a state of vassalage, and the strength of the nations possessing or controlling these regions would be correspondingly increased.
Under the spell of this idea France is trying to reconstruct Europe, and she has been able to find support for her policy among those to whom German and Russian coal, iron, and oil have been allotted, and to whom German and Russian sea-ports and provinces have been given. In the Near East France was willing to let Great Britain have a free hand in the Caucasus and Persia and to sacrifice the right to Mosul recognized in the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. To Rumania were handed over Bessarabia and the iron and coal in Temesvár. Germany’s coal supplies passed under Franco-Polish control, and the French hope that Poland has become by the possession of Upper Silesia and Eastern Galicia a state strong enough to be a permanent barrier between Germany and Russia. As an additional safeguard against the regrouping of the Teutonic element in central Europe and its contact with Hungary and Russia, the Little Entente was formed.
For France the next move in the international game is to settle the reparations question with Germany and to make peace with Russia in such a way that Germany will lose control of her essential resources for war making and will be cut off permanently from the temptation of forming with Russia an alliance to shake off the stranglehold of the victors in the World War upon these two powers. France believes that Great Britain’s interests in Asia and her anxiety to prevent Germany from making another effort to compete with her for world markets and the carrying trade will eventually induce the British to acquiesce in the French scheme for a new European balance of power directed against both Germany and Russia.
The flaw in the French program is the failure to realize that France’s control of the Rhineland and the Ruhr and the dependence of Poland upon her give rise to the suspicion that her aim is the military and economic domination of Europe. The protestation or the fact of innocence of any such plan makes no difference to those who fear it. France has a great reservoir of African troops. With control of German coal and with Poland as a vassal she will be in a more advantageous position to impose her will upon Europe than Germany was in 1914, with Austria-Hungary as a vassal. The control of the Ruhr mines and factories will inevitably cause other European states to combine with Great Britain against France as they combined in the decade preceding the World War against Germany.
Great Britain is in an unhappy frame of mind over the political and economic situation of Europe. To get France out of the Ruhr and to release the hold of France on Germany, British public opinion is prepared to forgive the French debt—and the other interallied debts, for that matter. It is more important for Great Britain to-day than ever that no power dominate Continental Europe. The British are eager for the return of normal economic conditions and the restoration of their European markets. Outside Europe they have made many sacrifices, as in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and India, to get rid of military burdens and financial outlay by adopting an attitude of compromise toward demands of native populations for self-government. The imperialism of British foreign policy after the World War was, as we have seen, very quickly checked. British public opinion is alive to the danger of disregarding the aspirations of Asiatic and African peoples, and is prepared to go to almost any length to keep together the empire that has been centuries in the building. The greatest difficulty ahead for Great Britain comes from the insistent demand of Continental European countries that the world’s raw materials be pooled and that equality of access to them be granted by the great colonial power.
Italy’s next move in the international game is undoubtedly along the line of unhampered access to raw materials in Asia, and Africa, and Australia, and unrestricted emigration to the United States and the British Dominions. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that Italy stands in the same relation to the outside world in which Germany and Japan stand. The three great powers have become industrial nations with a rapidly growing population, and to exist and prosper they must import raw materials and food-stuffs and export manufactured goods. They need also an outlet for surplus population and opportunities for capital investment in countries where such investment helps their trade. There would have been no World War had not Germany felt herself deprived of “her place in the sun.” Other nations were ahead of her in preëmpting colonizing areas and the regions upon which Europe could draw for raw materials and rely for markets. The war did not solve Germany’s problem. It was her own fault, we can assert, and leave it at that. But how about Italy and Japan, our comrades in arms? Their need of world-wide equality for trade and emigration are as great as Germany’s, and they have not forfeited consideration of their claims, as Germany has done. On the contrary, they have a greater claim to the consideration of the more fortunate powers than they had a few years ago.
In attempting to put into one volume the eventful story of Europe since 1918 we have given very little space to the League of Nations and the United States; for during these years neither one nor the other has had a vital part in European affairs. What the future will bring forth none knows. But it is safe to venture the prophecy that Europe will successfully solve her own problems as she had done in the past, and that the rôle played by the League of Nations and the Permanent Court of International Justice will be negligible compared with the individual rôles of France and Great Britain. These two colonial powers hold in their hands the raw materials upon which all Europe except Russia and the Balkans depends for its well-being. What will be the colonial policy of Great Britain and France toward other European nations, especially toward Italy and Germany? What will be their policy toward Japan? Does not the peace of the world depend upon how the colonial powers will solve the problem of giving to Italy, Germany, and Japan a fair share in the privilege of developing and trading with Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world over which fly the British and French flags?
If Russia were still an ally of France and Great Britain, in sympathy with the doctrine that to those who have should be given and from those who have not should be taken even that which they have, the danger of a war over raw materials and trade and emigration outlets would not be imminent. As matters now stand earnest men should not be devoting all their attention and effort to creating and maintaining machinery to prevent war when no serious attention is being paid to the great cause of war, which is, in our generation, inequality in trade, colonization, and investment opportunities among powers of equal size, strength, standard of living, and productive capacity.