The Lost Fruits of Waterloo

by John Spencer Bassett

By an enduring peace I mean a peace that shall last as long as we can see into the future. It is such a peace as has in it, so far as we can see, no fact that would seem to make for its ruin. If we adopt a peace that has the seed of destruction in its very nature, we cannot hope for relief from the evils of war. We must, under such a condition, take account of war as one of the permanent burdens of civilization, with the full consciousness that it will become increasingly expensive in life and property, and with the result that at recurring periods an intelligent world will drop its peaceful tasks to try to reduce its population to a nullity. From the possibility of such a strife we turn to ask the question: “Can nothing be done to save humanity from such madness?”

The answer is very simple: All people are unreasonable to some extent. In connection with the question now under consideration, each of the great states of the world, our own included, has its own special form of unreasonableness, which acts as an obstacle to the formation of a régime of peace. If the immense disaster by which we are depressed could serve as a means of bringing us to a state of entire reasonableness, the present war would be worth all it costs. Whether or not it can lead to such a result the reader must determine for himself.

An important obstacle to such a result is the economic competition of nations. Economic competition by individuals has ugly sides, but it is not dangerous in the sense in which national competition is dangerous. When two merchants undersell until one breaks down the business of the other, the victim passes out of sight in the business world, and the current of trade soon goes on as before. When two corporations, however great, engage in a business “war” and one is crushed or absorbed by its competitor, the ripple that was made is soon obliterated, and the victor serves the human wants with which it has to do without serious damage to humanity.

But when one nation finds itself in strong competition with another in the hope of controlling a sphere of trade, it is apt to seek territorial annexation to gain the desired field of exploitation. The competitor can only follow the same course. It is the only thing it can do, if it is not willing to give up the contest. If it is strong enough to dispute the will of the rival, its very sense of individuality demands that it shall not tamely yield before the aggression of a rival. When France acquired Morocco, Italy acquired Tripoli, and Great Britain acquired the southern part of Persia, economic advantage was a strong motive, but not the only motive. When Germany laid out the field of her future expansion in Turkish lands and when she expected to establish a permanent influence over the Balkans, the extension of her sphere of commerce was a chief motive.

Probably the fundamental wrong here was the idea, widely held by the present generation, that a nation has a right to establish bars around her national territory to keep the trade of other nations out, so that her own citizens shall have preferential advantages in the exploitation of the territory. That idea is so firmly held today that one must be a rash man who attempts to get the nations to give it up. But it is a fundamental obstacle to permanent peace in the world. Probably it is not too much to say that as long as the business men of the world insist on dividing themselves into national groups with these national preferences, so long may they expect business at recurring intervals to be burdened with the waste and ruin of war.

Against the existing practice we may place the “open door” policy, which we have known chiefly in connection with the trade of the undeveloped nations. It means the free opening of the trade of a given state to all the nations that may care to have it. We heard much of the “open door” in China a few years ago, and most of the benevolent governments approved of the suggestion. To have been perfectly logical they should have applied the same idea to their own commerce; and if the world ever comes to a perfect state of international comity, it is likely that national tariff barriers will be broken down.

It is true, however, that we can have enduring peace and have national protective tariffs, also. If nations agree that tariffs are one of the unhappy excrescences of an unreasonable world, they may find it in their hearts to tolerate such growths. To tolerate them would be, no doubt, better than going to war. But when a state sets its eyes on a certain part of the earth which it feels it must acquire in order to enlarge the territory in which it can trade without fair competition, the peace of the world is imperiled.

It is probable that this kind of motive played a large part in Germany’s decision to begin the present war. For a long time her industries had been developing at a rapid rate. Protected at home by tariffs they were able to sell goods to the German people at high prices, while they sold at cheap prices in foreign markets in order to drive their competitors away. The volume of German trade increased immensely, factories were multiplied, and large credits were extended by the banks in order to support this great structure. At last the situation became unsteady. The expansion of the foreign part of the national trade at small profits was a clog on the home trade, which could not be made to yield enough profit to keep the business of the country in a healthy condition. Then the manufacturers and capitalists came to the conclusion that it was to their interest for the country to go into a war of conquest in which new national territory should be laid at their feet for profitable exploitation. Thus, the large business interests, usually supporters of peace, swung to the support of the militarists. It is significant that the liberals, that party in the Reichstag which speaks especially for the traders, capitalists, and manufacturers, have been among the most outspoken advocates of annexation.

In a powerful, if indirect, way the laborers are reached by this argument. They see that if the manufacturers and transportation companies expand their business wages are better and employment more abundant, and this leads them to favor a policy of expansion. To what extent the remote organs of the business world are thus reached it is difficult to say. But it is evident that in a phase of human activity which has been organized most intricately the influence of the initial idea that a war of annexation helps business is far reaching.

We frequently encounter the assertion that economic laws are unchangeable; but the statement is not true, as it is made. Many economic processes that appeared fundamental in their time have changed as the minds of men have taken new grips on human life. The world has outgrown the mercantile school of economic ideas. The attitude toward private property and monopolies, and the view of the right of individual bargaining have been greatly modified in the process of time. If a so-called economic law stands in the way of a reasonable adjustment of human relations, it can be altered, if enough time and effort be given to the attempt to change it. Although it may seem to be fundamentally fixed in the minds of business men and laborers that a war for annexation is in their interests, if reason shows that they are mistaken, there should be a way of bringing reason to their minds, even as it has come to ours.