PART I
PRINCIPLES OF THE SETTLEMENT
PART I. PRINCIPLES OF THE SETTLEMENT: ECONOMIC
PROBLEMS OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
Most international quarrels have economic origin. The present war produced by economic antagonisms.
The growing dependence of modern civilized and thickly populated countries for the necessaries of life and industry, for commercial profits, and for gainful investments of capital upon free access to other countries, especially to countries differing from themselves in climate, natural resources, and degree of economic development, is of necessity a consideration of increasing weight in the foreign policy of to-day. Every active industrial or commercial nation is therefore fain to watch and guard its existing opportunities for foreign trade and investment, and to plan ahead for enlarged opportunities to meet the anticipated future needs of an expanding trade and a growing population. It views with fear, suspicion, and jealousy every attempt of a foreign country to curtail its liberty of access to other countries and its equal opportunities for advantageous trade or exploitation. The chief substance of the treaties, conventions, and agreements between modern nations in recent times has consisted in arrangements about commercial and financial opportunities, mostly in countries outside the acknowledged control of the negotiating parties. The real origins of most quarrels between such nations have related to tariffs, railway, banking, commercial, and financial operations in lands belonging to one or other of the parties, or in lands where some sphere of special interest was claimed. Egypt, Morocco, Persia, Asia Minor, China, Congo, Mexico, are the most sensitive spots affecting international relations outside of Europe, testifying to the predominance of economic considerations in foreign policy. The stress laid upon such countries hinges in the last resort upon the need of “open doors” or upon the desire to close doors to other countries. These keenly felt desires to safeguard existing foreign markets for goods and capital, to obtain by diplomatic pressure or by force new markets, and in other cases to monopolize markets, have everywhere been the chief directing influences in foreign policy, the chief causes of competing armaments, and the permanent underlying menaces to peace. The present war, when regard is had to the real directing pressure behind all diplomatic acts and superficial political ferments, is in the main a product of these economic antagonisms. This point of view is concisely and effectively expressed in a striking memorandum presented by the Reform Club of New York to President Wilson:—
Consider the situation of the present belligerents.
Serbia wants a window on the sea, and is shut out by Austrian influence.