The inhabitants of the province of Rio Grande recently wanted to secede from Brazil. The Government at Rio Janeiro, afflicted like other governments by the square-mile craze, would not consent to it, and hostilities broke out. Suppose the Rio Grandians had been victorious in this war; what would have been the result? There would have been eleven states in South America instead of ten. No modern political theorist would see the presage of an extraordinary calamity in such an event as that. The new state would have been recognized by the other powers, and things would have gone on as before. But if the central Government, respecting the wishes of the Rio Grandians, had consented to the secession, the empirical politicians of our time would have affirmed that the world had been unbalanced. Yet the situation would have been exactly the same in point of territorial divisions—eleven independent states instead of ten. We have then to think that, in the eyes of modern politicians, the avoidance of a war, the fact of sparing hundreds of millions of money and thousands of human lives, diminishes wealth, while the waste of capital and massacres should increase it! It would be hard to be less logical or more absurd.
The great North American federation is composed of forty-four States, of from 1,250 square miles (the size of Rhode Island) to 265,780 square miles (the size of Texas). If one hundred States should be established to-morrow of about 30,000 square miles each, there would not necessarily follow either an increase or a diminution of the welfare of the population. The Americans can make equally rapid progress whether divided into forty republics or one hundred, and as slow under one division as under the other. Wealth is not a function of political divisions. So Europe is now divided into twenty-four independent states, having from 8 to 2,100,000 square miles of territory. If it were divided to-morrow into one hundred independent states of 35,000 square miles each, it would as easily be poorer as richer. All would depend upon the interior organization of each of these states, and on the relations which they might establish with one another.
Very few persons understand this truth. When we see the most civilized nations of Europe imagining that their welfare depends on 5,000 or 6,000 square miles more or less, we stand really stupefied before the persistence of the ancient routines. The simple disarmament of three military corps would procure ten times as many benefits for the German people as the possession of Alsace-Lorraine. In short, as long as the false association between the territorial extent of a state and its wealth persists its progress in real wealth will be very slow.
To return to the spirit of conquest. A great many things, as we have shown in another place, are not appropriable. Foreign territories are not so for entire nations. A military chief with his staff may be better off through the conquest of a country, but a nation never.
When William of Normandy seized England he committed an act that was not according to his interest as properly understood. He destroyed by war a considerable quantity of wealth, and he and his barons in turn suffered by the general diminution of welfare. These sufferings were, however, infinitesimal and very hard to appreciate. True views of the nature of wealth were, moreover, not accessible to the brains of men of the eleventh century. Certainly, when William and his army had possessed themselves of England they experienced an increase of wealth that was very evident to them. The king had more revenue; every Norman soldier got land or a reward in money, and he became richer after Hastings than he had ever been before.
But what did the Roman people, for example, gain by the conquest of the basin of the Mediterranean? Four or five hundred grand personages divided the provincial lands alienated by the state among themselves, but what benefit did the masses derive from the bloody campaigns of the republic? The distribution of the annone, 280 grammes of bread each a day, given to 200,000 persons out of the 1,500,000 inhabitants of the Eternal City! Surely the Romans would have gained a great deal more by working themselves than by pillaging other nations!
Things are exactly the same now. In 1871 twenty-eight persons received from the Emperor William donations forming a total of $3,000,000. But what benefit did the German people derive from the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine? None. Dividing the 3,600,000 acres of that province among the 6,400,000 families that were living in Germany at the time of the Treaty of Frankfort would make two and a half acres each. This is not opulence. Of the 5,000,000,000 of francs extorted from France as damage for the expenses of the war there remained 3,896,250,000 francs, which, divided among 6,400,000 families, represent a gain of 609 francs, or about $121.80 per family—hardly enough to live scantily upon for four months; and this was the most lucrative war of which history makes mention! Consider, further, at what amount of sacrifice these $121.80 have been gained. In 1870 the military expenses of the North German Confederation and the four southern states amounted to 349,000,000 francs a year. They now exceed 795,000,000, and in another year (from 1894) will exceed 870,000,000. Here, then, is an increase of 521,000,000 francs, or a charge of 60 francs per family. As 609 francs, even at five per cent, will only return 30 francs, we have here a clear loss of 30 francs (or $6) a family per year. It thus appears that the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine would have been a bad speculation, even if the French indemnity had been distributed in equal parts among all the German families. But, in fact, it has not been so; so that the 60 francs of supplementary expenditure are paid without any compensation.
It might be said that the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine was not dictated solely by sordid economical considerations. Other interests, purer and more elevated, stir the hearts of modern nations. But we ask, Is it grand, noble, and generous to hold unwilling populations under the yoke? On the contrary, it is most base, vile, and degrading. It is difficult to comprehend how brutal conquest can still arouse enthusiasm. Ancient survivals and routines must for a time have suppressed all our reflective faculties.
Suppose, again, 3,000,000 German soldiers should penetrate into Russia and should gain a complete victory: how would they apportion the territory? The parts here would indeed be larger—Russia contains 5,471,500,000 acres. But a third of this territory, at least, is desert; subtracting this, there remain about 3,600,000,000 acres, which, divided among the German families, would give about 5-1/2 acres to each. It may be asked, How will the conquerors take possession of these lands? If each family delegated only one of its members, that would suppose an exodus of 6,400,000 men, going to scatter themselves from the Vistula to the Amoor. What a disturbance so great an emigration would make in the economical condition of Germany! Moreover, would every German colonist be willing to leave his home, his family, his business, and all his cherished associations, to install himself on the banks of the Volga, in Siberia, the Caucasus, or Central Asia? He would acquire 5-1/2 acres, more or less, it is true, but is it certain that that would bring him more than it would take from him? On the other hand, if the Germans should have their shares administered by agents chosen from among the natives, what complications, what annoyances would arise! The Germans might perhaps get rid of these difficulties by selling their lands. But what price could they command, with 3,600,000,000 acres all put into the market at once? Who would buy it? It is only necessary to look at the facts at close range (besides a mass of difficulties we have not spoken of) to comprehend that the direct appropriation of the territory of one great modern nation by individuals of another does not enter into the domain of realizable things.