In so far as we established commercial relations with Europe at all, we felt and still feel probably that they were relations of hostility, that we were one commercial unit, Europe another, and that the two were in competition. In thinking thus, of course, we merely accepted the view of international politics common in Europe itself, the view, namely, that nations are necessarily trade rivals—the commercial rivalry of Britain and Germany is presumed to be one of the factors explaining the outbreak of the present war. The idea that nations do thus compete together for the world's trade is one of the axioms of all discussion in the field of international politics.
Well, both these assumptions in the form in which we make them involve very grave fallacies, the realization of which will shortly become essential to the wise direction of this country's policy. If our policy, in other words, is to be shrewd and enlightened, we must realize just how both the views of international relationship that I have indicated are wrong.
I will take first the more special one—that of the assumed necessary rivalry of nations in trade—as its clearer understanding will help in what is for us the larger problem of the general relationship of this country to other civilized powers. I will therefore try and establish first this proposition—that nations are not and can not be trade rivals in the sense usually accepted; that, in other words, there is a fundamental misconception in the prevailing picture of nations as trading units—one might as well talk of red-haired people being the trade rivals of black-haired people.
And I will then try and establish a second proposition, namely, that we are intimately concerned with the condition of Europe, and are daily becoming more so, owing to processes which have become an integral part of our fight against nature, of the feeding and clothing of the world; that we cannot much longer ignore the effects of those tendencies which bind us to our neighbors; that the elementary consideration of self-protection will sooner or later compel us to accept the facts and recognize our part and lot in the struggles of Christendom; and that if we are wise, we shall not take our part therein reluctantly, dragged at the heels of forces we cannot resist, but will do so consciously, anticipating events. In other words, we shall take advantage of such measure of detachment as we do possess, to take the lead in a saner organization of western civilization; we shall become the pivot and centre of a new world State.
There is not the faintest hope of America taking this lead unless a push or impetus is given to her action by a widespread public feeling, based on the recognition of the fallacy of the two assumptions with which I began this article. For if America really is independent of the rest of the world, little concerned with what goes on therein, if she is in a position to build a sort of Chinese wall about herself, and, secure in her own strength, to develop a civilization and future of her own, still more if the weakness and disintegration of foreign nations, however unfortunate for them, is for America an opportunity of expanding trade and opportunities, why then, of course, it would be the height of folly for the United States to incur all the risks and uncertainties of an adventure into the sea of foreign politics.
What as a matter of simple fact is the real nature of trade between nations? If we are to have any clear notion at all as to just what truth there is in the notion of the necessary commercial rivalry of States, we must have some fairly clear notion of how the commercial relationship of nations works. And that can best be illustrated by a supposititious example. At the present time we are talking, for instance, of "capturing" German or British or French trade.
Now, when we talk thus of "German" trade in the international field, what do we mean? Here is the ironmaster in Essen making locomotives for a light railway in an Argentine province, (the capital for which has been subscribed in Paris)—which has become necessary because of the export of wool to Bradford, where the trade has developed owing to sales in the United States, due to high prices produced by the destruction of sheep runs, owing to the agricultural development of the West.
But for the money found in Paris, (due, perhaps, to good crops in wine and olives, sold mainly in London and New York,) and the wool needed by the Bradford manufacturer, (who has found a market for blankets among miners in Montana, who are smelting copper for a cable to China, which is needed because the encouragement given to education by the Chinese Republic has caused Chinese newspapers to print cable news from Europe)—but for such factors as these, and a whole chain of equally interdependent ones throughout the world, the ironmaster in Essen would not have been able to sell his locomotives.
How, therefore, can you describe it as part of the trade of "Germany" which is in competition with the trade of "Britain" or "France" or "America"? But for the British, French, and American trade, it could not have existed at all. You may say that if the Essen ironmaster could have been prevented from selling his locomotives the order would have gone to an American one.
