CHAPTER VII
THE ROOT OF IMPERIALISM
"The free West Indian negro," writes Sir Sidney Olivier, "is not only averse as a matter of dignity to conducting himself as if he were a plantation slave, and bound to work every day, but also enjoys the fun of feeling himself a master. And so, on a big sugar estate, when expensive machinery is running, and the crop has to be worked without stoppage, or on a banana plantation, when the steamer has been telephoned at daybreak, and two or three thousand bunches have to be at the wharf by noon, the negro hands will very likely find it impossible to cut canes or fruit that morning. It isn't a strike for better conditions of labour; they may have no grievance; another day they will turn up all right: but a big concern cannot be run on that basis. That is the root of the demand for indentured labour in the West Indies."[[1]]
It is also the root of imperialism. For imperialism from an economic point of view is in the main a foreign political control to make the "niggers" work. The industrial nations, desiring food, raw materials, markets and a field for investment, being thwarted by conditions in certain backward agricultural countries, seek to remedy these conditions by means of political sovereignty. It is not necessary to control well-governed countries which are peopled by economically ambitious men who will work six days a week, fifty-two weeks in a year. In politically independent countries, however, and especially in the tropics, production is rendered ineffective by the disturbed political conditions, the lack of capital and capitalistic intelligence, the absence of fixed industrial habits, as well as by a general inertia and distaste for continuous labour under the hot sun. As a result, industrial nations are deprived of the markets and food supplies, which they consider necessary to their development.[[2]]
No necessity of feeding Europeans appeals to the West Indian negro when he emerges from his thatched hut after a comfortable night's sleep. Though unskilled, he is a strong and capable man, willing, when incited by friendship or gratitude, to incur trouble and endure fatigue. But, as Olivier points out, "the capitalist system of industry has never disciplined him into a wage-slave," and perhaps never will. The tropical negro "has no idea of any obligation to be industrious for industry's sake, no conception of any essential dignity in labour itself, no delight in gratuitous toil. Moreover, he has never been imbued with the vulgar and fallacious illusion which is so ingrained in competitive industrial societies, that service can be valued in money.... Work and money are not yet rigidly commensurable in the consciousness of the African. Half a dollar may be worth one day's work for him, a second half-dollar may be worth a second day's work, but a third half-dollar will not be worth a third day's work.... Moreover he lives in climates where toil is exacting, and rest both easy and sweet. There are few days in the year in England when it is really pleasant to loaf, and the streets of civilised cities are not tempting to recumbent meditation."[[3]]
It is not always necessary for a foreign power to intervene in order to disturb this "recumbent meditation." In certain tropical and sub-tropical countries there develops within the nation a group of exploiters, who control the government, such as it is, and force the natives to work. The atrocities of the Putumayo district in Brazil illustrate the capitalistic spirit in its very worst form, as did also the forced labour on the Yucatan plantations during the Diaz régime in Mexico. To meet the economic needs of the industrial world, it makes little difference whether peons are enslaved by Mexican, American or English capitalists, so long as the output is the same. But native capitalists are often unable to secure the desired economic result because they are too ruthless and, through lack of adequate financial and military resources, cannot maintain order. Despotism tempered by revolution, oppression interrupted by savage reprisals, is not an approved economic stimulus. The difficulty in Mexico to-day, as also in Venezuela and in Colombia, is the laming of industry by frequent revolutions. It is the same difficulty that was encountered in India, Persia and Morocco. The East Indian is as unflagging as the French or Italian peasant, but not until the British occupation could he secure the legal protection necessary to a higher economic development. Peace, sanitation, industrial promotion and an economic or legal compulsion to work constitute the tools of imperialism, as they are applied to agricultural countries in the tropical and sub-tropical world.
There is one outstanding difference between temperate and tropical countries, which gives to modern imperialism its essential character. Given a low stage of civilisation, temperate lands are likely to be thinly populated, while tropical countries, however rudimentary their economic processes, may maintain large, low-grade populations. In the temperate climes, therefore, the intruder, who is more highly developed economically, soon outnumbers the natives, while in tropical countries, the white immigrant, even when he withstands the climate, is scarcely able to hold his own, and the very improvements which he introduces lead to an increase in the indigenous population. The white man either remains above and in a sense outside the population, or loses his identity by mixing his blood with that of the natives. The result is the maintenance of a people ethnically distinct from that of the nation exercising political control.
To just what extent such control is necessary and effective constitutes a difficult question. It cannot be denied that the export from many colonies is far greater than would be the case if these had remained independent. The naturally rich country of Haiti is far less valuable to the industrial nations than the poorer island of Porto Rico.[[4]] In many parts of the world large agricultural resources are unavailable because owned by uncivilised nations or tribes maintaining their political independence. Indeed, if an immediate increase in production and export were the only factor to be considered, a government of all tropical America by a capable industrial nation, like England or Germany, would be of distinct advantage. Other considerations, however, do enter. Even a semi-efficient nation, like Chili or Brazil, gradually establishes order, secures foreign capital, intelligence and labour, and develops its resources. As opposed to Europe, the United States stands in its Monroe Doctrine for the principle that Latin-American countries, if left independent, will in time develop, and that a slow evolution may be more advantageous to the world than a more rapid exploitation under foreign dominion.[[5]] Ultimately, however, the capacity of the nation to utilise its resources does constitute the test which decides whether it shall retain independence or become subject to foreign domination. It is this test which is being applied to-day to Mexico and certain other Latin-American countries.[[6]]
As yet this imperialistic régime is in its beginning. Food and raw materials are still mainly derived from independent nations and from temperate, settlement colonies, in which production is not affected by political control. The major part of the food-stuffs imported by Europe come from Russia, the United States, Canada, Australia, the Argentine, the Balkans; cotton comes chiefly from the United States; wool from Australia; hides from the Argentine; copper, coal, wood, oil from countries of temperate climate. More sugar is actually produced in temperate than in tropical countries, though the export from tropical countries largely preponderates. Thus the external commerce of the specifically tropical countries subject to imperialistic rule is small compared to that of temperate countries exporting raw materials. India with its developed agricultural system exports only some $500,000,000 of food and raw materials[[7]] (in excess of its imports of like commodities) or about $1.55 per capita, while the per capita exportation of Roumania is over ten times as great, of the Argentine about twenty times, and of Australia forty times.[[8]]
If the present commerce with tropical countries were not to increase, the new tropical imperialism would have but a slender economic base, and it might well be questioned whether it was worth Europe's while to govern hundreds of millions of yellow, brown and black men in all parts of the globe. But the English colonies in America, two hundred years ago, also exported little, and a similar immensity of growth may be expected from the commerce of tropical countries. "As civilisation advances and population becomes more dense," writes Mr. Edward E. Slosson,[[9]] "the inhabitants of temperate zones become necessarily more dependent on the tropics. Where the sunshine falls straightest and the rain falls heaviest there the food of the future will be produced." Cacao, coffee, copra, cotton, rubber, sugar cane, bananas and other fruits are all becoming increasingly important in our consumption, and these and other raw materials are the product of a scientific exploitation of tropical regions.[[10]]