[[12]] The case is analogous to that of the operation of cotton mills in the South. Despite low wages and brutal exploitation of children, the introduction of these mills has automatically raised the standard of living, but the goal desired was not this but the quickest possible making of profits.
[[13]] "No false philanthropy or race-theory," writes Prof. Paul Rohrbach, one of the more humane of the German imperialists, "can prove to reasonable people that the preservation of any tribe of nomadic South African Kaffirs or their primitive cousins on the shores of Lakes Kiwu or Victoria is more important for the future of mankind than the expansion of the great European nations, or the white races as a whole. Should the German people renounce the chance of growing stronger and more serviceable, and of securing elbow room for their sons and daughters, because fifty or three hundred years ago some tribe of negroes exterminated its predecessors or expelled them or sold them into slavery, and has since lived its useless existence on a strip of land where ten thousand German families may have a flourishing existence, and thus strengthen the very sap and force of our people?"—Rohrbach, "German World Policies" ("Der deutsche Gedanke in der Welt.") Translated by Edmund von Mach. New York (Macmillan), 1915 (pp. 141-2.)
[[14]] Prof. Paul S. Reinsch, from whose admirable books I have drawn extensively in this description of colonial labour, rescues from undeserved oblivion an article by the Rev. C. Usher Wilson on "The Native Question and Irrigation in South Africa," published in the Fortnightly for August, 1903. "A careful study of educated natives," writes this pious gentleman, "has almost persuaded me that secular education is not a progressive factor in social evolution. The salvation of a primitive people depends upon the force of Christianity alone, special attention being paid to its all-important rule 'six days shalt thou labour.' ... In the education of the world it has ever been true that slavery has been a necessary step in the social progress of primitive peoples."—Reinsch, "Colonial Administration," New York, 1912, p. 383.
CHAPTER VIII
IMPERIALISM AND WAR
If the entire imperialistic process could be directed by one omniscient individual, representing the interest of all industrial and agricultural countries, the progress of imperialism would be regular, rapid and easy. Or if one nation, say England, could take over all colonies and run them in the common interest of the industrial nations alone, imperialism would be robbed of its greatest peril, that of embroiling the nations in war. Unfortunately we have hit upon no such device for preserving the common interest of imperialist nations, while safe-guarding their separate interests. Each nation desires the biggest share for itself. Imperialism is directed by the conflicting ambitions, crude pretensions and confident vanities of selfish nations, and in the conflicts of interest that break out, the soup is spilled before it is served.
From an economic point of view, this special interest of the nations in imperialism, like their common interest, is three-fold: markets for manufactured products, opportunities to invest capital and access to raw materials. If trade never followed the flag, if India imported as much from Germany as from Great Britain, and Madagascar as much from Austria as from France, if there were an absolutely open door in each colony and a real as well as legal equality for all merchants, there would be a weaker competition for the dominion of backward countries. Germans, Englishmen and Frenchmen might then compete on equal terms in Morocco, Egypt and Southwest Africa as they compete to-day in Chile or Argentina. But no such equality exists in countries controlled by European powers, and many of these colonies are consciously utilised in a bitter economic competition between the nations.
To what such competition may lead is suggested in a sensational article in the Saturday Review of almost twenty years ago. Says the anonymous author of this article: "In Europe there are two great, irreconcilable, opposing forces, two great nations who would make the whole world their province, and who would levy from it the tribute of commerce. England, with her long history of successful aggression, with her marvellous conviction that in pursuing her own interests she is spreading light among nations dwelling in darkness, and Germany, bone of the same bone, blood of the same blood, with a lesser will-force, but, perhaps, with a keener intelligence, compete in every corner of the globe. In the Transvaal, at the Cape, in Central Africa, in India, and the East, in the islands of the Southern sea, and in the far Northwest, wherever—and where has it not?—the flag has followed the Bible and trade has followed the flag, the German bagman is struggling with the English pedlar. Is there a mine to exploit, a railway to build, a native to convert from breadfruit to tinned meat, from temperance to trade-gin, the German and the Englishman are struggling to be first. A million petty disputes build up the greatest cause of war the world has ever seen. If Germany were extinguished to-morrow, the day after to-morrow there is not an Englishman in the world who would not be richer. Nations have fought for years over a city or a right of succession, must they not fight for two hundred and fifty million pounds of yearly commerce?"[[1]]