[[4]] The problem of Canada's relation to European controversies and wars may in the future present difficult problems for the United States. If in the present war Germany had been able to land armies on Canadian soil, or if in the future Russia or Japan were to do so, the position of the United States might be rendered dangerous by the permanent establishment of a strong military power, let us say in British Columbia. Yet we could not demand that Canada be allowed to send troops against Russia or Japan and those nations be forbidden to attack in return. The problem of the immobilisation, and even of the neutrality, of Canada in certain future wars, in which Great Britain is engaged but we ourselves are neutrals, may become an urgent question.
[[5]] A guess at our possible losses through a non-aggressive policy in China is made by Mr. Thomas F. Millard in his "Our Eastern Question." "It is roughly estimated," he says, "that China's administrative, commercial, and economic development in the next twenty years will need $2,000,000,000 of foreign capital. Under a genuine application of the Hay Doctrine, America would have approximately one-fourth of this financing.... The returns from this investment would be partly interest and partly trade. Five per cent. interest on $500,000,000 is $25,000,000 income annually." In other words for the privilege of gaining twenty years from now $25,000,000 a year from an investment which if made at home or in the Argentine or in Russia would bring us in little less, Mr. Millard would have us put Japan in her place and if necessary join with England and perhaps France to fight both Japan and Russia. Even if we add the trade profits to this interest on investment, the total result is pitiably small. At our present rate of increase in wealth we may add about one hundred and fifty billions of dollars in the next twenty years. Whether or not one-half billion is invested in China is, nationally speaking, superlatively unimportant. If we intervene in China let us not do it for a few million dollars annually. (See Millard, op. cit., p. 383.)
[[6]] The significant question has been raised whether Manchuria should be included in the China, whose integrity is to be secured. While China is very densely populated, Manchuria prior to 1904 had only 8,500,000 people on an area of 376,800 square miles, a density of population considerably less than that of Minnesota. With immense natural resources, its development has, says Dr. James Francis Abbott in "Japanese Expansion and American Policies," p. 222, been prevented by "the existence of wandering brigands 'Hunghuntzies,' who terrorised the country." Dr. Abbott distinguishes between the Japanese occupation of Shantung, which is filled with Chinese, and of South Manchuria which "was a sparsely settled province of which China was merely the nominal owner. The Russians, and after them the Japanese, occupied it as Americans occupied California and annexed it for the same reason." Korea and Manchuria are absolutely necessary to Japan. "Japan's needs for expansion are real and obvious. Manchuria and Korea could hold the double of the Japanese population" (p. 233). In other words Dr. Abbott advises a policy of maintaining the integrity of a China, excluding however both Korea and Manchuria.
[[7]] If China does develop an industrial civilisation it may be quite capable before many generations of maintaining its own integrity and independence. The weaknesses under which China now suffers would tend to disappear once it became industrially organised. That this impending industrial progress of China would mean ultimate economic danger to Western Europe is probable, but this remote danger would not prevent those nations pursuing their immediate economic interests in developing China.
CHAPTER XVI
PACIFISM STATIC AND DYNAMIC
If at home we have a firm basis for national development, if we grow up as a Great Power beyond the range of fierce conflicts between the nations, the opportunity will be offered us to contribute in some degree to the ultimate establishment of peace, or at least to the limitation of war, in the world outside. Our influence can be cast upon the side of peace and augment the forces making for peace. Our hope lies in a national development, which will permit us while pursuing our larger national interests to work towards a great community of interest among other nations.
In such an international peace the United States has a direct and an indirect interest. It has been recently asserted that we in America might regard the present war with equanimity since it brought us huge profits. Undoubtedly there is money to be made out of the selling of provisions and munitions as well as from trade in countries from which competitors are temporarily excluded. On the other hand, the war means the impoverishment of European nations, who are our main purveyors and customers, and eventually the losses suffered by combatants must be shared to some extent by us who are non-combatants. The war brings about a dislocation of the world industry, a shrinking of capital, and in the end higher prices and a possible reduction in real wages. In the years to come we shall be forced to pay our share of the cost.