American World Policies

by Walter E. Weyl

THE HIGHER IMPERIALISM

One of the greatest difficulties in the problem of working out an international colonial policy is our neglect of the immediate and overwhelming influence of colonies, as of other economic outlets, in the provocation of destructive wars. Until the nations recognize that wars are in the main wars of interest, fought for concrete things, and unless such things can be utilised with some regard to the desires of all nations involved, war cannot be avoided.

If these questions of interest were merely a matter of short division, of so much trade to be distributed, the problem, though difficult, would be easier of solution. But in many cases a single, indivisible prize must be awarded. There is only one Antwerp, one Trieste, one Constantinople, and there are many claimants. Is Russia to control the Yellow Sea or is Japan? Is the Persian Gulf to be British, Russian or German? Is the present division of colonial possessions to be maintained or is there to be a new distribution, from which some nations will gain and others lose? What is to decide what colonies shall belong to what nation or what share each nation shall have in the profits of exploitations? These and a hundred other questions indicate the wide range of complicated economic interests which to-day divide nations and illustrate the difficulty of establishing a basis of agreement.

Clearly we cannot solve the problem by permanently maintaining the status quo. For the status quo, being based upon the relative power of nations in the past, does not conform to the power of the same nations to-day or to-morrow. Moreover, the maintenance of the status quo means the perpetuation of absurd anachronisms. It is undesirable as well as impossible. Nations are not static. You can no more assure exclusive economic advantages to a weak and unprogressive nation than you could have preserved the American continent to the aborigines.

Even if there were no single economic principle to apply, it would not follow that some approach to an economic equilibrium would be impossible. As law develops out of an endless chaos of human relations by means of decisions (based on temporary exigencies) until a rule of law is established, as the market-price grows out of the innumerable hagglings of the market, so even without the aid of a fundamental principle, some modus vivendi, some approach to an economic concert, could be attained. Economically considered, war is an attempt to solve the problem of the utilisation of the world's resources. If the world's wealth and income can be so distributed among the world's inhabitants, grouped into nations, as to render those nations, not indeed satisfied, but sufficiently satisfied not to go to war, a basis for peace results, even though the arrangement is not ideal. If, however, the distribution is obviously at variance with the relative power and needs of the nations, then one nation or group seeks to overturn the arrangement by force.

To secure such a distribution requires the establishment of certain canons of international policy and modes of international procedure. The decision must in some degree conform to the median expectations of the powers. Back of any particular economic arrangement also, there must be the force of tradition, a sense of security, a sense of justice. The redistribution must be such that the resulting motive to war will be weaker than the motive to peace.

But before we can even approach such a plan to prevent war by reducing the economic incentive, we must frankly recognise that in certain circumstances a nation may have a direct economic interest in war. To deny such an interest is not only fallacious but even dangerous. For if we believe that nations have no economic motive to war, when in truth they have, we are likely to neglect to do things necessary to reverse such motives. Our international task is to make arrangements which will cause nations to lose their interest in war. It is not that of trying to persuade nations that they have no such interest.

There is much ambiguity and incoherence in most discussions concerning the economic advantages of war. On the whole, while the world does not usually gain by war, but loses through the destruction of capital and through industrial deterioration, an individual nation may clearly gain. England gained from the Seven Years' War, the United States from the war with Mexico, Germany from the war of 1870, Japan from its war with China. By war nations may secure markets, access to raw materials, better opportunities for investment and a firm basis for industrial progress; they may cripple troublesome competitors; they may exact indemnities. Much that is accounted gain on this score may in the end prove to be loss, but it is false to state that there can be no profit at all.

The discussion whether or not a war is profitable often takes the superficial form of a comparison between the indemnity received and the money expended on the war. It is pointed out, for example, that in 1895 Japan received a larger sum from China than had been spent on the war, while on the other hand it is emphasised that thereafter the military expenditures of Japan increased so rapidly that much more than this profit was spent. But the indemnity was the smallest part of Japan's gain and the military expenditures were made necessary, not by the Chinese War nor by the payment of the indemnity but by a concrete military policy, which was largely based on concrete economic needs. Either an expansion into Asia was necessary and in the end possible for Japan or it was not; if it was, the expenditure of a few hundred million dollars on the wars against China, Russia and Germany were a paying investment, irrespective of indemnities; if it was not the wars would have been a bad investment even had they shown a clear balance on the books.

The problem is not whether every war is advantageous to the victor but whether any war is of benefit. It is highly improbable that the war of 1914 will in the end pay most if any of the combatants, but if Germany by a victory as easy as that of 1870 could have secured from France an indemnity of four or five billion dollars and the cession of Northern Africa, it would surely have paid. A war between Germany and Holland, if the other powers held off, would be equally profitable to the stronger power. If a coalition of nations could defeat and blockade Great Britain, they could easily recoup themselves for any expenditures involved. It is true that they could not physically remove British railways and mines, but they could confiscate the navy, the merchant marine, a part of the foreign and colonial investments and a certain part of the profits of business within the kingdom. To assert that a nation can never gain at war is merely to state that nations never have conflicting interests, whereas in truth some nations are cramped economically by other nations, and a large part of the wealth and income of most nations can be diverted by means of physical compulsion.