Read Ebook: The Outlook: Uncle Sam's Place and Prospects in International Politics by Macmillan Newton

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As for the United States, if any nation ever came into existence and has lived under the fierce light of international politics, it has been this Republic of ours. To be sure, our trade policy of recent years has been framed on the Chinese model--"America for the Americans"--and in consequence we are now brought face to face with a retaliatory policy on the part of the powers of continental Europe which may easily shut us out of the world's market at the hour of our greatest need. But of that, more later on.

In point of fact, we have been a "world power" from the very moment of our birth as a nation, or even before it. Our Declaration of Independence, that beautiful synthesis of paradoxes, became from the moment of its publication a powerful factor in the world's progress. "Among all peoples," says Professor Tyler, "it has everywhere been associated with the assertion of the natural rights of man. To every struggling nation it has been a model and an inspiration." And Buckle, the English historian, declares that its effect in hastening the French Revolution "was most remarkable." No state paper of modern times has exercised so wide an authority.

Geographically, we are a nation lying athwart a continent, from ocean to ocean, and in the immediate highway of the world's traffic from west to east and from east to west. Between 1821 and 1898 no less than eighteen millions of Europeans landed upon our shores to become a part of our citizenship and complete its truly cosmopolitan character.

As for the policy of our Government, it has been that of a world power from the start. Almost our first important act as a government was to cast in our lot with France, for the express purpose of disturbing the balance of power in Europe. And that purpose was realized. In December, 1776, Congress sent out a fleet of privateers which became a scourge to our enemies on the high seas. As early as 1777, we had commissioners, who soon became ministers, at Paris, taking active and important part in a conference of the powers. Five years later, Franklin, John Adams and Jay sat in the congress at Paris, "almost as arbiters," a contemporary record says, so powerful was their voice in the conference.

Washington's much-talked-of proclamation of neutrality, says Professor Bushnell Hart, was never intended to keep the United States from contact or entanglement with European powers, but only so wisely to shape our course that we should be free to fight or keep the peace as our interest should dictate.

It was the United States which first ventured to send a fleet to the Mediterranean to suppress the Barbary pirates--an act from which all the civilized world benefited. Indeed, it is within the limits of truth to say that the period of our liveliest intercourse with foreign powers was the identical period of "the fathers" who are so often and so falsely quoted as urging the policy of isolation that would sooner or later reduce us to the condition of the Chinese Empire.

As long ago as 1851, the native rulers of Hawaii begged--nay, even insisted--that our government annex those islands, whose people had already been familiar with our flag for years. Annexation did not take place until nearly half a century later, but the episode suffices to prove that even at that early day we were a world power in all that the term implies.

Three years later--in 1854--Oliver Hazard Perry, Commodore of the United States navy, battered down the gates of Nagasaki, and by the method which England so successfully employed toward China, established "treaty relations" between the Yankees of the East and of the West.

It has been necessary to pass over with greater haste than I could have wished these arguments of the anti-expansionists, because there are other phases of the question which, to my mind at least, are of vastly greater importance; for I do not deny that there are obstacles in the path of territorial expansion.

Assuming the present war of subjugation to be brought to a successful issue; that the Filipinos acknowledge both the hopelessness of their cause and the justice of ours, as in the end they must, our difficulties are not yet finished. We have still to consider the remoteness of the archipelago, the savagery of many of the native tribes, the tropical climate, and the dregs of four centuries of Spanish misrule.

The average temperature in the Philippines, according to the imperfect statistics collated by the Spanish at Manila, is much too high for the comfort of any man accustomed to the climate of our so-called temperate zone. Professor Dean Worcester, of our Philippine Commission, who spent three and a half years in the islands as a naturalist, says that in all that time he never experienced a day in which a white man could work hard for many hours together in comfort, or even in safety. The coolest months are December and January, but the lowest temperature known at this period of mid-winter is 71 degrees. During the remainder of the year the mercury often mounts above 90 degrees, and not infrequently to 100 degrees. The effects of the heat, moreover, are aggravated by the humidity of the atmosphere, so that it saps the vitality and enfeebles the stoutest constitution.

Malarial fever is one of the curses of the Philippines; but this disease is found in all countries imperfectly tilled and drained, and there, as elsewhere, it disappears in the face of cleanliness and intelligent sanitation. Some cities and districts which at one time were almost wholly uninhabitable have been freed entirely of malaria by thorough drainage. The Spanish, with characteristic indolence, have as a rule endured the ravages of the disease rather than incur the cost and labor of preventive measures. Weyler--the dreadful, blood-drinking Weyler--who was for a time Captain-General of the Philippines, at one time lost the greater part of his army from a fever which might have been averted with proper care. Cholera is not epidemic in the Philippines; neither is smallpox, though both diseases have at different times swept through cities and districts in the train of filth and carelessness.

As for the natives, Professor Worcester gives them, on the whole, a fairly good character. The aboriginal tribes, Negritoes, or "little niggers," are, like our own Indians, nearly extinct. The pagan Malays are bold, warlike, treacherous, but they are not numerous, being confined largely to the northern islands, and even the Spaniards were able, by keeping firearms out of their reach, to prevent them from becoming seriously dangerous. The Mohammedan Malays are more formidable. To the fierceness and treachery of their pagan congeners, their faith has added a savage fanaticism which takes the form of special hatred for the Christian. They are fatalists, and hence fearless in battle, and their priests teach them that for every Christian slain they will be rewarded with a new peri in paradise.

There are forty thousand Chinese in the islands, including some coolies, but the greater part are engaged in retail trade, which in some districts they entirely monopolize. Scarcely any village is without its Chinese shop.

The most numerous and important portion of the population is the half-caste element--Malay-Chinese and Malay-Caucasian, generally Spanish. The creole Spaniards affect to despise these "half-cousins," especially the friars, though it is said that the friars are responsible for the existence of most of them. As a matter of fact, however, the half-castes constitute the great "middle classes" of the population, and are far and away the most tractable, intelligent, and in every way promising for the purposes of a civilized government. Not a few of them are intelligent and fairly educated. Aguinaldo himself is said to be a Malay-Chinese. The Spaniards, never violently addicted to labor, allowed these people to do the greater part of such work as shop-tending, bookkeeping, etc., so that, in the opinion of Professor Worcester, they would be available for the minor positions of government, under the direction of American chiefs.

In one respect at least we shall start with a great advantage over the Spanish. It is not easy to picture American rulers oppressing a subject race on the score of religion. The Spanish, on the other hand, made baptism the test of loyalty from the very start. "They wanted," says Senor Est?vanez, "no subjects who would not begin by having water poured on their heads." The natives, on the other hand, were willing to submit in all else, but insisted on retaining their religion. "So, for the sake of a few drops of water, we had three centuries of war."

Such a people is not devoid of sterling qualities. Troy itself stood out for only ten years against the Greeks; Mindanao resisted the Spaniards for three hundred years. If we profit by the example of our predecessors we may accomplish in a few months what they failed to do in all that long period.

The game is well worth the candle. All authentic accounts of the islands agree that they are rich beyond computation in natural resources--forest, mine, and soil. The Spaniards have, even in their slothful, unskilled and clumsy fashion, taken out untold wealth; but they only scratched the field; most of what remains is practically virgin soil. True, there is lack of all civilized methods; railroads must be built and labor is hard to find. But such difficulties have never yet daunted a virile race, and they will not for long deter the Americans.

The difficulties of which I have spoken thus far are material; there are others much deeper in their origin and more apt to give pause to this giant enterprise. I refer now to what might be called the subjective obstacles to success; the qualities inherent in ourselves and in our own government which rise up now to impede the pathway to success.

"Providence protects little children and the United States," is a saying in the diplomatic world, referring to the good luck, as some call it, or the special gift for rising to sudden emergencies, as we ourselves prefer to say, which in many difficult crises has kept us safe from harm or helped us to success. But now, as Speaker Reed said the other day, "we have burst our swaddling-clothes." We have, let us hope, put away childish things and put on the garment of national manhood. As one of the great powers we must no longer rely upon child-luck. The great task before us calls for the strength, soberness and consistency of the adult.

For the present administration it must be said that the President's choice of men for work in the new colonies inspires the hope of better things. In the Philippine Commission, for example, every man has justified his selection by special ability or experience, or both. If this course be followed to the end the nation is relieved at the start of a grave anxiety. Let us hope that it is so.

But with even the best intentions we have difficulties to face that are not due to any fault of our own, but are rather inherent in our institutions, in our form of government. Ours is a democracy, with all the virtues and all the defects of that form of government. It is obvious that such work as is now to be done in the East calls for a strong central executive force. Russia has been able to fortify her position in the East not only because she is rich and powerful, but because her form of government is an autocracy. Germany is, in name at least, a constitutional monarchy, but it is because her government owns and administers the railroads, and a powerful and perfectly organized militarism permeates the whole fabric, that she has been able to make such advance as a world power since she became an empire at Versailles. There is no time here to elaborate these propositions, but they are obviously true.

Our government, on the other hand, is designedly weak in the executive and strong in the legislative department. When we broke away, at the beginning of our history, from a monarchy and from a monarch who was impatient of legislative interference, the pendulum swang to the other side, carrying us to the opposite extreme. We safeguarded ourselves against the possibility of a central power of overweening strength. And all our history has been the history of a powerful legislative and a comparatively weak executive. To us bureaucracy is hateful. We protest as a people against an office-holding class. Every citizen feels that he too may become an office-holder--is looking forward, possibly, to that consummation. This may explain the indulgence with which we regard the faults of those actually in office. If at the end of its term in office an administration is able to account in some way for all the money it has handled, no further questions are asked. As to the quality of the service rendered for the money, that is a matter not to be dwelt upon with painful emphasis.

"I do not say that we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do that would be to discard the lights of current experience, to reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of the fathers in any case, we should do so on evidence so conclusive that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand."

I firmly believe that we shall be able to develop for our new colonies an administrative branch sufficiently strong for the successful conduct of their affairs and yet preserve all the essentials of republican government.

It may be conceded that the viceregal office, with its regal functions and authority, is essential to British rule in India. Yet, properly considered, England is as truly a democracy as the United States.

Indeed, there is both education and inspiration for us in the study of the British rule in India. Not by any means that it is perfect--what human institution is perfect? Man is selfish, thoughtless, cruel. The opium traffic, both in India and China, and the introduction of the whiskey "peg" among a "heathen" race, which, with all its faults, preserved for so many centuries the virtue of temperance--these are blots--big, dark, indelible blots--on the good name of England. Nor is it wholly without reason that the complaint is so often made that legislation for India is too often inspired by the desires of Birmingham and Manchester, rather than by the needs of Hindustan.

If the natives were a peaceful, intelligent, or even a homogeneous race, the story would still read like a fairy tale. Far from it. Three-fourths of the number are Hindus of many races, sects and schools, but there are sixty million Mohammedans , besides Sikhs, Janis, Parsees, etc.,--a score or more races of more or less turbulent savages, many of them ready at a moment's notice to cut the throat of any white man, if they only dared.

The climate, at least during the hot season, is almost death to white men, and certain death to white children. The English accordingly send their children "home" to be educated and spend their tender years. This means not only the anguish of separation but also a heavy expense, which, in the present depreciated state of the rupee, is hardly borne.

The native princes, great and small, ignorant for the most part, idle, bigoted, superstitious, and naturally jealous of white rule, do what they can to block the wheels of progress and embarrass the government. Herein they have the eager co-operation of the priests, who are jealous of foreign influence and often able to inflame the people into open resistance to the most wholesome orders and regulations. Popular ignorance and superstition lend themselves readily to such mischievous designs. A mutiny may be started by a government order to build a sewer or to vaccinate the inhabitants of a village. It is easy for the priests to persuade their docile charges that vaccination is witchcraft and an instrument of the devil. The policy of the government is tender of native sensibilities, and humors religious and caste distinctions; but the smallest accident or mistake may precipitate a riot or undo the good work of years.

Those who have read Kipling's stories of native Indian life have a picture more than photographically accurate of "paternal government" under difficulties. Nor is it inconsistent with perverse human nature that much of the government's trouble comes from the well-meant but pernicious interference of globe-trotting M. P.'s and parochial statesmen who have solved the problem from afar and come out to India to fan the discontent of pampered natives or aggravate the perplexities of overworked civil servants, held up to execration as the "overpaid and aristocratic favorites of a wasteful government." England, as well as America, has her anti-imperialists.

Yet, in spite of these and a thousand other difficulties and discouragements, a great and really good work goes on, making steadily for the moral and material uplift of the unthankful blacks. Popular education struggles forward against the bigotry and deep-rooted folly of ages. Public roads and other improvements lessen the tremendous distances between field and market, and so lessen the chances of famine. Rivers are deflected and canals built to irrigate waste places and make the desert blossom and bear fruit. Folly and extravagance are restrained in high places; system is established in place of chaos, and the hereditary pauper is taught the blessings of self-support. In something like a century much has been done to reform abuses which, like the pedigree of a rajah, run back through many centuries. True, much still remains to be done; but take it by and with, good and bad together, I know of no other chapter in history so creditable to the race as this.

As I have said, here is a lesson to us, teaching some of the difficulties we must encounter in the Philippines; but is it not also an inspiration, showing what may be done by patient persistence and a high ambition to do our part, in order that we may leave the world better--if only a little better--than we found it? Such an aim is no less praiseworthy in a nation than in an individual; is it not especially worthy of a nation which already, in its short career, has furnished a model of good government and a plea for human rights the world over?

But nations, once more like individuals, do not stand alone in the world, apart from their fellows--independent, isolated, self-sufficient. Each is part of a group, scheme or family, and all are interdependent for help, growth, for their very existence. The Philippines, rich and desirable as they are in themselves and for what they contain, strike the eye of intelligence with much greater force as a part of that complex and highly important system generally known as "the East." At this immediate juncture they are to all the great powers an object of desire and ambition, by reason of their nearness and close relation to the great Empire of China. In the hands of Spain this phase of the islands' importance was nearly or quite eclipsed, for Spain has no part in the great game of empire which engrosses the virile and progressive powers.

The accident of war has done that which international laws and comity forbade. Much as the European powers desired the Philippines, none of them dared to lay hand upon the islands, fearing not the resistance of Spain, but the jealousy of their rivals. The explosion of the Maine thus became a swift and powerful factor in that game of world politics from which we had up to now kept aloof. In the language of the philosopher Dooley, few of our people could have answered, eighteen months ago, whether the Philippines were "islands or canned goods." They played no part in the scheme of our national life. Chance has given them into our hands, and it remains with ourselves to determine whether we are to turn them to account, not only for themselves, but for what they may be made, in their relation to other and larger prizes.

All Europe has listened with mingled incredulity and exasperation to the protests of our anti-expansionists against the annexation of the Philippines. To those who are familiar with the situation in the East and realize the importance of China to the West, it seems incredible that a sane and civilized people should even dream of throwing away so rich a prize, now that chance had thrown it into their hands. Is it hypocrisy or ignorance? Europe can see no other explanation.

But still the opponents of expansion continue to ask, What have we to do with China? Why should the United States concern itself to guard the "open door" in that empire, or to prevent the establishment of "spheres of influence?"--the latter being the polite phrase of diplomacy for chopping up China and dividing the pieces among the great powers.

The plain answer of commerce to these questions is afforded by the statistics of China's foreign trade. Yonder is a vast domain with a population estimated at four hundred and thirty millions--about one-third of the human race--largely dependent for even the simple necessities upon the outside world.

England was the first to batter down the ancient gates of the empire, and she has her reward in that she holds about sixty-four per cent of China's import trade. England's nearest competitor is the United States, with eight per cent, the remaining twenty-eight per cent being divided among the other powers, with Japan at the head of the list. Our own share does not at first glance appear very large, but it should be explained that as a great proportion of our commodities are carried to China in English bottoms and consigned to English houses, it is classified as English business--a part of the sixty-four per cent. The actual discrepancy, therefore, is not so great as the apparent. Moreover, though the beginnings of our trade with China date from the last century, we have not been an appreciable factor in the market until about three years ago, since which time our trade has increased at a rate of speed which has both surprised and alarmed our competitors.

The following account of our exports to China was prepared recently by an intelligent and reliable newspaper correspondent. It is of interest in this connection:

Exports of merchandise to China in the fiscal year about to end will be larger than those of any preceding year in our history. Ten years ago our exports to China were less than ,000,000, and to China and Hong Kong combined little more than ,000,000. In the fiscal year ending 1899, our exports to China will be more than ,000,000, and to Hong Kong more than ,000,000, making a total of more than ,000,000, or three times that of a decade earlier. That the bulk of exports to Hong Kong may properly be considered as ultimately destined for consumption in China, is shown by the fact that the official reports of the imports into China show that more than forty-four per cent of these imports are from the port of Hong Kong. The 1899 exports to China and Hong Kong combined will show a gain of nearly or quite twenty-five per cent over those of last year, while the total exports from the United States for the fiscal year 1899 will be little if any in excess of those of last year. This shows a more rapid growth in our exports to this part of the world than elsewhere.

The following table, prepared by the Treasury Bureau of Statistics, shows the value of our exports to China and Hong Kong during the past decade:

Significant as these figures are, a full understanding of our trade conditions in the far East, and the importance of that market to our prospects, can hardly be gained without a backward glance over the events of the past three decades.

Up to the collapse of the French at Sedan, or perhaps until 1873, Great Britain stood without a rival in trade and manufactures. That year will long be remembered, in England as in America, as the beginning of the era of low prices. In England agricultural products were the first to suffer, on account of the importation of food products from Australia and the Americas. This movement continued to increase and British farms proportionately to suffer until, by 1879, that property, the backbone of English hereditary wealth, ceased entirely to pay. The sending away of money to buy food, together with the fall in the prices of home products, so affected the home supply of gold that, in order to preserve the equilibrium, the English began to realize on their foreign investments.

Such, in brief, is the history of the movement which has resulted in the titanic struggle for the few remaining open markets of the world. Falling prices and reduced profits mean increase of production, which in turn require new markets. We in the United States had been careful to secure the home market to ourselves, but in this crisis the home market proved sadly inadequate. Our manufacturers must needs go forth and compete with European wages and standards of living for the markets of the world.

The story of their success is one of the romances of industry and trade. In the face of a natural hostility aroused by our own tariffs, and compelled to pay for a higher standard of living, our manufacturers have gone into the markets of the world and undersold their European competitors at every point. Carrying coals to Newcastle were child's play in comparison with what these modern captains of industry have accomplished. The story is told in the statistics of our export trade: In 1898 the balance of trade in our favor was ,000,000 for every working day, or more than 0,000,000. For the first time since the War of the Rebellion, the interest on our securities held in England is not enough to pay for our exports, and the extinction of our floating debt abroad is clearly foreshadowed.

But how long is this to continue? With our experience of tariffs we need not be reminded that low prices do not command markets. Continental Europe does not like us. We saw that during the Spanish war, and we have heard it since in various impatient declarations of hostility, at Berlin or Vienna, far more significant than official assurances of distinguished consideration. Indeed, if Germany, or France, or Russia does not openly break with us, it is because fear or prudence is stronger than inclination. The moment any one or all of them combined feels able to slam the door in our face without fear of reprisals, the door will be slammed.

Germany and more especially Russia are straining every nerve to establish in China "spheres of influence," which is the polite phrase of diplomacy for cutting up the Celestial Empire and dividing the pieces among the powers. England, on the other hand, favors maintaining the integrity of China and the "open door" of commerce to all comers. It may be that England's preference is due to the reasonable fear that at the "spheres-of-influence" game she may be beaten by her continental neighbors; whereas with an "open door" her chances would be as good, if not better than the others. If so, England is as disinterested as her neighbors--and no more so. Each and all are after China. "China for trade!" is the slogan. Even the pretense of missionary design has been dropped, so desperate is the struggle; for China, with her four hundred and thirty millions of people, is the sole remaining market of the world. If Germany and Russia get it, they will shut out England, and the United States as well. Can they do it?

In his recent tour across our continent, Lord Charles Beresford openly advocated the co-operation of the United States and England to secure an undivided China and the "open door." His argument was simple. England alone might not, and the United States alone certainly would not, be able to secure this end. Together they could hardly fail. Not that Lord Charles advocated open war. On the contrary, he pointed out that not a cent need be spent nor a gun fired. It only needs that the two great English-speaking nations should declare their joint policy, saying to all the rest of the world: "China must not be cut to bits. The empire which has stood for four thousand years must remain." Then to China herself: "We have saved you from destruction. In return you must keep your market open to all the world, letting us build railroads, telegraphs, canals, what not, throughout your territory. If you don't, we--England and the United States--will do it for you."

So, in great measure, the Philippines mean for us a foothold in the East and a strong leverage on China. Would our co-operation be sought at this time, as it has been, not only by England but by Germany, if George Dewey had not sailed his ships into the harbor of Manila on the night of the 30th of April, 1898, dodging the sunken mines and torpedoes, that he might on the morrow fire "the shot heard round the world?" On that day and since then the world learned that we are a nation not only of shopkeepers and money-grabbers, but also of fighters; that in a prolonged war we stand unconquerable, irresistable. A year and a day ago we were a nation; to-day we are a power, and have only to assert ourselves as such.

Doubtless it was in perfect good faith that Professor Bryce wrote, a few weeks ago:

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