In modern times there have been two principal colonizing nations,
which not merely have occupied and administered a great transmarine
domain, but have impressed upon it their own identity--the totality of
their political and racial characteristics--to a degree that is likely
to affect permanently the history of the world at large.
These two nations, it is needless to say, are Great Britain and Spain.
Russia, their one competitor, differs from them in that her sustained
advance over alien regions is as wholly by land as theirs has been by
sea. France and Holland have occupied and administered, and continue
to occupy and administer, large extents of territory; but it is
scarcely necessary to argue that in neither case has the race
possessed the land, nor have the national characteristics been
transmitted to the dwellers therein as a whole. They have realized,
rather, the idea recently formulated by Mr. Benjamin Kidd for the
development of tropical regions,--administration from without.
The unexpected appearance of the United States as in legal control of
transmarine territory, which as yet they have not had opportunity
either to occupy or to administer, coincides in time with the final
downfall of Spain's colonial empire, and with a stage in the upward
progress of that of Great Britain, so marked, in the contrast it
presents to the ruin of Spain, as to compel attention and comparison,
with an ultimate purpose to draw therefrom instruction for the United
States in the new career forced upon them. The larger colonies of
Great Britain are not indeed reaching their majority, for that they
did long ago; but the idea formulated in the phrase "imperial
federation" shows that they, and the mother country herself, have
passed through and left behind the epoch when the accepted thought in
both was that they should in the end separate, as sons leave the
father's roof, to set up, each for himself. To that transition phase
has succeeded the ideal of partnership, more complex indeed and
difficult of attainment, but trebly strong if realized. The terms of
partnership, the share of each member in the burdens and in the
profits, present difficulties which will delay, and may prevent, the
consummation; time alone can show. The noticeable factor in this
change of mind, however, is the affectionate desire manifested by both
parent and children to ensure the desired end. Between nations long
alien we have high warrant for saying that interest alone determines
action; but between communities of the same blood, and when the ties
of dependence on the one part are still recent, sentiments--love and
mutual pride--are powerful, provided there be good cause for them. And
good cause there is. Since she lost what is now the United States,
Great Britain has become benevolent and beneficent to her colonies.
It is not in colonies only, however, that Great Britain has been
beneficent to weaker communities; nor are benevolence and beneficence
the only qualities she has shown. She has been strong also,--strong in
her own interior life, whence all true strength issues; strong in the
quality of the men she has sent forth to colonize and to administer;
strong to protect by the arm of her power, by land, and, above all, by
sea. The advantage of the latter safeguard is common to all her
dependencies; but it is among subject and alien races, and not in
colonies properly so called, that her terrestrial energy chiefly
manifests itself, to control, to protect, and to elevate. Of these
functions, admirably discharged in the main, India and Egypt are the
conspicuous illustrations. In them she administers from without, and
cannot be said to colonize, for the land was already full.
Conspicuous result constitutes example: for imitation, if honorable;
for warning, if shameful. Experience is the great teacher, and is at
its best when personal; but in the opening of a career such experience
is wanting to the individual, and must be sought in the record of
other lives, or of other nations. The United States are just about to
enter on a task of government--of administration--over regions which,
in inhabitants, in climate, and in political tradition, differ
essentially from themselves. What are the conditions of success?
We have the two great examples. Great Britain has been, in the main,
and increasingly, beneficent and strong. Spain, from the very first,
as the records show, was inhumanly oppressive to the inferior races;
and, after her own descendants in the colonies became aliens in habit
to the home country, she to them also became tyrannically exacting.
But, still more, Spain became weaker and weaker as the years passed,
the tyranny of her extortions being partially due to exigencies of her
political weakness and to her economical declension. Let us, however,
not fail to observe that the beneficence, as well as the strength, of
Great Britain has been a matter of growth. She was not always what she
now is to the alien subject. There is, therefore, no reason to
despair, as some do, that the United States, who share her traditions,
can attain her success. The task is novel to us; we may make blunders;
but, guided by her experience, we should reach the goal more quickly.
And it is to our interest to do so. Enlightened self-interest demands
of us to recognize not merely, and in general, the imminence of the
great question of the farther East, which is rising so rapidly before
us, but also, specifically, the importance to us of a strong and
beneficent occupation of adjacent territory. In the domain of color,
black and white are contradictory; but it is not so with self-interest
and beneficence in the realm of ideas. This paradox is now too
generally accepted for insistence, although in the practical life of
states the proper order of the two is too often inverted. But, where
the relations are those of trustee to ward, as are those of any state
which rules over a weaker community not admitted to the full
privileges of home citizenship, the first test to which measures must
be brought is the good of the ward. It is the first interest of the
guardian, for it concerns his honor. Whatever the part of the United
States in the growing conflict of European interests around China and
the East, we deal there with equals, and may battle like men; but our
new possessions, with their yet minor races, are the objects only of
solicitude.
Ideas underlie action. If the paramount idea of beneficence becomes a
national conviction, we may stumble and err, we may at times sin, or
be betrayed by unworthy representatives; but we shall advance
unfailingly. I have been asked to contribute to the discussion of this
matter something from my own usual point of view; which is, of
course, the bearing of sea power upon the security and the progress of
nations. Well, one great element of sea power, which, it will be
remembered, is commercial before it is military, is that there be
territorial bases of action in the regions important to its commerce.
That is self-interest. But the history of Spain's decline, and the
history of Great Britain's advance,--in the latter of which the stern
lesson given by the revolt of the United States is certainly a
conspicuous factor, as also, perhaps, the other revolt known as the
Indian Mutiny, in 1857,--alike teach us that territories beyond the
sea can be securely held only when the advantage and interests of the
inhabitants are the primary object of the administration. The
inhabitants may not return love for their benefits,--comprehension or
gratitude may fail them; but the sense of duty achieved, and the
security of the tenure, are the reward of the ruler.
I have understood also that, through the pages of "The Engineering
Magazine," I should speak to the men who stand at the head of the
great mechanical industries of the country,--the great inventors and
the leaders in home development,--and that they would be willing to
hear me. But what can I say to them that they do not know? Their own
businesses are beyond my scope and comprehension. The opportunities
offered by the new acquisitions of the United States to the pursuits
with which they are identified they can understand better than I.
Neither is it necessary to say that adequate--nay, great--naval
development is a condition of success, although such an assertion is
more within my competence, as a student of navies and of history. That
form of national strength which is called sea power becomes now doubly
incumbent. It is needed not merely for national self-assertion, but
for beneficence; to ensure to the new subjects of the nation peace and
industry, uninterrupted by wars, the great protection against which is
preparation--to use that one counsel of Washington's which the
anti-imperialist considers to be out of date.
I have, therefore, but one thing which I have not already often said
to offer to such men, who affect these great issues through their own
aptitudes and through their far-reaching influence upon public
opinion, which they touch through many channels. Sea power, as a
national interest, commercial and military, rests not upon fleets
only, but also upon local territorial bases in distant commercial
regions. It rests upon them most securely when they are extensive, and
when they have a numerous population bound to the sovereign country by
those ties of interest which rest upon the beneficence of the ruler;
of which beneficence power to protect is not the least factor. Mere
just dealing and protection, however, do not exhaust the demands of
beneficence towards alien subjects, still in race-childhood. The firm
but judicious remedying of evils, the opportunities for fuller and
happier lives, which local industries and local development afford,
these also are a part of the duty of the sovereign power. Above all,
there must be constant recognition that self-interest and beneficence
alike demand that the local welfare be first taken into account. It is
possible, of course, that it may at times have to yield to the
necessities of the whole body; but it should be first considered.
The task is great; who is sufficient for it? The writer believes
firmly in the ultimate power of ideas. Napoleon is reported to have
said: "Imagination rules the world." If this be generally so, how
much more the true imaginations which are worthy to be called ideas!
There is a nobility in man which welcomes the appeal to beneficence.
May it find its way quickly now to the heads and hearts of the
American people, before less worthy ambitions fill them; and, above
all, to the kings of men, in thought and in action, under whose
leadership our land makes its giant strides. There is in this no
Quixotism. Materially, the interest of the nation is one with its
beneficence; but if the ideas get inverted, and the nation sees in its
new responsibilities, first of all, markets and profits, with
incidental resultant benefit to the natives, it will go wrong. Through
such mistakes Great Britain passed. She lost the United States; she
suffered bitter anguish in India; but India and Egypt testify to-day
to the nobility of her repentance. Spain repented not. The examples
are before us. Which shall we follow?
And is there not a stimulus to our imagination, and to high ambition,
to read, as we easily may, how the oppressed have been freed, and the
degraded lifted, in India and in Egypt, not only by political
sagacity and courage, but by administrative capacity directing the
great engineering enterprises, which change the face of a land and
increase a hundredfold the opportunities for life and happiness? The
profession of the writer, and the subject consequently of most of his
writing, stands for organized force, which, if duly developed, is the
concrete expression of the nation's strength. But while he has never
concealed his opinion that the endurance of civilization, during a
future far beyond our present foresight, depends ultimately upon due
organization of force, he has ever held, and striven to say, that such
force is but the means to an end, which end is durable peace and
progress, and therefore beneficence. The triumphs and the sufferings
of the past months have drawn men's eyes to the necessity for increase
of force, not merely to sustain over-sea dominion, but also to ensure
timely use, in action, of the latent military and naval strength which
the nation possesses. The speedy and inevitable submission of Spain
has demonstrated beyond contradiction the primacy of navies in
determining the issue of transmarine wars; for after Cavité and
Santiago had crippled hopelessly the enemy's navy, the end could not
be averted, though it might have been postponed. On the other hand,
the numerical inadequacy of the troops sent to Santiago, and their
apparently inadequate equipment, have shown the necessity for greater
and more skilfully organized land forces. The deficiency of the United
States in this respect would have permitted a prolonged resistance by
the enemy's army in Cuba,--a course which, though sure ultimately to
fail, appealed strongly to military punctilio.
These lessons are so obvious that it is not supposable that the
national intelligence, which has determined the American demand for
the Philippines, can overlook them; certainly not readers of the
character of those to whom this paper is primarily addressed. But when
all this has been admitted and provided for, it still remains that
force is but the minister, under whose guardianship industry does its
work and enjoys peaceably the fruits of its labor. To the mechanical
industries of the country, in their multifold forms, our new
responsibilities propound the questions, not merely of naval and
military protection, but of material development, which, first
beneficent to the inhabitants and to the land, gives also, and
thereby, those firm foundations of a numerous and contented
population, and of ample local resources, upon which alone military
power can securely rest.