institutions are nearest like our own. Illustrations of her successful
methods may be found in Egypt and in many British dependencies, but,
for our purposes, probably best of all either on the Malay Peninsula or
on the north coast of Borneo, where she has had the happiest results in
dealing with intractable types of the worst of these same races. Some
rules drawn from this experience might be distasteful to people who
look upon new possessions as merely so much more government patronage,
and quite repugnant to the noble army of office-seekers; but they
surely mark the path of safety.
The first is to meddle at the outset as little as possible with every
native custom and institution and even prejudice; the next is to use
every existing native agency you can; and the next to employ in the
government service just as few Americans as you can, and only of the
best. Convince the natives of your irresistible power and your
inexorable purpose, then of your desire to be absolutely just, and
after that--not before--be as kind as you can. At the outset you will
doubtless find your best agents among the trained officers of the Navy
and the Army, particularly the former. On the retired list of both, but
again particularly of the Navy, ought to be found just the experience
in contact with foreign races, the moderation, wide views, justice,
rigid method, and inflexible integrity, you need. Later on should come
a real civil service, with such pure and efficient administration
abroad as might help us ultimately to conclude that we ourselves
deserve as well as the heathen, and induce us to set up similar
standards for our own service at home. Meantime, if we have taught the
heathen largely to govern themselves without being a hindrance and
menace to the civilization and the commerce of the world, so much the
better. Heaven speed the day! If not, we must even continue to be
responsible for them ourselves--a duty we did not seek, but should be
ashamed to shirk.
V
THE OPEN DOOR
A speech made at the dinner given by the American-Asiatic Association
in honor of Rear-Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, at Delmonico's, New
York, February 23, 1899.
THE OPEN DOOR
The hour is late, you have already enjoyed your intellectual feast, you
have heard the man you came to hear, and I shall detain you for but a
moment. The guest whom we are all here to honor and applaud is
returning from a journey designed to promote the safety and extension
of his country's trade in the Chinese Orient. He has probably been
accustomed to think of us as the most extreme Protectionist nation in
the world; and he may have heard at first of our recent acquisition on
the China Sea with some apprehension on that very account.
[Sidenote: United States a Free-Trade Country.]
Now, there are two facts that might be somewhat suggestive to any who
take that view. One is that, though we may be "enraged Protectionists,"
as our French friends occasionally call us, we have rarely sought to
extend the protective system where we had nothing and could develop
nothing to protect. The other is that we are also the greatest
free-trade country in the world. Nowhere else on the globe does
absolute free trade prevail over so wide, rich, and continuous an
expanse of territory, with such variety and volume of production and
manufacture; and nowhere have its beneficent results been more
conspicuous. From the Golden Gate your guest has crossed a continent
teeming with population and manufactures without encountering a
custom-house. If he had come back from China the other way, from Suez
to London, he would have passed a dozen!
When your Peace Commissioners were brought face to face with the
retention of the Philippines, they were at liberty to consider the
question it raised for immediate action in the light of both sides of
the national practice. Here was an archipelago practically without
manufactures to protect, or need for protection to develop
manufactures; and here were swarming populations with whom trade was
sure to increase and ramify, in proportion to its freedom from
obstructions. Thus it came about that your Commissioners were led to a
view which to many has seemed a new departure, and were finally enabled
to preface an offer to Spain with the remark that it was the policy of
the United States to maintain in the Philippines an open door to the
world's commerce. Great Protectionist leader as the President is and
long has been, he sanctioned the declaration; and Protectionist as is
the Senate, it ratified the pledge.
[Sidenote: The Open Door.]
Under treaty guaranty Spain is now entitled to the Open Door in the
Philippines for ten years. Under the most favored nation clause, what
is thus secured to Spain would not be easily refused, even if any one
desired it, to any other nation; and the door that stands open there
for the next ten years will by that time have such a rising tide of
trade pouring through it from the awakening East that no man
thenceforward can ever close it.
There are two ways of dealing with the trade of a distant dependency.
You may give such advantage to your own people as practically to
exclude everybody else. That was the Spanish way. That is the French
way. Neither nation has grown rich of late on its colonial extensions.
Again, you may impose such import or export duties as will raise the
revenue needed for the government of the territory, to be paid by all
comers at its ports on a basis of absolute equality. In some places
that is the British way. Henceforth, in the Philippines, that is the
United States way. The Dingley tariff is not to be transferred to the
antipodes.
Protectionists or Free-traders, I believe we may all rejoice in this as
best for the Philippines and best for ourselves. I venture to think
that we may rejoice over it, too, with your distinguished guest. It
enables Great Britain and the United States to preserve a common
interest and present a common front in the enormous commercial
development in the East that must attend the awakening of the Chinese
Colossus; and whenever and wherever Great Britain and the United States
stand together, the peace and the civilization of the world will be the
better for it.
VI
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE TREATY OF PARIS
This discussion of the advances in International Law and changes in
national policy traceable to the negotiations that ended in the Peace
of Paris, was written in March, for the first number of "The
Anglo-Saxon Review" (then announced for May), which appeared in June,
1899.
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE TREATY OF PARIS
In 1823 Thomas Jefferson, writing from the retirement of Monticello to
James Monroe, then President of the United States, said:
Great Britain is the nation which can do us the most harm of any
one on all the earth, and with her on our side we need not fear the
world. With her, then, we should most sedulously cherish a cordial
friendship, and nothing would tend more to knit our affections than
to be fighting once more, side by side, in the same cause.
As these lines are written,[2] the thing which Jefferson looked forward
to has, in a small way, come to pass. For the first time under
government orders since British regulars and the militia of the
American colonies fought Indians on Lake Champlain and the French in
Canada, the Briton and the American have been fighting side by side,
and again against savages. In a larger sense, too, they are at last
embarked side by side in the Eastern duty, devolved on each, of
"bearing the white man's burden." It seems natural, now, to count on
such a friendly British interest in present American problems as may
make welcome a brief statement of some things that were settled by the
late Peace of Paris, and some that were unsettled.
[2] The request of the editor for the preparation of this article
was received just after the British and American forces had their
conflict with the natives in Samoa.
Whether treaties really settle International Law is itself an unsettled
point. English and American writers incline to give them less weight in
that regard than is the habit of the great Continental authorities. But
it is reasonable to think that some of the points insisted upon by the
United States in the Treaty of Paris will be precedents as weighty,
henceforth, in international policy as they are now novel to
international practice. If not International Law yet, they probably
will be; and it is confidently assumed that they will command the
concurrence of the British government and people, as well as of the
most intelligent and dispassionate judgment on the Continent.
[Sidenote: When Arbitration is Inadmissible.]
The distinct and prompt refusal by the American Commissioners to submit
questions at issue between them and their Spanish colleagues to
arbitration marks a limit to the application of that principle in
international controversy which even its friends will be apt hereafter
to welcome. No civilized nation is more thoroughly committed to the
policy of international arbitration than the United States. The Spanish
Commissioners were able to reinforce their appeal for it by striking
citations from the American record: the declaration of the Senate of
Massachusetts, as early as 1835, in favor of an international court for
the peaceful settlement of all disputes between nations; the action of
the Senate of the United States in 1853, favoring a clause in all
future treaties with foreign countries whereby difficulties that could
not be settled by diplomacy should be referred to arbitrators; the
concurrence of the two Houses, twenty years later, in reaffirming this
principle; and at last their joint resolution, in 1888, requesting the
President to secure agreements to that end with all nations with whom
he maintained diplomatic intercourse.
But the American Commissioners at once made it clear that the rational
place for arbitration is as a substitute for war, not as a second
remedy, to which the contestant may still have a right to resort after
having exhausted the first. In the absence of the desired obligation to
arbitrate, the dissatisfied nation, according to the American theory,
may have, after diplomacy has completely failed, a choice of remedies,
but not a double remedy. It may choose arbitration, or it may choose
war; but the American Commissioners flatly refused to let it choose
war, and then, after defeat, claim still the right to call in
arbitrators and put again at risk before them the verdict of war.
Arbitration comes before war, they insisted, to avert its horrors; not
after war, to afford the defeated party a chance yet to escape its
consequences.
The principle thus stated is thought self-evidently sound and just.
Americans were surprised to find how completely it was overlooked in
the contemporaneous European discussion--how general was the sympathy
with the Spanish request for arbitration, and how naïf the apparently
genuine surprise at the instant and unqualified refusal to consider it.
Even English voices joined in the chorus of encouraging approval that,
from every quarter in Europe, greeted the formal Spanish appeal for an
opportunity to try over in another forum the questions they had already
submitted to the arbitrament of arms. The more clearly the American
view is now recognized and accepted, the greater must be the tendency
in the future to seek arbitration at the outset. To refuse arbitration
when only sought at the end of war, and as a means of escaping its
consequences, is certainly to stimulate efforts for averting war at the
beginning of difficulties by means of arbitration. The refusal prevents
such degradation of a noble reform to an ignoble end as would make
arbitration the refuge, not of those who wish to avoid war, but only of
those who have preferred war and been beaten at it. The American
precedent should thus become a powerful influence for promoting the
cause of genuine international arbitration, and so for the preservation
of peace between nations.
[Sidenote: Does Debt Follow Sovereignty?]
Equally unexpected and important to the development of ordered liberty
and good government in the world was the American refusal to accept any
responsibility, for themselves or for the Cubans, on account of the
so-called Cuban debt. The principle asserted from the outset by the
American Commissioners, and finally maintained, in negotiating the
Peace of Paris, was that a national debt incurred in efforts to subdue
a colony, even if called a colonial debt, or secured by a pledge of
colonial revenues, cannot be attached in the nature of a mortgage to
the territory of that colony, so that when the colony gains its
independence it may still be held for the cost of the unsuccessful
efforts to keep it in subjection.
The first intimations that no part of the so-called Cuban debt would
either be assumed by the United States or transferred with the
territory to the Cubans, were met with an outcry from every bourse in
Europe. Bankers, investors, and the financial world in general had
taken it for granted that bonds which had been regularly issued by the
Power exercising sovereignty over the territory, and which specifically
pledged the revenues of custom-houses in that territory for the payment
of the interest and ultimately of the principal, must be recognized.
Not to do it, they said, would be bald, unblushing repudiation--a thing
least to be looked for or tolerated in a nation of spotless credit and
great wealth, which in past times of trial had made many sacrifices to
preserve its financial honor untarnished.
It must be admitted that modern precedents were not altogether in favor
of the American position. Treaties ceding territory not infrequently
provide for the assumption by the new sovereign of a proportional part
of the general obligations of the ceding state. This is usually true
when the territory ceded is so considerable as to form an important
portion of the dismembered country. Even "the great conqueror of this
century," as the Spanish Commissioners exclaimed in one of their
arguments, "never dared to violate this rule of eternal justice in any
of the treaties he concluded with those sovereigns whose territories he
appropriated, in whole or in part, as a reward for his victories." They
cited his first treaty of August 24, 1801, with Bavaria providing that
the debts of the duchy of Deux-Ponts, and of that part of the
Palatinate acquired by France, should follow the countries, and
challenged the production of any treaty of Napoleon's or of any modern
treaty where the principle of such transfer was violated.
They were able to base a stronger claim on the precedents of the New
World. They were, indeed, betrayed into some curious errors. One was
that the thirteen original States, at the close of the Revolutionary
War, paid over to Great Britain fifteen million pounds as their share
of the public debt. Another was that the payment of the Texas debt by
the United States must be a precedent now for its payment of the Cuban
debt--whereas the Texas debt was incurred by the Texas insurgents in
their successful war for independence, while the Cuban debt was
incurred by the mother country in her unsuccessful effort to put down
the Cuban insurgents. But as to the Spanish-American republics, they
were more nearly on solid ground. It was true, and was more to the
point than most of their other citations, that every one of these
Spanish-American republics assumed its debt, that most of them did it
before their independence was recognized, and that they gave these
debts contracted by Spain the preference over later debts contracted by
themselves. The language in the treaty with Bolivia was particularly
sweeping. It assumed as its own these debts of every kind whatsoever,
"including all incurred for pensions, salaries, supplies, advances,
transportation, forced loans, deposits, contracts, and any other debts
incurred during war-times or prior thereto, chargeable to said
treasuries; provided they were contracted by direct orders of the
Spanish government or its constituted authorities in said territories."
The Argentine Republic and Uruguay, in negotiating their treaties,
expressed the same idea more tersely: "Just as it acquires the rights
and privileges belonging to the crown of Spain, so it also assumes all
the duties and obligations of the crown."
The argument was certainly obvious, and at first sight seemed fair,
that what every other revolted American colony of Spain had done, on
gaining its independence, the last of the long line should also do. But
an examination shows that in no case were the circumstances such as to
make it a fair precedent for Cuba. In the other colonies the debts were
largely due to their own people. To a considerable extent they had been
incurred for the prosecution of improvements of a pacific character,
generally for the public good and often at the public desire. Another
part had been spent in the legitimate work of preserving public order
and extending the advantages of government over wild regions and native
tribes.[3] The rich, compact, populous island of Cuba had called for no
such loans up to the time when Spain had already lost all of her
American colonies on the continent, and had consequently no other
dependency on which to fasten her exacting governor-generals and hosts
of other official leeches. There was no Cuban debt. Any honest
administration had ample revenues for all legitimate expenses, and a
surplus; and this surplus seems not to have been used for the benefit
of the island, but sent home. Between 1856 and 1861 over $20,000,000 of
Cuban surplus were thus remitted to Madrid. Next began a plan for using
Cuban credit as a means of raising money to re-conquer the lost
dominions; and so "Cuban bonds" (with the guaranty of the Spanish
nation) were issued, first for the effort to regain Santo Domingo, and
then for the expedition to Mexico. By 1864 $3,000,000 had been so
issued; by 1868 $18,000,000--not at the request or with the consent of
the Cubans, and not for their benefit. Then commenced the Cuban
insurrection; and from that time on, all Spain could wring from Cuba or
borrow in European markets on the pledge of Cuban revenues and her own
guaranty went in the effort to subdue a colony in revolt against her
injustice and bad government. The lenders knew the facts and took the
risk. Two years after this first insurrection was temporarily put down,
these so-called Cuban debts had amounted to over $170,000,000. They
were subsequently consolidated into other and later issues; but
whatever change of form or date they underwent, they continued to
represent practically just three things: the effort to conquer Santo
Domingo, the expedition to Mexico, and the efforts to subdue Cuba. A
movement to refund at a lower rate of interest was begun in 1890, and
for this purpose an issue of $175,000,000 of Spanish bonds was
authorized, to be paid out of the revenues of Cuba, but with the
guaranty of the Spanish nation. Before many had been placed the
insurrection had again broken out. Thenceforward they were used not to
refund old bonds, but to raise money for the prosecution of the new
war. Before its close this indebtedness had been swollen to over double
the figure named above, and a part of the money must have been used
directly in the war against the United States.
[3] One of the author's colleagues at Paris, the Hon. Cushman K.
Davis, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the United
States Senate, and among the most scholarly students of
International Law now in American public life, says in a private
letter:
"I was at first very much struck by the unanimity of action
by the South American republics in the assumption of debts
created by Spain. But some reflection upon the subject has
caused that action to lose, to me, much of its apparent
relevancy. There was in none of those cases any funded debt,
in the sense of bond obligations, held in the markets of the
world. There were two parties in the various Spanish
provinces of North and South America, one of which supported
Spanish ascendancy, and the other of which was revolutionary.
The debts created by the exactions of Spain and of the
revolutionary party alike were, mainly if not entirely,
obligations due to the people of the colonies themselves. As
to the continuance of pensions, endowments, etc., it must be
remembered that these were Catholic countries, and that these
obligations ran to a state church, which continued to be a
state church after the colonies had achieved their
independence. As to the Napoleonic treaties cited by the
Spanish Commissioners, they were mere matters of covenant in
a special case, and were not, in my judgment, the result of
any anterior national obligation."
In the negotiations Spain took high moral ground with reference to
these debts. She utterly denied any right to inquire how the proceeds
had been expended. She did not insist for her own benefit on their
recognition and transfer with the territory. She was concerned, not for
herself, but for international morality and for the innocent holders.
Some, no doubt, were Spanish citizens, but many others were French, or
Austrian, or of other foreign nationalities. The bonds were freely
dealt in on the Continental bourses. A failure to provide for them
would be a public scandal throughout civilization; it would cause a
wide-spread and profound shock to the sense of security in national
obligations the world over, besides incalculable injustice and
individual distress.
But the fact was that these were the bonds of the Spanish nation,
issued by the Spanish nation for its own purposes, guaranteed in terms
"by the faith of the Spanish nation," and with another guaranty
pledging Spanish sovereignty and control over certain colonial
revenues. Spain failed to maintain her title to the security she had
pledged, but the lenders knew the instability of that security when
they risked their money on it. All the later lenders and many of the
early ones knew, also, that it was pledged for money to continue
Spain's efforts to subdue a people struggling to free themselves from
Spanish rule. They may have said the morality or justice of the use
made of the money was no concern of theirs. They may have thought the
security doubtful, and still relied on the broad guaranty of the
Spanish nation. At any rate, caveat emptor! The one thing they ought
not to have relied upon was that the island they were furnishing money
to subdue, if it gained its freedom, would turn around and insist on
reimbursing them!