The Trumpet Blast.
It will be remembered that, at the close of the European War, the allied
nations of Western Europe had requested Canada, India, Australia, and
Africa to open their ports to free admission of German-made goods. Those
colonies at first demurred, but assented and gradually drifted towards
independence.
During the war these colonies had sent their contingents to help the
Mother Country, and at the declaration of peace desired an Imperial
Federation throughout the British Empire, but the politicians in the
Humanist Government saw no profit in Empire connections. Sentiment had
no place in Socialistic policies.
Canada gave free trade to the United States of America, and the barriers
between India and the surrounding nations were dropped, whilst the
various parts of the British Empire gradually drew apart from Great
Britain.
In Asia, freedom of exchange between the nations had welded Russia,
India, China, Japan and Siam into a great federation of wonderful
prosperity. It was called "the United Nations of Asia."
The barriers of trade that formerly existed between these nations seemed
as absurd as a farmer dividing his farm into little plots and trying to
cultivate all kinds of plants on each plot instead of putting only wheat
in wheat land and corn in corn land.
As Owasi, the great Japanese statesman who brought about the coalition,
put it, "Let Asia have the intelligence to utilise its lands to the best
advantage. Let it develop each nation's products as the result of
natural selection. We can grow rice in India, we can grow wheat in
Russia. We can put up a high tariff wall and grow rice in Russia, if we
grow it in a hothouse; but it would not be so profitable as raising
wheat. Tariff walls are trade restrictions. They are as obsolete as the
great wall of China."
"But freedom of exchange will close up some industries," said a critic.
"Yes, if they are run at a loss," Owasi replied, "and besides, some one
must pay for that loss, and a loss to one nation instantly acts upon
others. Freedom of interchange of trade is reciprocal, both nations gain
or they wouldn't trade--and there is amity. When trade is restrained
competition commences. Competition soon becomes jealous of the
restricted territory and war begins. Commercial wars often begin with a
tariff and end with a shell. It is at first a commercial war, but as its
intensity develops the bullet and the shell come in. Artificial barriers
are obsolete in these days of flying. The airship should be the
peace-bringer of the world."
So Eastern and Central Asia developed into great producing nations with
the consequent desire for trade expansion--particularly with Australia
and with the markets of Western Europe.
The great Asiatic federation opened up close trade relations with
Australia. This movement, strange to say, had been predicted in Sydney
as far back as April, 1915, when at a public reception to some Japanese
journalists, it was pointed out that a most serious moment in the
history of Australia would occur when the Australian came back from the
big job in Europe, that when he had put his gun in the corner and had
taken off his coat for business, he would see the rapidly developing
nations of Eastern Asia about to dominate the Pacific trade, and that he
would then be wise if he decided at the outset to formulate a policy of
peaceful progress and preserve the closest and most friendly trade
relations with Japan and Eastern Asia.
Australia, therefore, joined in a trade treaty with Eastern Asia, but
Western Europe refused.
It considered that the flooding of its markets with cheap-made Asiatic
goods would mean serious opposition to home factories, which were being
run under high wages.
Belgium alone stood for freedom of trade exchange with Asia. This single
nation in Western Europe that had stood against Socialism was now a
nation of great manufacturing capacity, a country of wealthy people, a
haven for the thoughtful and the ambitious who were forced out of
Humanist nations. Belgium was the centre of European invention.
It could foresee trouble in restricting Asiatic desires for trade
exchange, and pleaded with the nations of Western Europe to open their
ports. It was pointed out, that out of 300 of the wars in the history of
the world, 272 were due to trade causes and only 28 were due to
religious or other causes.
It was pointed out that freedom of trade between German States had made
Germany so strong, that in 1914 it could fight a fifteen months war with
the greatest nations of the world.
But the Humanist nations, being non-militant, turned a deaf ear.
Then a threat of war came from Asia!
It came like a trumpet blast in the ear of a sleeping man, and it found
Western Europe unprepared--with its energy wasted under the rule of
Socialism, and with its armies and navies almost deteriorated out of
existence.