The Morgenland, be it understood, is only one of the rotten stones
in the arch of civilization. Mexico is another. India, China, Africa
are of similar character. But the Morgenland may serve as type for
our study, and we may profitably confine our analysis to the German
yearnings for the Morgenland, not because they are in any way unique,
but because they are typical.
There are political scientists who tell us that Germany is forced by
her teeming population to seek this outlet to the East. This would
imply that the impulse toward expansion is similar to that which
carried the Anglo-Saxons to England and the Lombards to Italy. Let us
consider whether this is really the case.
It is admitted, of course, that never before was the population
within the present borders of the German Empire so great as it is
today. Mere physical density of population is, however, a fact of no
direct political significance. The important question is, whether the
population is too dense to be comfortably maintained. Now, there is
undoubtedly much privation in Germany, but it appears to be almost the
unanimous verdict of economists and statisticians that the standard of
welfare in Germany is constantly rising. Of this fact we have indirect
evidence in our own immigration statistics. In the early eighties
Germany sent us 200,000 immigrants a year; now she sends less than
40,000. Why have the numbers dwindled? Not because our free land is
gone: for the Germans never were distinctively pioneers. In so far as
they turned to agriculture, they settled in the older communities, and
by superior thrift and industry, took the land away from the native
born. This was never easier to do than today. Such of the Germans as
remained in our cities occupied themselves with small business, the
mechanical trades and the professions. The demand for such services is
greater today than ever. The costs and hardships of oversea migration
are less now than formerly. If the Germans stay at home, it must be
because Germany, in spite of its great population, offers better
opportunities for life and work than formerly.
It is not the land area of a nation that determines the magnitude
of the population that can be supported in comfort. Rather, it is
the organized intelligence of the people; and this, as every one
knows, has been steadily advancing in Germany. There are, of course,
ultimate limits beyond which organized intelligence can not provide
for an increasing population under the handicap of restricted natural
resources. Was it perhaps a recognition of this fact that led the
statesmen to seek new territories for the Germans of the future?
The birth rate in Germany is declining, as in every other modern
state. Conservative statisticians have estimated that, unless the
tendency to decline is checked, the German population will come to a
standstill within a generation. Germany has now no excess of population
wherewith to plant colonies, and will probably never have such excess.
Accordingly, it can have been no part of the _Morgenland_ dream that
the mongrel population of Turks and Armenians, Syrians and Arabs,
was to be supplanted by German _Biedermänner_. It can not have been
imagined that Antioch and Bagdad were to become German cities, the
seats of German universities; that Gothic spires were to rise among
the ruins of Palmyra, and over the redeemed wastes of Bassorah. The
life of the _Morgenland_ will pursue its dark and furtive ways, whether
under German rule or the rule of any other Power of the light or of the
darkness.