To move we must not only possess the means of movement, but the will to
move; for, without this will, all the means in the world are but scrap
iron and dead timber. The men who first tamed the camel and the horse
must have had ideas in their heads—visions which impelled them to do
what they did. It may have been sympathy for his wife as she carried his
load which induced men to jump on a horse’s back, but much more likely
was it her low carrying power and possibly also to get away from her
restless tongue.
In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the will to move is stimulated by
material gain. To possess something easily, cheaply, and, if possible,
for nothing, is the urge of both commerce and robbery, twins of Fear and
Greed, forces of vice as well as of virtue, the forces of the growth of
the human world, and forces not to be set aside lightly.
The nomadic hordes surged out of Asia in the search after food. It was
the desire to fill their stomachs which moved them. They trickled over
Europe until they met the sea, and then, as years passed by, they
conquered the ocean and swept into the New World. What will happen when
the Americans begin to swarm, it is difficult to say. Will they once
again set out to pursue the setting sun? Who knows?
So also with the wars of the world, as with these slow but steady human
inundations, it has nearly always been a material goal, however shadowy
in form, which has provided the urge. Security, what is this? The shield
of Prosperity and Liberty—a desert, a river, a range of mountains, or a
feeble neighbour; in one word, a secure frontier to shield a people, so
that they may enjoy the fruits of peace; this has been the urge of war.
Then, from war, which so often is but robbery on a national scale, to
turn to barter, amicable warfare; and from barter to turn to commerce,
amicable war on a national scale, what has been the urge? A gold field,
oil wells, land where corn will grow or cattle will breed; in one word,
the possibilities of wealth, which is the loadstone of movement.
The potential wealth of the Empire is stupendous, and potential wealth
is power asleep, power awaiting to be roused from its slumbers, the
power of coal, of oil, and water, of the air and the sun’s rays, of the
tides and of the atoms themselves. The whole world is a gigantic battery
of power, and our Empire covers a quarter of this world, and all that is
needed is to detonate it, and it can only be detonated by the will of
man.
The Romans conquered by building roads, the modern world, by building
railways. Yet both are but a one-dimensional means of movement, and, in
type, so near related, that even to-day the gauge of our railway lines
is the gauge of the Roman chariots. Suppose now that these roads and
railways could suddenly expand laterally, so that from a few feet broad
they could expand to a few yards in breadth, then to hundreds of yards,
miles, and hundreds of miles, until it is as easy to move over the
surface of the earth as over the surface of the sea. A second dimension
would be given to movement; a new world would be born, since a
stupendous sleeping power would be awakened. Stephenson improved the
chariot. In place of taking three weeks to go from London to Edinburgh
we can now travel there in eight hours. He conquered Time rather than
Space. The storming of the Bastions of Space, this is the problem of the
future, and one of our engines of conquest is the cross-country machine.