THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC
That our civilisation is based on conditions of warring struggle is
shown by the fact that even matters of production and industry are
discussed in terms of conflict. The "war of tariffs," the "struggle for
markets," the "defence of trade," the "protection of our work"--these
are every-day current phrases; and the problem of the Pacific as it
presents itself to the statesmen of some countries has little concern
with navies or armies, but almost exclusively comes as an industrial
question: "Will our national interests be affected adversely by the
cheap competition of Asiatic labour, either working on its home
territory or migrating to our own land, now that the peoples of the
Pacific are being drawn into the affairs of the world?"
Viewed in the light of abstract logic, it seems the quaintest of
paradoxes that the very act of production of the comforts and
necessities of life can be considered, under any circumstances, a
hostile one. Viewed in the light of the actual living facts of the day,
it is one of the clearest of truths that a nation and a race may be
attacked and dragged down through its industries, and that national
greatness is lost and won in destructive competition in the workshops of
the world. That industry itself may be turned to bad account is another
proof that an age, in which there is much talk of peace, is still
governed in the main by the ideas of warfare. The other day, to Dr Hall
Edwards, known as the "X-ray Martyr," a grateful nation gave a pension
of £120 a year after he had had his second hand amputated. He had given
practically his life ("for you do take my life when you take the means
whereby I live") to Humanity. As truly as any martyr who died for a
religious idea or a political principle, or for the rescue of another in
danger, he had earned the blessing decreed to whomsoever gives up his
life for his brother. And he was awarded a pension of £120 a year to
comfort the remainder of his maimed existence! At the same time that Dr
Hall Edwards was awarded his pension, an engineer thought he had
discovered a new principle in ballistics. His bold and daring mind
soared above the puny guns by which a man can hardly dare to hope to
kill a score of other men at a distance of five miles. He dreamed of an
electric catapult which "could fire shells at the rate of thousands per
minute from London to Paris, and even further." The invention would have
raised the potential homicidal power of man a thousandfold. And the
inventor asked--and, without a doubt, if he had proved his weapon to be
what he said, would have got--£1,000,000. The invention did not justify
at the time the claims made on its behalf. But a new method of
destruction which did, could command its million pounds with certainty
from almost any civilised government in the world.
In industry also the greatest fortunes await those who can extend their
markets by destroying the markets of their rivals, and nations aim at
increasing their prosperity by driving other nations out of a home or a
neutral market. There is thus a definitely destructive side to the work
of production; and some foresee in the future an Asiatic victory over
the White Races, not effected directly by force of arms but by
destructive industrial competition which would sap away the foundations
of White power. How far that danger is real and how far illusory is a
matter worthy of examination.
At the outset the theoretical possibility of such a development must be
admitted, though the practical danger will be found to be not serious,
since it can be met by simple precautions. There are several familiar
instances in European history of a nation being defeated first in the
industrial or commercial arena, and then, as an inevitable sequel,
falling behind in the rivalry of war fleets and armies. In the Pacific
there may be seen some facts illustrating the process. The Malay
Peninsula, for instance, is becoming rapidly a Chinese instead of a
Malay Colony of Great Britain. In the old days the Malays, instinctively
hostile to the superior industry and superior trading skill of the
Chinese, kept out Chinese immigrants at the point of the kris. With the
British overlordship the Chinaman has a fair field, and he peacefully
penetrates the peninsula, ousting the original inhabitants. In Fiji,
again, Hindoo coolies have been imported by the sugar-planters to take
the place of the capricious Fijian worker. Superior industry and
superior trading skill tell, and the future fate of Fiji is to be an
Indian colony with White overseers, the Fijian race vanishing.
In both these instances, however, the dispossessed race is a coloured
one. Could a White Race be ousted from a land in the same way, presuming
that the White Race is superior and not inferior? Without doubt, yes, if
the coloured race were allowed ingress, for they would instil into the
veins of the White community the same subtle poison as would a slave
class. The people of every land which comes into close contact with the
Asiatic peoples of the West Pacific littoral know this, and in all the
White communities of the ocean there is a jealousy and fear of Asiatic
colonisation. The British colonies in the Pacific, in particular, are
determined not to admit the Asiatic races within their border. That
determination was ascribed by a British Colonial Secretary of a past era
as due to "an industrial reason and a trade union reason, the
determination that a country having been won by the efforts and the
struggle of a White Race and rescued from barbarism should not be made
the ground of competition by men who had not been engaged in that
struggle." But I prefer to think that the reason lies deeper than the
fear of cheaper labour. It springs rather from the consciousness that a
higher race cannot live side by side with a lower race and preserve its
national type. If the labouring classes have always been in the van of
anti-Asiatic movements in the White colonies of the Pacific, it is
because the labouring classes have come first into contact with the
evils of Asiatic colonisation. It is now some years since I first put
forward as the real basis of the "White Australia" policy "the instinct
against race-mixture which Nature has implanted in man to promote her
work of evolution." That view was quoted by Mr Richard Jebb in his
valuable _Studies in Colonial Nationalism_, and at once it won some
acceptance in Great Britain which before had been inclined to be hostile
to the idea of "White Australia." Subsequently in a paper before the
Royal Society of Arts Mr Jebb took occasion to say:
"Let me enter a protest against the still popular fallacy that the
Pacific attitude (_i.e._ in regard to Asiatic labour) is dictated merely
by the selfish insistence of well-organised and rapacious labour. Two
circumstances tell decisively against this view. One is that responsible
local representatives, not dependent upon labour suffrages, invariably
argue for restriction or exclusion on the higher social and political
grounds in relation to which the labour question is subsidiary, although
essential. The second evidence is the modern adherence to the
restriction movement of nearly all Australasians and an increasing
number of Canadians, who are not 'in politics' and whose material
interests in many cases are opposed to the extravagant demands of
labour. Their insight contrasts favourably, I think, with that perverse
body of opinion, to be found in all countries, which instinctively
opposes some policy of enormous national importance lest the immediate
advantage should accrue to persons not thought to deserve the benefit."
But whilst the industrial reason is not the only reason, nor even the
chief reason, against Asiatic immigration into a White colony, there is,
of course, a special objection on the part of the industrial classes to
such immigration. It is for that reason that there has been in all the
White settlements of the Pacific a small section, angered by what they
considered to be the exorbitant demands of the workers, anxious to
enlist the help of Asiatic labour for the quick development of new
territories, and in some cases this section has had its way to an
extent. Some of the Canadian railways were built with the help of
Chinese labour: and Western Canada has that fact chiefly to thank for
her coloured race troubles to-day--not so serious as those of the United
States with the Negroes, but still not negligible altogether. In
Australia it was at one time proposed to introduce Chinese as workers in
the pastoral industry: and one monstrous proposal was that Chinese men
should be mated with Kanaka women in the South Sea Islands to breed
slave labour for sheep stations and farms in Australia.
Fortunately that was frustrated, as were all other plans of Asiatic
immigration, and as soon as the Australian colonists had been allowed
the right to manage their own affairs they made a first use of their
power by passing stringent laws against Asiatic immigrations. A typical
Act was that passed in 1888 in New South Wales. By that Act it was
provided that no ship should bring Chinese immigrants to a greater
number than one for every 300 tons of cargo measurement (thus a ship of
3000 tons could not bring more than ten Chinese): and each Chinaman on
landing had to pay a poll tax of £100. Chinese could not claim
naturalisation rights and could not engage in gold-mining without
permission. Since then the Australian Commonwealth has passed a law
which absolutely prohibits coloured immigration, under the subterfuge of
an Education Test. New Zealand shares with Australia a policy of
rigorous exclusion of Asiatics. In Canada the desire lately evinced of
the Western people to exclude Asiatics altogether has been thwarted, so
far, by the political predominance of the Eastern states, which have not
had a first-hand knowledge of the evils following upon Asiatic
immigration, and have vetoed the attempts of British Columbia to bar out
the objectionable colonists. But some measures of exclusion have been
adopted enforcing landing fees on Chinese; and, by treaty, limiting the
number of Japanese permitted to enter. Further rights of exclusion are
still sought. In the United States there have been from time to time
rigorous rules for the exclusion of Chinese, sometimes effected by
statute, sometimes by agreement with China, and at present Chinese
immigration is forbidden. The influx of Japanese is also prevented under
a treaty with Japan.
The industrial position in the Pacific is thus governed largely by the
fact that in all the White settlements on its borders there are more or
less complete safeguards against competition by Asiatic labour on the
White man's territory: and that the tendency is to make these safeguards
more stringent rather than to relax them. Nothing short of a war in the
Pacific, giving an Asiatic Power control of its waters, would allow
Asiatics to become local competitors in the labour markets of those
White settlements.
But debarred from colonisation the Asiatic has still two other chances
of competition:
(1) In the home markets of his White rivals in the Pacific;
(2) In such neutral markets as are open to his goods on equal terms with
theirs.
The first chance can be swept away almost completely by hostile tariffs,
which it is in the power of any of the White nations to impose. There
are no Free Trade ideas in the Pacific; the United States, Canada, New
Zealand, and Australia, all alike protect their home markets against any
destructive Asiatic competition. If Japanese boots or Chinese steel
work began to invade the markets of Australia or America to any serious
extent, the case would be met at once by a hostile tariff revision.
The second chance, open to the Asiatic industrial, that of competing
with White labour in neutral markets, of cutting into the export trade
of his rivals, is greater. But even it is being constantly limited by
the tendency to-day which makes for the linking up of various nations
into groups for mutual benefit in matters of trade; and which also makes
for the gradual absorption of independent markets into the sphere of
influence of one or other group. Some students of tariff subjects
foresee the day when a nation will rely for export markets on dominions
actually under its sway and on a strictly limited entrance to foreign
markets paid for by reciprocal concessions. They foresee the whole world
divided up into a limited number of "spheres of influence" and no areas
left for free competition of traders of rival nations. Under such
circumstances a Power would have free and full entry only into those
territories actually under its sway. Into other markets its entry would
be restricted by local national considerations and also by the interests
of the Imperial system having dominion there.
Present facts certainly point to the dwindling of neutral markets. An
effort is constantly made by "open-door" agreements to keep new markets
from being monopolised by any one Power, and great nations have shown
their appreciation of the importance of keeping some markets "open" by
intimations of their willingness to fight for the "open door" in some
quarter or other of the world. Nevertheless doors continue to be shut
and events continue to trend towards an industrial position matching the
military position, a world dominated in various spheres by great Powers
as jealous for their trading rights as for their territorial rights.
Imagining such a position, the Asiatic industrial influence in the
Pacific would depend strictly on the Asiatic military and naval
influence. For the present, however, there are many neutral markets, and
in these, without a doubt, Asiatic production is beginning to oust
European production to some extent. In the textile industries,
particularly, Asiatic production, using European machinery, is
noticeably cheaper than European. Yet, withal, the cheapness of Asiatic
labour is exaggerated a great deal by many economists. It will be found
on close examination that whilst the Asiatic wage rate is very low, the
efficiency rate is low in almost equal proportion. Some effective
comparisons are possible from the actual experience of Asiatic and other
coloured labour. In the mining industry, for instance, Chinese labour,
the most patient, industrious, tractable and efficient form of Asiatic
labour, does not stand comparison with White industry. In Australia
Chinese labour has been largely employed in the Northern Territory
mines: it has not proved economical.[9] The Broken Hill (silver) and
Kalgoorlie (gold) mines in the same continent, worked exclusively by
highly-paid White labour, show better results as regards economy of
working than the Rand (South Africa) gold mines with Kaffir or with
Chinese coolie labour.
The Chinaman has a great reputation as an agriculturist, and at
vegetable-growing he seems able to hold his own in competition with
White labour, for he can follow in that a patient and laborious routine
with success. In no other form of agriculture does he compete
successfully with the White farmer. In Australia, for example, where the
Chinese are still established as market-gardeners, they fail at all
other sorts of farming, and it is an accepted fact that a Chinese tiller
will ruin orchard land in a very short time if it comes under his
control.
In navvying work and in dock-labouring work the Asiatic coolie is not
really economical. To see four coolies struggling to carry one frozen
carcase of mutton off a steamer at Durban, with a fifth coolie to
oversee and help the voluble discussion which usually accompanies coolie
work; and to contrast the unloading of the same cargo by White labour,
with one man one carcase the rule, is to understand why low wages do not
always mean low labour costs.
When any particular problem of production has been reduced to a
practically mechanical process, when the need of initiative, of thought,
of keen attention, has been eliminated, Asiatic work can compete
successfully with White work, though the individual Asiatic worker will
not, even then, be capable of the same rate of production as the
individual White worker. But in most domains of human industry the
Asiatic worker, in spite of his very much lower initial cost, cannot
compete with the European. Intelligent labour is still the cheapest
ultimately in most callings, even though its rate of pay be very much
higher. In practical experience it has often been found that a White
worker can do more whilst working eight hours a day than whilst working
ten hours, on account of the superior quality of his work when he has
better opportunities for rest and recreation. The same considerations
apply, with greater force, to comparisons between White and "coloured"
labour.
A fact of importance in the discussion of this point is the effect of
impatient White labour in encouraging, of patient Asiatic labour in
discouraging, the invention and use of machinery. The White worker is
always seeking to simplify his tasks, to find a less onerous way. (He
discovers, for instance, that the wheel-barrow saves porterage.) Now
that coloured labour is being banished from cotton-fields and
sugar-brakes, we hear talk of machines which will pick cotton and trash
cane-fields.
The industrial position in the Pacific as regards White and "coloured"
labour is then to-day this: Owing to the efforts, sometimes expressed in
terms of legal enactment, sometimes of riot and disorder,[2] of the
British race colonists in the Pacific, the settlements of Australia and
New Zealand have been kept almost entirely free from Asiatic colonists:
and the Pacific slopes of the United States and Canada have been but
little subjected to the racial taint. Asiatic rivalry in the industrial
sphere must therefore be directed from Asiatic territory. The goods, not
the labour, must be exported; and the goods can be met with hostile
tariffs just as the labour is met with Exclusion Acts. In neutral
markets the products of Asiatic labour can compete with some success
with the products of the labour of the White communities, but not with
that overwhelming success which an examination of comparative wage rates
would suggest. Under "open door" conditions Asiatic peoples could kill
many White industries in the Pacific; but "open door" conditions could
only be enforced by a successful war. Such a war, of course, would be
followed by the sweeping away of immigration restrictions as well as
goods restrictions.
There is another, the Asiatic, side to the question. Without a doubt the
Asiatic territories in the Pacific will not continue to offer rich
prizes for European Powers seeking trade advantages through setting up
"spheres of influence." Since Japan won recognition as a nation she has
framed her tariffs to suit herself. In the earlier stages of her
industrial progress she imported articles, learned to copy them, and
then imposed a prohibitive tariff on their importation. Various kinds of
machinery were next copied and their importation stopped. China may be
expected to follow the same plan. Europe and America may not expect to
make profits out of exploiting her development. A frank recognition of
this fact would conduce to peace in the Pacific. If it can be agreed
that neither as regards her territory nor her markets is China to be
served up as the prize of successful dominance of the Pacific, one of
the great promptings to warfare there would disappear. "Asia for the
Asiatics" is a just policy, and would probably prove a wise one.
In discussing the position of Asiatic labour in the Pacific I have taken
a view which will dissatisfy some alarmists who cite the fact that the
wage rate for labour in Western Canada and Australia is about 8s. a day,
and in China and Japan about 1s. a day; and conclude therefore that the
Asiatic power in the industrial field is overwhelming. But an
examination of actual working results rather than theoretical
conclusions from a limited range of facts will very much modify that
conclusion. Asiatic labour competition, if allowed liberty of access for
the worker as well as his work, would undoubtedly drag down the White
communities of the Pacific. But when the competition is confined to the
work, and the workman is kept at a distance, it is not at all as serious
a matter as some have held, and can always be easily met with tariff
legislation. The most serious blow to European and American
industrialism that Asia could inflict would be an extension of the
Japanese protective system to the Asiatic mainland. Yet that we could
not grumble at; and it would have a compensating advantage in taking
away the temptation to conflict which the rich prize of a suzerainty
over the Chinese market now dangles before the industrial world.
There are now one or two industrial facts of less importance to which
attention may be drawn. The United States, with the completion of the
Panama Canal, will be the greatest industrial Power of the Pacific. Her
manufacturing interests are grouped nearer to the east than the west
coast--partly because of the position of her coalfields,--and the fact
has hitherto stood in the way of her seaport trade to the Pacific. With
the opening of the canal her eastern ports will find the route to the
Pacific reduced greatly, and they will come into closer touch with the
western side of South America, with Asia, and with the British
communities in the South Pacific. The perfect organisation of the
industrial machinery of the United States will give her a position of
superiority analogous to that which Great Britain had in the Atlantic at
the dawn of the era of steam and steel.
Western Canada is a possible great industrial factor of the future when
she learns to utilise the tremendous water power of the Selkirks and
Rockies. The Canadian people have the ambition to become manufacturers,
and already they satisfy the home demand for many lines of manufactured
goods, and have established an export trade in manufactures worth about
£7,000,000 a year. Australia, too, aspires to be a manufacturing
country, and though she has not risen yet to the dignity of being an
exporter of manufactures to any considerable extent, the valuation of
her production from manufactures (_i.e._ value added in process of
manufacture) is some £180,000,000 a year.
To sum up: in neutral markets of the Pacific (_i.e._ markets in which
the goods of all nations can compete on even terms) the Asiatic producer
(the Japanese and the Indian at present, the Chinese later) will be
formidable competitors in some lines, notably textiles. But the United
States should be the leading industrial Power. British competition for
Pacific markets will come not only from the Mother Country but from the
Dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Neutral markets will,
however, tend to be absorbed in the spheres of influence of rival Powers
striving for markets as well as for territory. A position approaching
monopoly of the markets of the Pacific could only be reached as the
result of a campaign of arms.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] The Northern Territory has been the one part of Australia where
coloured labour has been obtainable in practically any quantity for
mining; yet it is the part of Australia where the experience of
mine-owners has been generally the most disastrous. In 1906 the
production amounted to £126,000; in the last four years, according to a
report just furnished by the Chief Warden (1911), it has got down to
£60,000 a year, and is now shrivelling so fast that the whole industry
is threatened. "The values of the properties worked in the past are not
accountable for this depressed condition," says the Chief Warden, "for
there is every reason for the belief that, if the mineral wealth here
were exploited, it would compare favourably with that of any of the
States; but the depression has been caused chiefly through the
pernicious system of mining that has been carried out in the past, and
the wasteful expenditure in most instances of the capital forthcoming
for development."
[2] The Australian Labour organ, _The Worker_, boasted (Oct. 22, 1908):
"When the law was not sufficient to guard race purity, 'selfish' Labour
risked its life and liberty to go beyond the law, and to show, as was
shown at another time in California, that the White Race would not
tolerate Asiatic colonisation. The Chinese Exclusion Acts in various
states of Australia were thus the monuments, not of the politicians who
passed them into law, but of the courage of the workers who were
willing--as the Eureka miners were willing--to sacrifice everything in
the cause of a clean, free Australia."