and population as compared to the tiny European state,[132-2]
but small "compared to the lands adapted for true colonization,
long ago relinquished. Holland holds also certain remnants in
the Western Hemisphere, as Spain and Portugal do not. But like
Spain and Portugal, Holland holds these dependencies not by
virtue of its own strength, but by virtue of the matched
strength of others, the balance of power leaving Holland for the
present undisturbed.
France, the most recent of these four rivals of the Pan-Angles,
to-day holds dependencies of {133} greater area than those of
the three other rivals combined.[133-1] Over lands on, or
islands near, every continent, the French flag flies. Only the
flags of the British Isles and of Russia are to-day further
flung. No one feels confident of despoiling France at will, and
the British Isles regards its late rival as an effective ally.
Yet the French hold no true colonies, lands in which France
grows again in a new life. Canada and Louisiana are now the
nurseries of a vigorous Pan-Angle stock.
Towards these four out-run powers we harbour no unfriendly
sentiments. They, alone or combined, can no longer hurt us. We
have grown so large and control so vast an area and population
that we forget that these rivals once threatened our existence.
The place-names they gave and many of their words, now part of
the English language, hardly recall the old struggles. So
thoroughly have we taken the lands they claimed, that with our
own history we associate such names as Columbus, Da Gama,
Magellan, Van Diemen, Tasman, Champlain, and La Salle. With our
former competitors we can make alliances, if we wish, for the
sake of guarding them and ourselves from the powers that loom
out of the future.
But because of such friendly alliances we must not lose sight of
the truth. Our present supremacy we hold not by the courtesy of
these our former rivals, but by the might of our forefathers,
who by their strength procured lands for us. The past secured to
us the present. The visible method was war. "Between the
[English] Revolution and {134} the Battle of Waterloo, it may be
reckoned that we waged seven great wars, of which the shortest
lasted seven years and the longest about twelve. Out of a
hundred and twenty-six years, sixty-four years, or more than
half, were spent in war."[134-1] At the end of these wars the
Pan-Angles had outrun their rivals.[134-2] That century and a
quarter witnessed the steady extension of the Pan-Angle control
in North America."The struggle was literally worldwide. Red men
scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America, and
black men fought in Senegal in Africa; while Frenchmen and
Englishmen grappled in India as well as in Germany, and their
fleets engaged on every sea. The most tremendous and showy
battles took place in Germany; and, though the real importance
of the struggle lay outside Europe, still the European conflict
in the main decided the wider results. _William Pitt_, the
English minister, who was working to build up the great British
empire, declared that in Germany he would conquer America from
France. He did so."[134-3] Taxation in Massachusetts during one
of the years of this war was equivalent to an income tax of 66
per cent.[134-4] After Waterloo for over half a century this
extension continued. In this struggle for our world domination,
in which American and Britannic Pan-Angles each did their share,
we showed we were fighters. We fought to win. We won.
{135}
During and after our struggles with these four white nations, we
have had lesser struggles with peoples of other colours. Our
successes in these struggles have added to our
self-satisfaction. Thus far our efforts against the red, brown,
and black have not been too great for us. In America the red man
had land we needed; we drove him out. In New Zealand the brown
man's country was one we could thrive in; we installed ourselves
there. In India and through the East the brown man had rich
territories; we subdued him, we helped him to increase in
numbers, we sold him more of our goods. The same can be said of
the blacks in various tropical regions. In Australia the black
man had lands suitable for whites, and we occupied them. In
South Africa we have done the same, and, though the possession
of the whites is hardly as yet undisputed, we bear there as
elsewhere a mien of self-reliant superiority.
Our successes have brought us the material benefits we see in
the well-fed prosperity of our peoples. The non-material
benefits it is difficult to estimate. So naturally do we accept
both, that the thoughtless among us assume such comfort to be
the normal lot of good people such as we are. We are content
with our present portion--the best the world provides--and would
counsel others to be content with theirs. We think we are a
peaceful people, and deprecate as bad form the huge expenditures
made by European nations for military and naval preparations.
Some Americans contemplate their small army as though their
nation were by that proved virtuous, much as though the learned
Babu, contemplating the fur-clad {136} Eskimo, should pride
himself on his own tropical attire. Like the sons of wealthy
shopkeepers who disdain to demean themselves by trading, we
Pan-Angles forget sometimes on what harsh foundations was laid
our present exemption from harshness.
Apart from its short-visioned inconsistency, this attitude may
betray us into dangers. The English-speaking peoples have fallen
into a sense of security, assuming the continuance of our
present peace as the normal condition of affairs. We pride
ourselves that we mind our own business with success. And from
minding it for so long, and with so slight a chance of having it
disarranged by outsiders, we have grown accustomed to pursue
without doubts our way to greater individual freedom. We are
oblivious sometimes of the fact that all our efforts for greater
individual freedom are of no avail if some other nation may
deprive us of the wherewithal to individualize:--Our land, our
trade, and our political system. "To live well a people must
first live; and an ideal that ignores the primary conditions of
national existence is a castle in the air."[136-1]
Since the throes of the eighteenth century, North America has
been developed and Australia and New Zealand have prepared
themselves for large populations--all undisturbed by fear of
invasions. In these newer countries have been nurtured many of
the ideals of the race. There, have been tested not only the
federal idea, but also many political and social reforms, such
as those whose names are associated with Australasia, but which
find a congenial {137} habitat in other branches of the race. In
peace we have thus been aiding each other, as we have so often
in war. And it is well for us that this reign of peace has
continued so long, not merely because peace is to be desired,
but because of the strength it allows to accumulate for
struggles to come. That this long peace is unusual, that
struggles will come, history teaches.
Tacitus tells us of a Teuton tribe, "just and upright."
"Unmolested by their neighbors, they enjoyed the sweets of
peace, forgetting that amidst powerful and ambitious neighbors
the repose, which you enjoy, serves only to lull you into a
calm, always pleasing, but deceitful in the end. When the sword
is drawn, and the power of the strongest is to decide, you talk
in vain of equity and moderation: those virtues always belong to
the conqueror. Thus it happened to the Cheruscans: they were
formerly just and upright; at present they are called fools and
cowards." [137-1]
We, unmolested by our neighbours, are now enjoying "the sweets
of peace." Is there anything we are forgetting? Are we backing
the Pax Britannica and the Pax Americana with sufficient power
to ensure their maintenance? Shall we continue to be called
"just and upright"?
We still have land to which to extend our population. Our
prosperity is still undimmed. No one is our proved superior in
civilization. Recent wars have not contributed to our military
reputation, but our faith in our naval superiority has not been
shaken and our pride of race intensifies.
{138}
Yet slowly a consciousness is creeping over us by way now of
London, now of Brisbane, now of Durban, or again of Vancouver or
San Francisco, that all is not as safe for us as it once was.
Once we could afford to squabble a bit in the family; now we
feel we must stop such silly behaviour. To all of us has come
this feeling. It is not merely the appearance of Germany in the
North Sea or the South Pacific, nor the desire of Asiatic Indian
coolies for entrance to the Transvaal, nor the willingness of
these and other Asiatics to share with us the wealth of North
America. These are but signs. They forebode coming dangers whose
extent we cannot foresee.
Out of the future loom menacing forms, hardly more tangible and
comprehensible to us than were the Teutonic hordes to the
Romans. What latent energies lie hidden in the north and east we
can only fearfully surmise. There, perhaps, are peoples
multitudinous in numbers and unmeasured in resources. Their
faiths and ideals are not ours. To be subject to them would be
no illusion.
Across the north of Europe and Asia stretches Russia--a land of
eight and one-half million square miles,[138-1] larger than all
the Pan-Angle area were either Australia, Canada or the United
States omitted from the total.[138-2] Its population of
168,000,000[138-3] outnumbers the Pan-Angle whites {139} by
22,000,000.[139-1] Russia is self-supporting in that within its
borders are food and fuel for years to come. In Siberia are
ample coal and iron fields. Petroleum, of such growing
importance in these days of aerial navigation, Russia has in
plenty. The growth of the Russian power has been practically
simultaneous with that of the Pan-Angles, for in 1913 was
celebrated the third centenary of Romanoff rule. What was once
the small state of Muscovy has extended its borders and pushed
back its frontier, until now it presents by far the largest
stretch of contiguous territory under one rule in the world. It
has, moreover, room for internal development. Only the fighting
edges of Siberia are filled with settlers, most of them
ex-soldiers and their families. The interior is scantily
populated against the time when the advance of the frontier
shall be checked.
The significance of this growth has not been ignored in Europe.
Statesmen have acted or have feared to act according to their
conjectures of Russian desires and powers. For years Russia has
been, and indeed still is, the bugbear of the British on the
Indian and Persian frontiers. Urged by the British Isles, Japan,
fighting for its very existence, checked Russia. The resulting
loss to that country was insignificant. It could receive many
such checks and still be a formidable rival. Russia's success
against Pan-Angles would mean not only to them the material loss
of lands and food, but to the whole world the loss of some
measure of individual liberty, for the unity and strength of
that great country are founded on {140} characteristics the
antitheses of those which make the Pan-Angles great.
But a danger greater than Russia has thrown its shadow in our
path. The white race once felt assured that it was the chosen
race among mankind. It met the red, brown, and black races never
to its own ultimate disadvantage, and often, it was convinced,
for their good. It felt a similar destiny toward the yellow
races. It insisted that they open their doors to the white man's
trade and took them to school in the white man's ways. Now the
white race apprehensively wonders if it has made a mistake, if
destiny is at last on the other side.
China is the wonder of history, both ancient and modern.
Civilization after civilization has battered at its gates, taken
some trifle only to lose it, and has departed. Chinese
civilization has continued unharmed by its transient rivals.
Each of these rivals has pondered over China's strangeness, and
has failed to impress foreign ideals on its people. The Arab,
Malay, Portuguese, Dutch, French, English, American, German, and
now the Japanese and the Russian people, have taken trifles. Of
these Macao, French Cochin-China, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kiaochow,
Wei-Hai-Wei, Formosa, and Tibet are modern examples. How long it
will be before these land-takings revert to the Celestial Empire
remains to be seen. "The old negative, anti-foreign prejudice is
giving way to a positive sentiment of national ambition. With a
population--according to the last census--of over 430,000,000 of
the cheapest and most industrious workers in the world, China is
bound sooner or later to dominate the East, unless she becomes
divided {141} against herself. And this the pressure from the
greedy competition of foreign powers seems certain to
prevent."[141-1]
To-day China is perhaps to become definitely a republic. No one
knows what China can or will do. The white race realizes that
its problem now is no longer how to distribute among its nations
the lands of the yellow races, but how to prevent the yellow
races from distributing its lands among themselves. Men who can
endure arctic cold and tropical heat with like fortitude and
profit, may soon become a factor in the defensive problem of the
Pan-Angles.
"The history of China, ancient and modern, is an eternal series
of paroxysms; its keynote is bloodshed and famine, with periods
of peace and prosperity purchased by the slaughter of countless
innocents. Its splendid civilization, based on an unassailable
moral philosophy and the canons of the Sages, has ever proved
powerless against the inexorable laws of nature, the pitiless
cruelty of the struggle for life. . . ."[141-2] It seems not
impossible that the Chinese may seek to ameliorate their
condition, to lessen "the pitiless cruelty of the struggle for
life" by overflowing into the lands now held by the Pan-Angles.
By what means could we save ourselves from being crushed before
the advance of a people our superiors in thrift and industry and
in ability to render the soil productive, and who are three
times our number?
{142}
Russia and China may be the active foes of our children. We can
bequeath them only such aid in their struggle as our foresight
dictates. Meanwhile we have problems of our own demanding more
immediate solution.
Russia and China are the rivals of to-morrow.
Japan and Germany are the rivals of to-day.
To Japan the Pan-Angles should doff their hats as to their
peers. Radically different, they are not our inferiors. Japan
has forged ahead materially at a rate that Pan-Angles have never
in their history approached. In 1853, when the American
Pan-Angle Admiral Perry forced foreign commerce on Japan, the
land was a feudal area given over to devastating civil wars. The
privileges that the white races after 1853 exacted have been
gradually and entirely taken back. Japan now stands as a world
power. Its people are increasing rapidly. It builds its own
ships. The three fastest merchant steamers on the Pacific to-day
are Japanese.[142-1] No one forgets, and it is hoped that no
Pan-Angle underestimates, the medical ability and the discipline
that backed the bravery and the patriotic spirit of the Japanese
in their life-and-death struggle against Russia. The Japanese
have taken Formosa and Korea from China, and have held the
last-named acquisition against Russia, taking also from Russia
the southern half of Sakhalin. As Scotland, Wales, and England
have been called Great Britain, so the Japanese have called
their home group "Dai Nippon," Great Japan.
Japan, the Dai Nippon group of islands, has a {143} geographical
area of about 150,000 square miles, or three-quarters the size
of Germany, or slightly greater than the area of the British
Isles. Its population of forty-nine millions is three-quarters
that of Germany, or about one-ninth more than that of the
British Isles, or five-sixths that of the whites of the
Britannic nations, or over one-third the white population of the
Pan-Angle world. Although Formosa and Korea, and possible
portions of Manchuria, are to be considered to-day as
dependencies of Japan, the fact remains that Great Japan as a
power, despite slight differences of dialect, contains a
homogeneous people actuated by the same spirit. The population
is now overburdening the land of Japan. Japan must have either
more land or more trade in order to feed its people, or it must
reduce its standard of living--or lessen the population by
emigration.
In Japan's search for more land, Asia offers few
inducements.[143-1] From Japan to the west lies China, full to
overflowing with people. From Japan to the north and north-west
lies Russia-in-Asia under various names. Outside of Asia the
allurements increase. From Japan to the southward lie the
Philippines, now a Pan-Angle dependency, and the islands of the
East Indies,--mostly Dutch, some German, one Portuguese, some
French, and some Pan-Angle. This network of islands paves the
route from Japan to almost empty Australia and fertile New
Zealand. To the eastward, across the Pacific, lie the Hawaiian
Islands, the key of the Pacific, containing 80,000 Japanese,
which is 45 per cent. of a population {144} of which only a
small per cent. are white.[144-1] Further to the eastward lie
Alaska, British Columbia, and the Pacific Slope of America--all
comparatively empty. Mexico contains Japanese to await there the
tide of international events. South of the Panama Canal is a
whole continent with its many open places. The Japanese are not
a tropical people. They want temperate, arable lands. The best
lands for Japan to annex are controlled by Pan-Angles.
Preliminary to annexation in past histories has often gone
occupation. But even if annexation by a foreign power is not to
follow the occupation of our lands by any considerable number of
aliens, who remain aliens loyal to a foreign power, our
integrity and welfare are thereby seriously disturbed. Several
of our groups are awakening to this fact. Alaska, British
Columbia, and the Pacific Slope states on one side of the ocean,
New Zealand and Australia on the other, and the Hawaiian Islands
between, all find the problem of Japanese migration a live topic
of practical politics. In every one of these places legislation
has been enacted to discriminate against the Japanese. To both
New Zealand and Australia, the nearness of Japan has been a
stimulus toward undertaking means of self-protection, naval and
military, since these countries have come to feel that the
British navy does not furnish adequate protection to their
exposed shores. He who looks into the conditions of exclusion of
the Japanese from these Britannic and American shores will note
the fact that the {145} action of British Columbia, California,
New Zealand, and Australia has at one time or another been in
conflict with the treaties made by the larger political entity
of which each respectively is a part. He will see how Australia
and New Zealand have changed their legislation to accord with
the letter, but not the spirit, of the Anglo-Japanese treaty,
and how British Columbia and California have insisted on
protecting themselves.[145-1]
As new areas of the Pan-Angle world are affected by the problem,
such comment as the following appears: "A brisk controversy is
going on in the South over the proposed colonization of Japanese
in Florida. The newspapers of that state ridicule the alarm
shown by Representative Clark; the three or four Japanese seen
in Jacksonville, says the _Times-Union_ of that city, appear to
be perfectly tame, and the editor concludes: 'It is not at all
probable that many Japanese will ever wish to come to Florida,
and we are willing that all who wish to come should come. 'The
_New Orleans Times-Democrat_ is more pessimistic, and remarks:
'That, it will be remembered, was California's attitude not many
years ago.'" [145-2]
In the solution of this problem, which relates not only to the
Pacific but which is a problem of a civilization, we are aided
by the Pan-Angle individualistic habit of each locality
controlling its own local questions. "'No one,' said the Premier
of British Columbia the other day . . . 'no one {146} can
question the supreme authority of the Legislature of British
Columbia to deal with oriental immigration.'"[146-1] In cases
where no one does question such authority, the matter is
promptly settled according to the wishes of the locality
affected. If, on the other hand, anyone does question such
authority, the locality has, at least, by its insistence warned
the whole race of its perils. Each such insistence offends the
Asiatics. To those Pan-Angles concerned, it is becoming
increasingly understood that the struggle has only just begun.
The anti-Asiatic feeling has been expressed from Vancouver to
Hobart, and from Auckland to Durban. Its utterance has been
earnest and measured, bitter and extravagant, loud and long. A
whole race would not in various corners of the earth so talk and
act for no reason. It would be tedious here to catalogue the
phrases ranging from mild to execrative. Nor can the credit be
given to any special one of the Pan-Angle nations involved for
moderation of statement or care in analysis of the problem.
Enough here to quote a statement of one[146-2] who is known
throughout the Pan-Angle world: "The question discussed . . . is
based . . . upon the Alien Land Bill recently passed by the
California Legislature. Upon that particular measure I have no
comment to make; it is in fitter hands than mine. It is to 'the
ultimate issue involved,' . . . {147} that I direct my remarks.
'The ultimate issue involved'. ..'is whether Japan, who has made
good her title to be treated on a footing of complete equality
as one of the Great Powers of the world, is not also entitled to
rank among the civilized nations whose citizens the American
Republic is ready to welcome, subject to a few well-defined
exceptions, within its fold whenever they are prepared to
transfer their allegiance to it.' In brief, this means, I
apprehend, whether the attainment by Japan of the position of a
Great Power entitles her to claim for her citizens free
immigration into the territories of any other Great Power, with
accompanying naturalization.
". . . In my own appreciation there is no necessary connexion
between a nation's status as a Great Power and her right to
receive for her people the privileges of immigration and
naturalization in the territory of another State; and the
reasonings adduced in support of the proposition seem to me
defective, both in some of their assertions and still more so in
ignoring certain conspicuous facts.
"Primary among these facts is that of the popular will, upon
which, in the fundamental conceptions of both British and
American government, the policy of a nation must rest. Be the
causes what they may--economical, industrial, social, racial, or
all four; and if there be any other motives--the will of the
people is the law of the Government. So far as that will has
been expressed in America and in Canada it is distinctly
contrary to the concession of such immigration. With the
question of immigration that of naturalization {148} is
inextricably involved. There cannot be naturalization without
immigration; while immigration without concession of
naturalization, though conceivable and possible, is contrary to
the genius of American institutions, which, as a general
proposition, do not favour inhabitancy without right to
citizenship.