AMERICAN INTERESTS ABROAD
No nation in its foreign policy is completely disinterested, in the
sense that it willingly abandons or sacrifices its larger interests.
What generosity it displays is usually in smaller matters, like a rich
man's gift to a beggar. England may sacrifice interests in Jamaica to
uphold the principle of human freedom, while at the same time fighting
China to force the admission of opium. Similarly the United States may
generously return money to Japan (as in the Shimonoseki case) or to
China, or relieve the sufferers of Messina or of Belgium. In really
vital matters, however, nations are not self-sacrificing, but
tenaciously pursue their own interests.
There are two senses, however, in which a nation may be disinterested
in its foreign policy. Either it may possess no interest or its
separate interest may be so small in relation to its larger interests
elsewhere that it is willing to make a sacrifice. If, for example, the
present war ended in a deadlock and the two groups of powers, unwilling
to trust each other, were to confide Constantinople and the straits to
the keeping of the United States, it would be almost unthinkable that
we should be false to the trust. We should have no interest in
favouring one group of nations as against the other; we should have no
political axe to grind and no economic or territorial gains to make.
We should be fair and disinterested because we had no interest.
{202}
Our recent attitude toward Cuba, the Philippines and Mexico has been
relatively disinterested in the second sense. We might have made money
by exploiting these countries. We could have held Cuba; we might have
imported a million Chinese into the Philippine Islands and grown rich
on their toil, while in Mexico, where we already had invested a large
capital which was menaced and in part destroyed by the revolution, we
could have taken what we wanted and held what we took. Certain motives
of decency prevented us from following this ruthless course; our
self-satisfaction was worth more to us than a few hundred million
dollars. The important fact, however, was that we were not pressed for
this wealth. We were not compelled by poverty or pressure of
population to grab what we could. We were able to seek a larger
interest, to lay the basis of a slower but surer prosperity and to gain
the good will, if not of Cubans, Filipinos and Mexicans, at least of
the nations generally. In the long run it was a policy that will pay,
and our conditions are such that we can still afford to consider the
long run.
But although we have been occasionally disinterested or have shown at
least a chemical trace of disinterestedness, our foreign policy has
usually pursued concrete national aims. It has been a conservative,
relatively uneventful policy, consisting for the most part in a quiet,
unhurried advancement of our interests, with a not excessive
consideration for the opinions of other nations. We have been cautious
though persistent. We have avoided forcing quarrels upon powerful
nations until we had grown irresistible. Usually we obtained the large
thing, but where we could obtain it only by fighting formidable
opponents, we compromised. When as in 1861 we found ourselves in a
dangerous position, we endured aggression by France and Spain until we
were again free {203} to compel redress. Time worked for us, the
passing years were our allies and we could afford to move slow. But we
moved always in one direction--toward our perceived national interest.
The issue, therefore, is not whether we shall sacrifice our national
interests, but whether in our foreign policy we shall pursue ultimate,
or at least relatively permanent, interests in a large way or seek
immediate, smaller gains. It is a choice similar to that which a great
store makes when it sells standard goods at a fixed price instead of
seeking immediate advantage by petty cheatings and interminable and
multitudinous hagglings. As nations advance towards power, stability
and security, they are enabled to base their programmes increasingly on
long time views and, ceasing to be interested in small advantages, to
seek their larger interests in a policy of tolerance and seeming
magnanimity. It was to England's real interest to be scrupulously fair
in peace time toward weaker naval nations; it was equally to her larger
interest to open her dependencies to the trade of the world and to
accord political rights to her lately conquered Dutch subjects in South
Africa. A tighter and harder policy would have been short-sighted.
Even had it gained immediate advantages, it might have left England in
a day of adversity with the great powers ranged against her.
The choice between immediate and ultimate interest in foreign policy
presents itself daily. We could, for example, simply take the Danish
West Indies, instead of paying for them, and doubtless might secure
ourselves against a future retaliation by the great powers. Such an
adventure, however, to say nothing of its ethics, would be monstrously
stupid. Or, while the European nations are looking elsewhere, we might
"go" into Mexico and keep {204} what we wanted. We have a better
excuse than in 1846 and an equally safe opportunity. We should be
richer to-morrow if we took Mexico, but would it pay in the end? Would
such a conquest accord with our larger policies and our true ambitions
in the world?
It is in this light that we should view the problem of our foreign
policy as it shapes itself to-day. We must preserve certain national
interests, material and spiritual. We must ward off certain dangers,
securing ourselves as other nations secure themselves. But for better
or worse, we have become a world power and a world influence, and what
we do outside, as well as within, our borders, must affect the
decisions and actions of other nations. If our ideal is not
aggrandisement or empire but an equal fellowship with other great
nations, if we desire to contribute to the progress of international
development and not merely get all we can in the scramble, how shall we
shape our foreign policy? On what broad general principle shall we
decide the urgent questions which arise day by day in most unexpected
conjunctions?
The answer to these questions is not easy; there is not even an
agreement as to what our interests are. What, after all, do the
hundred million Americans want beyond their borders? What are we
willing to fight for rather than forego? What do we already have or
claim, the retention of which would justify us in fighting?
How we shall answer this depends upon our temperament and our special
interests. Certain Americans would advise us to fight all Europe,
rather than recede from an action already determined upon or
acknowledge that American policy is conditioned by the will of
foreigners. One need not argue against such convictions. It is the
current, instinctive philosophy of "My country right or wrong, wise or
foolish; my country against the world." To fight {205} all Europe,
however, is not to fight at all, but merely to be assassinated. To act
as though Europe had no rights which America needs respect is to adopt
a principle profoundly hostile to our own welfare.
To a financier, whose interests in Mexico, Guatemala or Indo-China are
attacked, war seems preferable to a neglect of those interests. He
would not put the matter so crudely; he would say that he preferred
defeat or even disaster to a peace dictated by fear. What would lead
him to this patriotic conclusion, however, would be the conviction that
to do nothing would lose him his property, whereas even a disastrous
war would cost him only his share in the national loss. And the war
might be gained or even avoided, if only the United States were bold
enough. He would, therefore, define our national interests as
including all those things to which we in our good judgment believed
that we had some claim.
Those with no special interest in foreign investments are less
solicitous. A default on the bonds of Mexican railways is less costly
to the Iowa farmer or Boston stonemason than the contraction of debts
for the purpose of pacifying Mexico. To fight England or Germany seems
more costly to the average American than to forego extra opportunities
for making money in China or the Argentine. Even the farmer or
stonemason, however, feels that the United States has certain interests
and rights abroad. Our citizens should have the right to travel freely
upon the high seas and in foreign countries and to enjoy privileges and
immunities granted to citizens of other nations. We should have equal
access with other nations to the sources of raw materials and to world
markets, subject to the reserved right of each nation, including the
United States, to levy customs duties for the protection of its own
industries. Finally we should enjoy the right of {206} investing our
capital and conducting our businesses abroad under the equal protection
of the laws of the particular country.
All this is of course vague. It does not determine what protection we
should assure ourselves in a country whose government is corrupt or
unstable, nor does it consider the contingency of a weak nation,
granting under duress more favourable conditions to some other foreign
nation than to us.
While however we cannot arrive at any final decision as to the details
of our foreign policy, we can at least formulate in general terms
certain principles which we may seek to apply. The most vital of these
principles is equal opportunity for all nations, and no special
advantage for ourselves or others.
In accepting such a principle the United States would be merely
applying to a territory, over which it held a dominant influence, a
policy which, if universally applied by all the Great Powers, would
immensely reduce the area of international friction. To apply such a
principle in good faith is the first and most obvious contribution that
we can make to economic internationalism. We cannot in reason demand
the open door in Asia or in Europe's colonies if in our own colonies
and in other lands where we are paramount, we adopt a contrary policy.
We can afford to concede this principle of equal opportunity because of
our resources at home and the large share of trade and investment
opportunities which will come to us without special favours. What we
might get above that is not worth the risk. A policy of taking all we
can get, whether other nations suffer or not, is, apart from all other
considerations, injudicious.
Such a policy of aggression might be cloaked for instance under the
Monroe Doctrine, a vague tenet, capable {207} of contraction or
infinite expansion. If we allow our speculators to determine its
meaning, we shall in due course interpret the doctrine as the right of
the United States to control South America politically and exploit it
industrially. The downward path to such an interpretation is easy. To
secure an inside track in Latin America we need only look askance upon
concessions to Europeans and with benevolence upon concessions to
Americans. We can place obstacles in the way of foreign corporations
recovering damages for injuries suffered, while we aid American
companies to secure redress. We can make our ministers to Latin
America "business agents" of exporters and big banking concerns. Such
a policy would mean economic and eventually political control, the much
feared _conquista pacifica_.
If we embark upon such a policy we shall earn the hatred both of Europe
and of Latin America. Hitherto the Monroe Doctrine has been safe from
serious attack by Europe because England with her preponderant
sea-power has been commercially the chief benefactor, and the other
nations believed that, for the time being at least, South America was
held open for joint exploitation. Moreover, Europe had nearer problems
in the disposition of Balkan territory and in the partition of Africa
and sections of Asia. So long as European nations were not ready to
divide up Latin America, or so long as they believed that it would
remain independent and thus open to the commerce of all, the temptation
to fight for a slice of the great continent, though alluring, was not
sufficiently powerful to overcome the sense of the peril of such an
undertaking. For Germany to seek to conquer a part of Brazil would
have been to add all the American nations to her already long list of
enemies. But this tolerance of the Monroe Doctrine is conditioned upon
our playing {208} the part of a guardian and not of a conqueror. We
can neither monopolise Latin America industrially nor rule it
politically (which might involve the same result) without trenching
upon the common patrimony of Europe. To secure the inside track means
therefore either to fight all Europe, which is impossible, or to share
the booty with one or two allied powers, like England and France, and
thus to enter into all the complications and dangers of European
politics. A Pan-Americanism of this sort would involve us in the next
Balkan imbroglio or the next quarrel over the Persian Gulf, and our
peace would be at the mercy of any little monarch who struck the first
blow at one of our allies.
In Latin America itself such a policy of aggression by the United
States is already feared and resented.[1] The people to the south of
us do not take our professions of disinterestedness with the simple
faith of little children, but see in us a virile, formidable,
unconsciously imperialistic nation, which has already benefited by its
guardianship and hopes to benefit still more. They fear the colour
prejudice in the United States and a certain unreasoning contempt for
Latin-American civilisation might lead us impatiently to set aside
their rights if they conflicted with our own interests. The Latin
Americans already speak of a "North American Peril." They remember
Texas, {209} Panama, Porto Rico. Indeed, they recognise that the
United States, in despite of itself, may be forced to expand
southwards. "It is more than probable," writes the Mexican
sociologist, F. Bulnes, "that by 1980 the United States will hold a
population of 250,000,000 inhabitants. They will then scarcely be
sufficient for the needs of this population, and will no longer be able
to supply the world with the vast quantity of cereals which they supply
to-day. They will therefore have to choose between a recourse to the
methods of intensive culture and the conquest of the extra-tropical
lands of Latin America, which are fitted, by their conditions, to the
easy and inexpensive production of cereals."[2]
There is a nearer danger. "Sometimes," writes Garcia Calderon, "this
North American influence becomes a monopoly, and the United States
takes possession of the markets of the South. They aim at making a
trust of the South American republics, the supreme dream of their
multi-millionaire _conquistadors_."[3] Thus to shut off Latin America,
as Spain once did, would, however, injure the Southern republics and
create an antagonism that would find its expression in armed
resistance. Nor would this resistance be entirely negligible. A
century ago, Latin America had a population of fifteen millions; to-day
its population is eighty millions and is rapidly increasing. As an
ally to European nations, opposed to aggression by the United States, a
Latin-American country or group of countries might well exert a
decisive influence.
Ill defined and vague, capable of being indefinitely expanded by all
sorts of sudden interpretations, the Monroe {210} Doctrine is to-day a
peril to Latin America and to ourselves. It is likely to become even
more dangerous if turned over to an American plutocracy for its
elucidation. If on the other hand, we restrict our policy to the
protection of the interests of Latin Americans, Europeans and
ourselves, we shall not only be safe-guarding our own peace, but shall
be removing a future coveted area from the field of international
strife. To adopt such a policy, however, means that we must be better
informed and more concrete. It is absurd to lump together all
Latin-American countries, as though all were equally advanced in
civilisation. To compare the Argentine with San Domingo is to discover
differences almost as great as between Holland and Abyssinia. Mexico
is far more significant to us politically, economically and in a
military sense than Brazil or Chile. Into the question of Panama,
Haiti and the West Indian Islands generally, elements enter that are
absent from our relations with Venezuela or Ecuador. Our policy
towards these countries need not be identical. We should have a
Mexican policy, a separate policy for the West Indian Islands, another
policy for the Caribbean States, and an individual policy for each
South American state. Our interests and obligations differ in these
states. We cannot pretend to the same vital interest in the internal
peace of Argentina as in that of our next door neighbour. We cannot
cover these diverse conditions with the blanket of one vague doctrine.
In our relations to Latin America, moreover, we should not grasp at
political sovereignty, if the reasonable economic interests of the
world can in any way be secured without political incorporation. We
are gradually being forced into a policy of acquiring dominion over
certain Caribbean countries. We have a financial guardianship in Haiti
and San Domingo; we have "taken" Panama, {211} and it probably needs
only a little disorder to give us a quasi-protectorate over other small
countries in the same neighbourhood. The United States, however, is on
the whole still averse from such interference, wherever avoidable. We
have kept faith with Cuba and there is strong opposition to acquiring
Mexico, despite the agitation of financiers and instinctive border-line
patriots. The problem is not easy, for a measure of peace in these
neighbouring states is not only essential to us but is demanded by
Europe (who will interfere if we do not) and peace may eventually
require intervention. In countries like Haiti, which show at present
an invincible distaste for orderly government, abstention is almost
impossible.
The chief danger in our relations with certain Latin-American countries
lies in this political instability and unripeness that makes property
and life unsafe and the administration of justice notoriously corrupt.
The result is extortion, bribery and violence clothed in legal form.
Investors and creditors plead for intervention to enforce contracts,
sometimes of doubtful validity, sometimes obviously dishonest. To meet
the problems arising from such claims, we should have more information.
Our Bureau of Foreign Commerce should ask for data concerning American
investments abroad and especially in Latin America. Such information,
supplied in the first instance by the corporations, should be verified
by official investigations. There should be full publicity. Our
consular representatives should not seek to secure special privileges
or business orders, and our governmental influence should guarantee
equal economic opportunities to all nations. No claim by Americans
should be enforced until it has been reported upon favourably by a
court of arbitration composed of representatives of nations with no
interest in the controversy.
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Whether the United States should seek the aid of England or of some
other European power in the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine or
should endeavour to internationalise the doctrine by gaining the
adhesion of all nations, or should support the doctrine with the aid of
the Latin-American countries alone is a question the answer to which
will depend upon the future attitude of European nations, and
especially upon the relation of the United States to those nations.
The difficulty of securing an international guarantee lies in the
necessary vagueness of the doctrine. In the present state of mind
concerning international guarantees, there is perhaps more immediate
advantage in a special guardianship by the United States, the
Argentine, Brazil and Chile, especially as in the case of an assault
upon the doctrine by one or more European powers, the assistance of
other European nations could probably be obtained. The important
consideration at present is that the strength of the doctrine will be
in direct proportion to the disinterestedness of the United States.
The more clearly the doctrine can be made to serve the common interests
of the world instead of the special interests of a single country, the
more likely is it to secure the support in any crisis of a group of
nations possessing a preponderance of world power.
Our relations with Canada present fewer temptations. Our policy should
look towards the creation of friendly relations and a nearer economic
union, but neither immediately nor ultimately towards a forced
annexation. A willing political incorporation of Canada into the
United States might be excellent, but an annexation against the
opposition of the Canadian people would be a crime and blunder. It
would mean an American Alsace-Lorraine upon an immense scale.
Economically Canada and the United States are rapidly becoming one.
With exports to {213} Canada already more than twice as great as those
of all other nations (including Great Britain) we can at will draw upon
her immense agricultural and mineral resources by the simple expedient
of letting down our tariff wall. We can invest there as safely as
Britisher or Canadian, and can benefit by Canada (as Canada benefits by
us) as though she were a part of the United States. A growth of the
eight million Canadians to twenty or more millions will mean for us an
enhanced prosperity. Despite absurd prejudices on both sides of the
border the economic union grows stronger.[4]
If we do not strive for an inside track in Latin America nor for the
conquest of Canada, should we be willing to fight for the "open door"
in China, for equal privileges in all parts of that Empire?
The phrase the "open door" has a pleasing sound. There can be no doubt
that the opening up of China's ports to commerce with all nations on
equal terms would be of immediate advantage to us, and probably to
China herself. Our interest in the matter, however, is frankly
selfish. Though we have a kindly feeling for the Chinese, so long as
they stay in China, our "open door" policy is intended in the first
instance to benefit our own merchants and investors. The alternative
to the open door is to {214} permit other nations to divide up China, a
proceeding in which we do not care to take part, and to exclude us from
certain trade and investment opportunities.
It is doubtful whether these chances which we should lose by an
unaggressive policy, are sufficiently important to justify us in
entering upon a conflict with Japan or with Japan and Russia.[5] Our
losses would be less than is imagined, for whoever opens up China will
be compelled to admit other industrial nations upon reasonable terms.
Japan cannot finance herself, to say nothing of financing China, and
the nations, called upon to supply capital, would necessarily be
consulted in essential political and economic arrangements. Even if
Japan secured a relatively excessive share of the commerce, it would
mean a diversion of other trade, which she formerly possessed, since
her own factories would be busy. In the end, we could afford to permit
other nations to take upon themselves the burden of policing China, in
view of the fact that while our {215} own profits might be less our
expenses also would be less.
A deeper problem, however, is involved in this question of China. Just
as by the Monroe Doctrine we seek to prevent European powers from
conquering, colonising and dividing up America, so in China, our
interest, apart from a share of the trade and investment chances, lies
in contributing to the world's peace by removing that vast territory
from the field of international political competition. What we should
mean by "the open door" in China is the integrity of that country and
its immunity from conquest, partition and forced exploitation. The
plea of an "open door," as a mere tariff policy, comes with ill grace
from us, who have closed the door both in Porto Rico and at home, but
China's integrity is an issue of a different character.[6] It is
important to us not so much for immediate economic reasons as because
it is likely to promote peace. It is a world, rather than a national,
interest.
Because it is a world-interest, it should be secured by the efforts of
many nations and not by the United States alone. {216} In principle,
therefore, the Six-Power Loan, which in a sense was a joint guarantee,
was a step in the right direction. That its specific terms were
unreasonable and that the loan was in a degree forced were perhaps
sufficient reasons for our withdrawal from the arrangement. Along
somewhat similar lines, however, the early development of China should
proceed, and it is to our interest to promote any plan that will
prevent China from being the bone of contention among the belligerent
nations of Europe.[7]
Our relations to Latin America, Canada and China are perhaps the most
immediate of our foreign concerns. These are the lands in which we
have the greatest stake and the greatest temptation to pursue an
imperialistic policy. The real power in this world, however, lies in
Europe. It is Europe that decides the fate of Asia, Africa, Australia,
and may in the end decide that of South America. It is from Europe
that the fear of war arises, and it is in our dealings with Europe, and
in the dealings of European nations with one another, that the hope of
peace and of progress in international development must centre.
[1] For a view of Latin America's fear of aggression by the United
States, see such books as "El Imperialismo Norte-Americano," by F.
Caraballo Sotolongo, Havana, 1914, and America Latina ante el peliogro,
by Salvador K. Merlos, San Jose (Costa Rica), 1914. Both of these
books are shrill and somewhat uncritical but they fairly represent a
large body of Latin-American thought. There is usually a division of
opinion as to whether the United States is to attain its ends by
military or by financial means. "It is not _manu militari_," writes a
French author, "that Brother Jonathan intends to carve out his place in
the sun, but by the force of dollars."--"L'imperialisme allemand," by
Maurice Lair, Paris, 1914.
[2] F. Bulnes, "L'Avenir des nations Hispano-Americaines," quoted by F.
Garcia Calderon, "Latin America," p. 312.
[3] F. Garcia Calderon, "Latin America. Its Rise and Progress," p. 299.
[4] The problem of Canada's relation to European controversies and wars
may in the future present difficult problems for the United States. If
in the present war Germany had been able to land armies on Canadian
soil, or if in the future Russia or Japan were to do so, the position
of the United States might be rendered dangerous by the permanent
establishment of a strong military power, let us say in British
Columbia. Yet we could not demand that Canada be allowed to send
troops against Russia or Japan and those nations be forbidden to attack
in return. The problem of the immobilisation, and even of the
neutrality, of Canada in certain future wars, in which Great Britain is
engaged but we ourselves are neutrals, may become an urgent question.
[5] A guess at our possible losses through a non-aggressive policy in
China is made by Mr. Thomas F. Millard in his "Our Eastern Question."
"It is roughly estimated," he says, "that China's administrative,
commercial, and economic development in the next twenty years will need
$2,000,000,000 of foreign capital. Under a genuine application of the
Hay Doctrine, America would have approximately one-fourth of this
financing.... The returns from this investment would be partly
interest and partly trade. Five per cent. interest on $500,000,000 is
$25,000,000 income annually." In other words for the privilege of
gaining twenty years from now $25,000,000 a year from an investment
which if made at home or in the Argentine or in Russia would bring us
in little less, Mr. Millard would have us put Japan in her place and if
necessary join with England and perhaps France to fight both Japan and
Russia. Even if we add the trade profits to this interest on
investment, the total result is pitiably small. At our present rate of
increase in wealth we may add about one hundred and fifty billions of
dollars in the next twenty years. Whether or not one-half billion is
invested in China is, nationally speaking, superlatively unimportant.
If we intervene in China let us not do it for a few million dollars
annually. (See Millard, _op. cit._, p. 383.)
[6] The significant question has been raised whether Manchuria should
be included in the China, whose integrity is to be secured. While
China is very densely populated, Manchuria prior to 1904 had only
8,500,000 people on an area of 376,800 square miles, a density of
population considerably less than that of Minnesota. With immense
natural resources, its development has, says Dr. James Francis Abbott
in "Japanese Expansion and American Policies," p. 222, been prevented
by "the existence of wandering brigands 'Hunghuntzies,' who terrorised
the country." Dr. Abbott distinguishes between the Japanese occupation
of Shantung, which is filled with Chinese, and of South Manchuria which
"was a sparsely settled province of which China was merely the nominal
owner. The Russians, and after them the Japanese, occupied it as
Americans occupied California and annexed it for the same reason."
Korea and Manchuria are absolutely necessary to Japan. "Japan's needs
for expansion are real and obvious. Manchuria and Korea could hold the
double of the Japanese population" (p. 233). In other words Dr. Abbott
advises a policy of maintaining the integrity of a China, excluding
however both Korea and Manchuria.
[7] If China does develop an industrial civilisation it may be quite
capable before many generations of maintaining its own integrity and
independence. The weaknesses under which China now suffers would tend
to disappear once it became industrially organised. That this
impending industrial progress of China would mean ultimate economic
danger to Western Europe is probable, but this remote danger would not
prevent those nations pursuing their immediate economic interests in
developing China.
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