PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
PROBLEMS
OF
THE PACIFIC
BY
FRANK FOX
AUTHOR OF "RAMPARTS OF EMPIRE"
NEWS EDITOR OF THE "MORNING POST," ETC.
BOSTON
SMALL MAYNARD AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
CONTENTS
HAP. PAGE
1 . THE OCEAN OF THE FUTURE ^S . . I
2. RUSSIA IN THE PACIFIC . . . 1 6
3. THE RISE OF JAPAN .... 31
4. CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA . . 47
5. THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER \ . .66
6. GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC . . 85
7. THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC / . . IOO
8. NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER BRITISH PACIFIC
COLONIES . . . . . .I2O
9. THE NATIVE RACES . . . . .136
10. LATIN AMERICA . . . . .147
11. CANADA AND THE PACIFIC . . . .165
12. THE NAVIES OF THE PACIFIC . . . . 176
* V_/
13. THE ARMIES OF THE PACIFIC. . . 1 86
14. TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC . . . .199
15. THE PANAMA CANAL . . . . 2l6
1 6. THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC . . 228
17. SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS . . . 245
1 8. THE RIVALS ...... 263
261234
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
CHAPTER I
THE OCEAN OF THE FUTURE
THE Pacific is the ocean of the future. As civilisa-
tion grows and distances dwindle, man demands a
larger and yet larger stage for the fighting-out of the
ambitions of races. The Mediterranean sufficed for
the settlement of the issues between the Turks and
the Christians, between the Romans and the Cartha-
ginians, between the Greeks and the Persians, and
who knows what other remote and unrecorded
struggles of the older peoples of its littoral. Then
the world became too great to be kept in by the
Pillars of Hercules, and Fleets in the service alike
of peace and war ranged over the Atlantic. The
Mediterranean lost its paramount importance, and
dominance of the Atlantic became the test of world
supremacy.
Now greater issues and greater peoples demand an
even greater stage. On the bosom of the Pacific
will be decided, in peace or in war, the next great
struggle of civilisation, which will give as its prize
if :/< PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
the supremacy of the world. Shall it go to the White
Race or the Yellow Race ? If to the White Race,
will it be under the British Flag, or the flag of the
United States, or of some other nation ? That is the
problem of the Pacific.
Since Cortes first looked on the waters of the
ocean from a peak in Darien, since Balboa of Castile
waded into its waters and claimed them for the
dominion of the King of Castile, events have rushed
forward with bewildering haste to transfer the centre
of the world's interest to the Pacific. Cortes in his
day looked to a North Pacific coast inhabited by
a few wandering Indians. (The powerful national
organisation of Mexico had not extended its influence
as far as the Pacific coast.) Now there stretch along
that coast the Latin- American Power of Mexico,
doomed, probably, to be absorbed before the great
issue of Pacific dominance is decided, but having
proved under Diaz some capacity for organisation ;
the gigantic Power of the United States with the
greatest resources of wealth and material force ever
possessed by a single nation of the world ; and the
sturdy young Power of Canada.
To the South, Cortes looked to a collection of
Indian States, of which Peru was the chief, boasting
a gracious but unwarlike civilisation, doomed to utter
destruction at the hands of Spain. Now that stretch
of Pacific littoral is held by a group of Latin- American
nations, the possibilities of which it is difficult ac-
curately to forecast, but which are in some measure
THE OCEAN OF THE FUTURE 3
formidable if Chili is accepted as a standard by which
to judge, though, on the whole, they have shown so
far but little capacity for effective national organ-
isation.
Looking westward, Cortes in his day could see
nothing but darkness. It was surmised rather than
known that there lay the Indies, the kingdoms of the
Cham of Tartary and the great Mogul, lands which
showed on the horizon of the imagination, half real,
half like the fantasy of a mirage. To-day the west
coast of the Pacific is held by the European Power
of Russia ; by the aspiring Asiatic Power of Japan,
which within half a century has forgotten the use of
the bow and the fan in warfare and hammered its
way with modern weapons into the circle of the
world's great Powers ; by China, stirring uneasily and
grasping at the same weapons which won greatness
for Japan ; by a far-flung advance guard of the great
Power of the United States in the Philippines, won
accidentally, held grimly ; by England's lonely out-
posts, Australia and New Zealand, where less than
five millions of the British race hold a territory
almost as large as Europe.
Sprinkled over the surface of the ocean, between
East and West, are various fortresses or trading
stations, defending interests or arousing cupidities.
Germany and France are represented. The United
States holds Hawaii, the key to the Pacific coast of
North America, either for offence or defence. Great
Britain has Fiji and various islets. The Japanese
4 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Power stretches down towards the Philippines with
the recent acquisition of Formosa.
Here are seen all the great actors in European
rivalry. Added to them are the new actors in world-
politics, who represent the antagonism of the Yellow
Race to the White Race. Before all is dangled the
greatest temptation to ambition and cupidity. Who is
master of the Pacific, who has the control of its trade,
the industrial leadership of its peoples, the disposal of
its warrior forces, will be master of the world.
It is a problem not only of navies and armies
(though with our present defective civilisation these
are the most important factors) : it is a problem also
of populations and their growth, of industries, of
the development of natural resources, of trade and
commerce. The Pacific littoral is in part unpeopled,
in part undeveloped, unorganised, unappropriated.
Its Asiatic portion must change, it is changing, from
a position which may be compared with that of Japan
fifty years ago to a position such as Japan's to-day.
Its American and Australian portion must develop
power and wealth surpassing that of Europe. Under
whose leadership will the change be made ? To
discuss that question is the purpose of this book :
and at the outset the lines on which the discussion
will proceed and the conclusions which seem to be
inevitable may be foreshadowed.
At one time Russia seemed destined to the
hegemony of the Pacific. Yet she was brought to
the Pacific coast by accident rather than by design.
THE OCEAN OF THE FUTURE 5
Her natural destiny was westward and southward
rather than eastward, though it was natural that she
should slowly permeate the Siberian region. As far
back as the reign of Ivan the Terrible (the Elizabethan
epoch in Anglo-Saxon history), the curious celi-
bate military organisation of the Cossacks had won
much of Siberia for the Czars. But there was no
dream then, nor at a very much later period, of
penetration to the Pacific.
European jealousy of Russia, a jealousy which is
explainable only with the reflection that vast size
naturally fills with awe the human mind, stopped her
advance towards the Mediterranean. In the north
her ports were useless in winter. In the south she
was refused a development of her territory which was
to her mind natural and just. Thus thwarted, Russia
groped in a blind way from the Siberian provinces
which had been won by the Cossacks towards a warm-
water port in Asia. At first the movement was
southward and filled England with alarm as to the
fate of India. Then it turned eastward, and in
Manchuria and Corea this European Power seemed
to find its destiny. But Japan was able to impose an
effective check upon Russian ambitions in the Far
East. At the present moment Russia has been sup-
planted in control of the Asiatic seaboard by Japan.
Japan has everything but money to equip her for
a bold bid for the mastery of the Pacific before the
completion of the Panama Canal. Europe has taught
to Japan, in addition to the material arts of warfare,
6 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
a cynical faith in the moral value, indeed, the
necessity, of war to national welfare. She considers
that respect is only to be gained by war : that war with
a European nation is an enterprise of small risk : that
in short her experience with the Russian Fleet was
fairly typical of war with any European Power. She
believes that she has the most thoroughly efficient
army and navy, considering their size, in the world ;
and has much to justify the belief.
This ambition and the warlike confidence of Japan
constitute to-day a more important factor in the
problem of the Pacific than her actual fighting
strength. But the check to prompt decisive action
on her part is that of poverty. Japan is very poor.
The last war, in spite of great gain of prestige,
brought no gain of money. Its cost bled her veins
white, and there was no subsequent transfusion in the
shape of a Russian indemnity. Nor are the natural
resources of Japan such as to hold out much hope of
a quick industrial prosperity. She has few minerals.
Her soil is in the bulk wretchedly poor. From the
territories control of which she has won in battle-
Manchuria and Corea she will reap some advantage
by steadily ignoring the " open door " obligation in
trade, and by dispossessing the native peasantry.
But it cannot be very great. There is no vast
natural wealth to be exploited. The native peasantry
can be despoiled and evicted, but the booty is trifling
and the cost of the process not inconsiderable since
even the Corean will shoot from his last ditch.
THE OCEAN OF THE FUTURE 7
Japan is now seeking desperately a material pros-
perity by industrial expansion. A tariff and bounty
system, the most rigid and scientific the world knows,
aims to make the country a great textile-weaving,
ship-building, iron-making country. The smallest
scrap of an industry is sedulously nurtured, and
Japanese matches, Japanese soap, Japanese beer,
penetrate to the markets of the outer world as
evidence of the ambition of the people to be manu-
facturers. But when one explores down to bedrock,
the only real bases for industrial prosperity in Japan
are a supply of rather poor coal and a great volume
of cheap labour. The second is of some value in
cheap production, but it is yet to be found possible
to build up national prosperity on the sole basis of
cheap labour. Further, with the growth of modernity
in Japan, there is naturally a labour movement.
Doctrines of Socialism are finding followers : strikes
are heard of occasionally. The Japanese artisan and
coolie may not be content to slave unceasingly on
wages which deny life all comfort, to help a method
of national aggrandisement the purport of which they
can hardly understand.
The position of Japan in the Pacific has to be con-
sidered, therefore, in the light of the future rather than
of the present. At the time of the conclusion of the
war with Russia it seemed supreme. Since then it
has steadily deteriorated. If she had succeeded in
the realisation of her ambition to undertake the
direction of China's military and industrial reorganisa-
8 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
tion, the Japanese Power would have been firmly
established for some generations at least. But the
defects in her national character prevented that.
Inspiring no confidence among the Chinese, the
Japanese found all attempts at peaceful assumption
of a controlling influence in China checked by sullen
antipathy ; and a forced assumption would not have
been tolerated by Europe. It will not be found
possible, on a full survey of the facts, to credit Japan
with the power to hold a supreme place in the Pacific.
She is, even now, among the dwindling Powers.
China, on the other hand, has the possibilities of a
mighty future. To-day she is in the throes of nation-
birth. To-morrow she may unbind her feet and pre-
pare to join in the race for supremacy. The bringing
of China into the current of modern life will not be
an easy task, but it is clearly not an impossible one.
Before the outbreak of the present Revolution (which
may place China among the democratic Republics of
the world), the people of the Celestial Empire had
begun to reconsider seriously their old attitude of
intolerance towards European civilisation. To under-
stand fully the position of China it is necessary to
keep in mind the fact that the actual Chinese nation,
some 400,000,000 of people, enervated as were the
Peruvians of South America, by a system of theocratic
and pacific Socialism, were subjected about 250 years
ago to the sovereignty of the Manchus, a warrior
race from the Steppes. Since then the Manchus
have governed China, tyrannously, incompetently, on
THE OCEAN OF THE FUTURE 9
the strength of a tradition of military superiority
stronger far than the Raj by which the British have
held India. But the Manchus in numbers and in
intellect far inferior to the Chinese forgot in time
their military enterprise and skill. The tradition
of it, however, remained until the events of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries showed that the
Manchu military power was contemptible not only
against the white foreigner, but also against the
Japanese parvenu. Patient China, finding her tyrant
to be a weak despot, revolts now, not only against the
Manchu dynasty, but also against the Conservatism
which has kept her from emulating Japan's success
in the world.
At present the power of China in the Pacific is
negligible. In the future it may be the greatest
single force in that ocean. Almost certainly it may
be reckoned to take the place of Japan as the chief
Asiatic factor.
Japan and China having been considered, the rest
of Asia is negligible as affecting the destiny of the
Pacific except in so far as India can serve as basis of
action for British power. An independent Indian
nation is hardly one of the possibilities of the future.
Religious, racial, and caste distinctions make a united,
independent India at present impossible. Unless the
British Power carries too far a tendency to conciliate
the talking tribes of the Hindoo peninsula at the
expense of the fighting tribes, it should hold India
by right of a system of government which is good
10 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
though not perfect, and by reason of the impossibility
of suggesting any substitute. In the event of a
failure of the British Power, India would still, in all
probability, fail to take a place among the great
nations of the earth. Either she would fall a victim
to some other nation or relapse into the condition,
near to anarchy, which was hers before the coming
of the Europeans.
It is not possible to imagine to-day any European
Power other than Great Britain with the possible
exception of Russia becoming strongly established
in the Pacific. France and Germany have footholds
certainly. But in neither case is the territory held
by them possible of great development, and in
neither case is there a chain of strategic stations to
connect the Pacific colony with the Mother Country.
The despatch of the German " mailed fist " to Kiao-
Chou in China some years ago is still remembered
as one of the comic rather than the serious episodes
of history. The squadron bearing to the Chinese the
martial threat of the German Emperor had to beg
its way from one British coaling station to another
because of the lack of German ports.
The influence of South America in the Pacific
need not yet be calculated. It is a possible far-
future factor in the problem ; and the completion of
Trans-Andine railways may quickly enhance the
importance of Chili and Peru. But for the present
South America can take no great part in the Pacific
struggle.
THE OCEAN OF THE FUTURE 11
It is when British influence and American influence
in the Pacific come to be considered that the most
important factors in the contest for its supremacy
enter upon the stage. Let us consider, for the
nonce, the two Powers separately.
The British Empire holding Australia and New
Zealand with an audacious but thin garrison ; having
a long chain of strategic stations such as Hong
Kong and Singapore ; having in India a powerful rear
base for supplies ; holding a great part of the North-
West Coast of America with a population as yet
scanty but beginning to develop on the same lines
as the Australasian people is clearly well situated
to win and to hold the mastery of the Pacific. Such
mastery would have to be inspired with peaceful
ideals ; it could not survive as an aggressive force.
It is indeed the main strength of the British position
in the Pacific that it is naturally anxious, not for a
disturbance but for a preservation of the present
state of things, which gives to the British Empire all
that a reasonable ambition could require. It is wise
and easy to be peaceable when one has all the best
of the spoils.
For a secure British mastery of the Pacific, India
would need to be held with the military assistance of
South Africa and A ustralia, and made a great naval
base ; Australia and New Zealand would need to
be populated seriously; Canada would need to be
guarded against absorption by the United States and
its new population kept as far as possible to the
12 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
British type ; the friendship and co-operation of the
United States would need to be sought.
Turning next to the United States it will be re-
cognised that she has in a realised form all the force
and wealth possible to an organised China or a fully
developed Australia. She has one hundred million
people, who have reached the highest stage of civilised
organisation. Their material wealth and wealth
counts for much in modern war is almost incalculable.
Their national ambition has never been checked by
defeat. Lately it has been fed with foreign war and
territorial conquest and it has found the taste good.
The American people face the future possessed of
all the material for a policy of aggressive Imperialism
and with a splendidly youthful faith in their own
good motives, a faith which can justify an action
better than any degree of cynicism. There is as
much of the "old Adam" in them as in the
peoples of any of the "effete monarchies," and
many circumstances seem to point to them as
anxious to take the lead among the White Races
in the future.
As regards the Pacific, American ambition is clear.
The United States holds the Philippines at great
expense of treasure and blood. She is fortifying
Honolulu, with the idea of making it a naval base
" stronger than Gibraltar." 1 She is cutting the Panama
1 Since the above was written it is reported that the United States
has taken possession of Palmyra Island once a British possession
to the south of Honolulu, obviously for strategic purposes.
THE OCEAN OF THE FUTURE 13
Canal and fortifying the entrances with the probable
purpose of giving to the United States a monopoly
of that gateway in time of war. With splendid
audacity the American despises secrecy in regard to
his future plans. In New York Naval Yard three
years ago I was informed, with an amplitude of
detail that was convincing, of the United States'
scheme for patrolling the whole Pacific with her
warships when the Canal had been finished.
Supposing, then, the United States to continue
her present industrial and commercial progress ; sup-
posing her to gradually tighten her hold on the rest
of the American continent ; supposing her to overcome
certain centrifugal forces now at work, the problem
of the Pacific, should the United States decide to
play a " lone hand," will be solved. It will become
an American lake, probably after a terrible struggle
in which the pretensions of the Yellow Races will be
shattered, possibly after another fratricidal struggle
in which the British possessions in the Pacific,
Australia, and New Zealand, equally with Canada,
will be forced to obedience.
But is there any necessity to consider the United
States and the British Empire as playing mutually
hostile parts in the Pacific? They have been the
best of friends there in the past. They have many
good reasons to remain friends in the future. A dis-
cussion as to whether the Pacific Ocean is destined
to be controlled by the American or by the British
Power could be reasonably ended with the query :
14 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Why not by an Anglo-Celtic union representing
both?
An Anglo- Celtic alliance embracing Great Britain,
the United States and the British Dominions, would
settle in the best way the problem of the Pacific.
No possible combination, Asiatic, European, or Asia-
European, could threaten its position. But there
are certain difficulties in the way, which will be
discussed later. For the present, it has only to be
insisted that both Powers are potential rather than
actual masters of the Pacific. Neither in the case
of Great Britain nor of the United States is a great
Pacific force at the moment established. After her
treaty with Japan, Great Britain abandoned for a
while the idea of maintaining any serious naval
strength in the Pacific. The warships she main-
tained there, on the Australian station and elsewhere,
had no fighting value against modern armaments,
and were kept in the Pacific as a step towards the
scrap-heap. That policy has since been reversed,
and the joint efforts of Great Britain, Australia, and
New Zealand directed towards re-establishing British
Pacific naval strength. At the moment, however,
the actual British naval force in the Pacific is incon-
siderable, if obsolete or obsolescent vessels are ruled
out of consideration. The United States also has
no present naval force in the Pacific that could
contest the issue with even a fraction of the Japanese
navy. Clearly, too, she has no intention of attempt-
ing the organisation of a powerful Pacific Fleet
THE OCEAN OF THE FUTURE 15
separate from her Atlantic Fleet, but aims at the
bolder policy of holding her interests in both oceans
by one great Fleet which will use the Panama Canal
to mobilise at an emergency in either.
If the resources of the present with their probable
growth in the future are taken into account, Great
Britain and the United States will appear as massing
enormous naval and military forces in the Pacific.
The preponderance of naval force will be probably
on the side of the United States for very many years
since it is improbable that Great Britain will ever
be able to detach any great proportion of her Fleet
from European waters and her Pacific naval force
will be comprised mainly of levies from Australia
and New Zealand, and possibly Canada, India, and
South Africa. The preponderance of military force
will be probably on the side of Great Britain, taking
into count the citizen armies of Australia and New
Zealand (and possibly of Canada) and the great forces
available in India. Complete harmony between
Great Britain and the United States in the Pacific
would thus give the hegemony of the ocean to the
Anglo-Saxon race. Rivalry between them might
lead to another result. In the natural course of
events that " other result " might be Asiatic dominion
in one form or another.
These factors in Pacific rivalry will be discussed in
detail in the following chapters.
CHAPTER II
RUSSIA IN THE PACIFIC
RUSSIA, for generations the victim of Asia, when at
last she had won to national greatness, was impelled
by pressure from the West rather than by a sense of
requital to turn back the tide of invasion. That
pressure from the West was due to a misunder-
standing in which Great Britain led the way, and
which the late Lord Salisbury happily described
when he stated that England " had backed the
wrong horse" in opposing Russia and in aiding
Turkey against her.
Russia, because she broke Napoleon's career of
victory by her power of resistance, a power which
was founded on a formlessness of national life rather
than a great military strength, was credited by
Europe with a fabulous might. Properly understood,
the successful Russian resistance to the greatest of
modern captains was akin to that of an earthwork
which absorbs the sharpest blows of artillery and
remains unmoved, almost unharmed. But it was
misinterpreted, and a mental conception formed of
the Russian earthwork as a mobile, aggressive force
eager to move forward and to overwhelm Europe.
16
RUSSIA IN THE PACIFIC 17
Russia's feat of beating back the tide of Napoleonic
invasion was merely the triumph of a low bio-
logical type of national organism. Yet it inspired
Europe with a mighty fear. The " Colossus of
the North " came into being to haunt every
Chancellery.
Nowhere was the fear felt more acutely than in
Great Britain. It is a necessary consequence of the
British Imperial expansion of the past, an expansion
that came about very often in spite of the Mother
Country's reluctance and even hostility, that Great
Britain must now always view with distrust, with
suspicion, that country which is the greatest of the
European Continental Powers for the time being,
whether it be France, Russia, or Germany. If
British foreign policy is examined carefully it will
be found to have been based on that guiding principle
for many generations. Whatever nation appears to
aim at a supreme position in Europe must be con-
fronted by Great Britain.
Sometimes British statesmen, following instinctively
a course which was set for them by force of circum-
stances, have not recognised the real reason of their
actions. They have imagined that there was some
ethical warrant for the desire for a European "balance
of power." They have seen in the malignant dis-
position of whatever nation was the greatest Power
in Europe for the time being a just prompting to
arrange restraining coalitions, to wage crippling wars.
But the truth is that the British race, with so much
18 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
that is desirable of the earth under its flag, with
indeed almost all the good empty lands in its keep-
ing, must be jealous of the next European Power.
On the other hand, every growing Power in Europe
must look with envy on the rich claim which one
prospector, and that one not the earliest, has pegged
out in the open fields of the world. Thus between
Great Britain and the next European Power in rank
there is always a mutual jealousy. The growing
Power is credited with a desire to seize the rich lands
of the British Empire ; and generally has the desire.
The holding Power is apprehensive of every step
forward of any rival, seeing in it a threat to her
Empire's security. There is such a thing in this
world as being too rich to be comfortable. That is
Great Britain's national position.
Thus when the power of France was broken and
Napoleon was safely shut up in St Helena, the
British nation, relieved of one dread, promptly found
another. Russia was credited with designs on India.
She was supposed to be moving south towards the
Mediterranean, and her object in seeking to be estab-
lished there was obviously to challenge British naval
supremacy, and to capture British overseas colonies.
British diplomacy devoted itself sternly to the task
of checkmating Russia. Russia, the big blundering
amorphous nation, to whom England had given,
some generations before, early promptings to national
organisation, and who now sprawled clumsily across
Europe groping for a way out of her ice-chains
RUSSIA IN THE PACIFIC 19
towards a warm -water port, became the traditional
enemy of the British Empire.
This idea of Russian rivalry grew to be an obsession.
The melodramas of the British people had for their
favourite topic the odious cruelty of Russian tyranny.
If a submarine cable to a British colony were inter-
rupted, or a quarry explosion startled the air, the
colonists at once turned their thoughts to a Russian
invasion, and mobilised their volunteers. Colonists
of this generation can remember the thrills of early
childhood, when more than once they " prepared for
the Russians," and the whole force of some hundreds
of volunteers and cadets determined to sell their lives
dearly on the battlefield to keep Russian knouts from
the backs of their womenfolk, it being seriously con-
sidered that the Russian always celebrated a victory
by a general knouting.
Not until the idea of Russia establishing a
hegemony over Europe had been dissipated by the
Russo-Japanese War did British statesmanship really
discover qualities of good neighbourliness in the
Russian. But by that time the main direction of
Russian expansion had been definitely settled as
eastward instead of southward. Perhaps this was
to the ultimate advantage of civilisation, even though
the decision left the Hellenic peninsula in the grip of
the Turk, for it pushed the buffer territory between
Europe and Asia far forward into Asia. Should an
Asiatic Power, with revived militancy, ever seek
again the conquest of Europe, as Asiatic Powers
20 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
have done before this, the war must commence in
Manchuria, and not on the plains below the Ural
Mountains.
The position which Russia has occupied as a buffer
state between Asia and Europe has kept her back in
the ranks of the army of civilisation. Not only has
she had to suffer the first of the savage blows which
Asian hordes have from time to time aimed at Europe,
but also she has had to endure Asiatic additions to
her population, reducing the standard of her race.
The instinct against race-mixture which Nature
has implanted in man is the great safeguard of the
work of evolution to a higher type. The White Race,
having developed on certain lines to a position which
promises, if it does not fulfil, the evolution of a yet
higher type, has an instinctive repugnance to mixing
its blood with peoples in other stages of evolution.
It is this instinct, this transcendental instinct, which
is responsible for the objection to miscegenation in
the United States, and for the lynchings by which
that objection is impressed upon the negro mind.
The same instinct is at the back of the " White
Australia " laws, forbidding coloured people any right
of entry into Australia.
It is not difficult to argue from a point of view of
Christian religion and humanity against an instinct
which finds its extreme, but yet its logical, expression in
the burning of some negro offender at the stake. But
all the arguments in the world will not prevail against
Nature. Once a type has won a step up it must be
RUSSIA IN THE PACIFIC 21
jealous and " selfish," and even brutal in its scorn of
lower types ; or must climb down again. This may
not be good ethics, but it is Nature. Russian back-
wardness in civilisation to-day is a living proof that
the scorn of the coloured man is a necessary condition
of the progress of the White Man's civilisation.
But the race-mixture which was of evil to Russia
has been of benefit to the rest of Europe. To borrow
a metaphor from modern preventive medicine, the
Russian marches between Europe and Asia have
had their power of resistance to Yellow invasion
strengthened by the infusion of some Yellow blood.
A land of high steppes, very cold in winter, very
hot in summer, and of great forests, which were
difficult to traverse except where the rivers had cut
highways, Russia was never so tempting to the early
European civilisations as to lead to her area being
definitely occupied and held as a province. Neither
Greek nor Roman attempted much colonisation in
Russia. By general consent the country was left
to be a No-Man's-Land between Asia and Europe.
Alexander, whose army penetrated through to India
and actually brought back news of the existence of
Australia, never marched far north into the interior
of Russia. There the mixed tribes of Finns, Aryans,
Semites, Mongols held a great gloomy country
influenced little by civilisation, but often temporarily
submerged by waves of barbarians from the Asiatic
steppes. Still Western Europe in time made some
little impression on the Russian mass. Byzantine
22 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
culture impressed its mark on the Southern Slavs;
Roman culture, after filtering through Germany,
reached the Lithuanians of the north. In the
twelfth century we hear of Arabian caravans making
their way as far as the Baltic in search of amber.
But more important to the Russian civilisation was
the advent of the Normans in the ninth century.
They consolidated White Russia during the ninth
to the thirteenth centuries, appeared as warriors
before the walls of Byzantium, and learned the
Christian faith from the priests of the Eastern com-
munion. (Russia has since been faithful always to
the Greek Church.) That period was rich in national
heroes, such as Rurik, Simeon and Truvor, and
definitely set the current of Russian national life
towards a place in the European family of nations.
By the thirteenth century the White Russians, with
their capital established at Moscow, were able to
withstand for a while a new Mongol invasion. But
they could not prevent Gengis Khan's lieutenants
establishing themselves on the lower Volga, and the
Grand Prince of Moscow had to be content to
become a suzerain of the Grand Khan of Tartary.
For three centuries Russia now, amid many
troubles, prepared herself to take a place amongst
European Powers. She was still more or less subject
to the Asiatic. But she was not Asiatic, and her
vast area stood between Europe and Asia and
allowed the more Western nations to grow up free
from interference from any Eastern people, except in
RUSSIA IN THE PACIFIC 23
the case of the great invasion of the Turks coming
up from the south-east. How great was the service
that Russia unconsciously did to civilisation during
those centuries ! If the Tartar had come with the
Turk, or had followed him, the White Races and
their civilisation might have been swept away.
After being the bulwark of Europe for centuries
Russia at last found her strength and became the
avenger of the White Races. By the sixteenth cen-
tury the Russian power had been consolidated under
the Muscovite Czars, and a great nation, of which the
governing class was altogether European, began to
push back the Asiatic. From the sixteenth to the
nineteenth centuries the Russian Power grew. The
natural direction of expansion was southward. The
new nation wanted a place in the sun, and looked
longingly towards the Mediterranean. Only the
Turk stood in the path, and for the Russian Czars
war with the Turk had something of a religious
attraction. It was the Cross against the Crescent.
It was the champion of the Greek Church winning
back the Byzantine Empire to Christian domination.
For Russia to march south, driving the infidel
from Europe, freeing the Greeks, establishing herself
in Constantinople, winning warm- water ports and
warm-climate fields, seemed to the Russian mind a
national policy which served both God and Mammon.
That it served God was no slight thing to the
Russian people. They, then as now, cherished a
simplicity and a strenuousness of faith which may be
24 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
called "superstitious" or "beautiful and childlike"
as the observer may wish, but which is undoubtedly
sincere. " There has been only one Christian," wrote
Heine. If he had known the Russians he would
have qualified the gibe. They have a real faith, and
it is an important factor in the making of their
national policy which has to be taken into account.
How much there was of religious impulse and how
much of mere materialistic national ambition in
Russia's move southward did not in the least concern
other European Powers. Whatever its motive they
considered the development dangerous. It threatened
to give the Russian an overwhelming power, a
paramountcy in Europe, and that could not be
tolerated even if it had the most worthy of motives.
Above all, Great Britain was alarmed. In the days
of Elizabeth Great Britain had been a very good
friend to Russia. But Russia was then no possible
rival either on land or on the high seas. In the days
of Victoria the position had changed. Russia still
wore the laurels of her " victories " over Napoleon.
She was credited with being the greatest military
Power in the world, and credited also with a relent-
less and Machiavellian diplomacy that added vastly
to the material resources of her armies and fleets.
The Crimean War, with its resulting humiliating
restrictions on Russian power in the Black Sea,
taught Russia that Europe was determined to block
her path south and preferred to buttress Turkish
misrule than to permit Russian expansion. Baffled
RUSSIA IN THE PACIFIC 25
but still restless, Russia turned east and marched
steadily towards the Pacific, with a side glance at
the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, which caused
Great Britain fresh apprehension as to the fate of
India.
The progress of the Russian Power in Asia
throughout the nineteenth century and its sudden
check at the dawn of the twentieth century make
one of the most dramatic chapters of the world's
history. European rivalry had followed Russia on
her march across Siberia, and the British Power in
particular was alarmed to see the " Colossus of the
North " with a naval base in the Pacific. Alarm
was deepened when, after reaching the waters of the
Pacific, Russia turned south, again eager for a warm-
water port. At the time China seemed to be on
the verge of dissolution as a national entity, and
it seemed as though Russia were destined to win a
great A siatic Empire beside which even India would
be a poor prize. In 1885 Great Britain nearly went
to war with Russia in the defence of the integrity
of Corea.
But the decisive check to Russia was to come from
another source. The time had arrived for Asia to
reassert some of her old warlike might. The island
power of Japan, having shaken off the cumbrous
and useless armour of medievalism, set herself
sturdily in the path of modern progress and aspired
to a place among the great nations of the earth.
Japan saw clearly that Russia was the immediate
26 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
enemy and prepared for a decisive war, with an
uncanny determinedness and a scrupulous attention
to every detail. Vast military and naval armaments
had to be prepared. The necessary money had to
be wrung from a bitterly poor population or borrowed
at usurious rates. The political art with which that
was done was not the least wonderful part of a great
national achievement. Then the weapons of war
forged it seemed good to Japanese statesmanship
to flesh them on an easy victim. It fell to China's
lot to teach the Japanese confidence in their new
warlike arts, and to pay in the shape of an indemnity
something towards the cost of the great struggle
which Japan contemplated.
Had Russia had that relentless and Machiavellian
diplomacy with which she used to be credited, she
would never have permitted the Japanese attack
upon China. Constituting herself the champion of
China, she would at one stroke have pushed back
the growing power of Japan and established a claim
to some suzerainty over the Celestial Empire. In
carrying out her plans Japan had to take this chance,
of Russia coming on top of her when she attacked
China. She took the chance and won. Russia
would have had to take the chance of a great
European upheaval if she had interfered in the Japo-
Chinese struggle. She did not take the chance, and
allowed her rival to arm at China's expense to
meet her.
The Chinese war finished, Japan, equipped with
RUSSIA IN THE PACIFIC 27
a full war-chest, a veteran army and navy, was now
ready to meet Russia. But she was faced by the
difficulty that in meeting Russia she might also have
to meet a European coalition, or the almost equally
dangerous eventuality of a veto on the war on the
part of the United States. Japan was convinced of
her ability to fight Russia single-handed. Probably
she would, in the last event, have decided to take the
risks of any coalition and enter upon the war, since
she had to fight Russia or perish as an expanding
Power. But she determined in the first instance
to attempt to obtain a safeguarding alliance.
There are indications that Japan had in the first
instance thoughts of the United States, of Germany
and of Great Britain, as alternative allies. She
thought of the United States because of her great
financial strength, her appreciable naval power in the
Pacific, and her likely value in keeping Great Britain
out of the ring : of Germany because of her military
power on the Russian frontier ; of Great Britain
because of her overwhelming naval power. Some
held that Great Britain was only approached in the
second place. Whether that were so or not, the
British Power proved favourable.
Japan was lucky in the moment of her approach.
It had become obvious at that time to British states-
manship that the old ideal of " splendid isolation "
was no Jonger tenable. The British Empire needed
alliances, or at least safeguarding understandings
with other nations. But it almost seemed as though
28 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
the knowledge had come too late. Apparently there
were no European friendships offering. Japan thus
found Great Britain in a somewhat anxious mood, and
an alliance was concluded between the Power which
had hitherto followed a policy of splendid isolation
and the parvenu Power of the Far East. Japan was
now all ready, and Russia was doomed to be ousted
from her position as a great Power in the Pacific.
A great deal of nonsense has been written and
accepted as true concerning the war between Japan
and Russia. Throughout the course of that war the
Japanese took the best of care to put their own view
of the case before the world. The "wonderful
heroism," "the marvellous strategical and tactical
skill," "the perfect medical and transport arrange-
ments" of the Japanese forces received something
more than their fair share of praise, because of the
intelligent and perspicuous industry of the Japanese
publicity agencies. The Japanese conducted a fine
campaign. Their generals and admirals followed the
best models in their dispositions. Both in the move-
ments and in the sanitary regulation of the troops,
the commanders were much helped by the habit of
discipline of a nation inured to yield blind obedience
to a god-born ruler. Still there was no inspired
genius for war shown by the Japanese. Their move-
ments were copied from the books. A well-led White
army of much less strength would, I believe, have
driven them ultimately from Corea into the sea.
Their seeming want of power of original thought and
RUSSIA IN THE PACIFIC 29
their reliance on routine made their movements slow
and flabby. They won by the inferiority of the
enemy rather than by a great genius for warfare.
The Russians on their side fought under the
dispiriting conditions of having a well-trained enemy
in front and a revolution behind. The heart of the
nation was not with them, and the Russian autocracy
was hampered at every turn by the internal disorders
of European Russia. It seems probable that the
autocracy hoped to solve in part a double problem
by the mischievous ingenuity of drafting as many as
possible of the discontented at home to the war abroad.
That helped things in Russia, but added to the
difficulties of the generals in Manchuria. Withal,
the Russians put up a good fight. The early en-
gagements were but rearguard actions, the Japanese
having an enormous superiority of force, and the
Russians striving to delay rather than to arrest their
advance. It was not until Mukden that the single
line of railway to Russia had brought General
Kouropatkin a fair equality of force : and he had to
contend then with the tradition of retreat which had
been perforce established in his army, and with the
growing paralysis of his home government confronted
by a great revolutionary movement. Even so,
Mukden was a defeat and not a rout.
It is necessary to keep in mind these facts in order
to arrive at a sound conclusion as to the future
position of Russia in the Pacific. It is not safe to
rule her out of the reckoning altogether. A second
30 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
war, waged by a united Russia against Japan, would
probably have a far different result, and would drive
Japan off the Asiatic mainland were the ring to be
kept clear. For the present, however, Russia is a
Power with a great territory washed by the Pacific
Ocean, but with no decisive voice in its destinies.
CHAPTER III
THE RISE OF JAPAN
THE misfortune of success has never been better
exemplified in the world's history than in the results
which have followed from the White Man's attempt
to arouse Japan to an appreciation of the blessings of
European civilisation. Our fathers and grandfathers
of the middle nineteenth century battered at the
barred and picturesque doors of the land of the Mikado
with a vague idea that there was plunder, trade or
some other tangible benefit to be got from dragging
the quaint Yellow Recluse out of his retirement.
Without a foreboding, every civilised Power that had
a fighting ship and the time to spare, took some part
in urging Japan to awake and be modern. A great
deal of gunpowder was burned before the little
Asiatic nation stirred. Then she seemed in a flash
to learn the whole lesson of our combative civilisation.
Naval strategy ; the forging of trade-marks ; military
organisation ; appreciation of the value of cheap
labour and of machinery in industry ; aseptic surgery ;
resolute and cunning diplomacy all these were
suddenly added to the mental equipment of an Asiatic
people, and all used in reprisal against Europe. To-
31
32 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
day Japan is the greatest warrior Power in the
Pacific, and is also a powerful factor in that war for
markets which is not the least important manifesta-
tion of race rivalry. As sailors, soldiers, merchants
and factory hands, the Japanese are unmistakably
awake.
With a discipline impossible of achievement by
a European race, the Japanese people pursued the
methods of eclectic philosophy in their nation-making.
They copied the best from the army systems of
Germany and France: duplicated the British naval
discipline : adopted what they thought most efficient
of the industrial machinery of Europe and America,
including a scientific tariff. Nothing that seemed
likely to be of advantage was neglected. Even the
question of religion was seriously considered, and
these awakened people were at one time on the point
of a simultaneous national adoption of some form of
Christianity. But they were convinced on reflection
that nothing of Europe's success in this world was
due to religion ; and, unconcerned for the moment
with anything that was not of this world, decided to
forbear from " scrapping " Shintoism and sending it
to the rubbish heap where reposed the two-handled
sword of the Sumarai. 1
1 Since writing the above, the Japanese Government has revived
in a modified form the proposal for a State adoption, in part at least,
of the Christian religion. A communication to the Japanese Press
on 20th January 1912 from the Minister for Home Affairs stated :
" In order to bring about an affiliation of the three religions, it is
necessary to connect religion with the State more closely, so as to
THE RISE OF JAPAN 33
This miracle of the complete transformation of
a race has been accomplished in half a century.
Within the memory of some living people the
Japanese were content with a secluded life on their
hungry islands, where they painted dainty pictures,
wove quaint and beautiful fabrics, cultivated children
and flowers in a spirit of happy artistry, and pursued
give it (religion) added dignity, and thus impress upon the public
the necessity of attaching greater importance to religious matters.
The culture of national ethics can be perfected by education com-
bined with religion. At present moral doctrines are inculcated by
education alone, but it is impossible to inculcate firmly fair and
upright ideas in the minds of the nation unless the people are
brought into touch with the fundamental conception known as
God, Buddha, or Heaven, as taught in the religions. It is necessary,
therefore, that education and religion should go hand in hand to
build up the basis of the national ethics, and it is, therefore,
desirable that a scheme should be devised to bring education and
religion into closer relations to enable them to promote the national
welfare. All religions agree in their fundamental principles, but
the present-day conceptions of morals differ according to the
time and place and according to the different points of view. It
is ever evolving. It may, therefore, be necessary for Shintoism
and Buddhism to carry their steps towards Western countries.
Christianity ought also to step out of the narrow circle within which
it is confined, and endeavour to adapt itself to the national senti-
ments and customs, and to conform to the national polity in order
to ensure greater achievements. Japan has adopted a progressive
policy in politics and economics in order to share in the blessings
of Western civilisation. It is desirable to bring Western thought
and faith into harmonious relationship with Japanese thought and
faith in the spiritual world."
This proposal to change in one act the religion of a nation " to
ensure greater achievements " will perhaps do something to support
the contention, which will be put forward later, that a nation
which takes such a curious view of life is not capable of a real and
lasting greatness, however wonderful may be its feats of imitation.
3
34 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
war among themselves as a sport, with enthusiasm
certainly, but without any excessive cruelty, if con-
sideration be given to Asiatic ideas of death and the
Asiatic degree of sensitiveness to torture. They
were without any ideas of foreign conquest. The
world had no respect for Japan then. Specimens of
Japanese painting and pottery were admired by a
few connoisseurs in little corners of the world (such
as Bond Street, London), and that was all. Now,
Japan having learned the art of modern warfare,
we know also that the Japanese are great artists,
great philosophers, great poets. Of a sudden a
nation has jumped from being naturally chosen as
the most absurd and harmless vehicle for a Gilbert
satire to that of being " the honoured ally " of Great
Britain, in respect to whose susceptibilities that
satire should be suppressed.
But our belated respect for the artistry of the
Japanese gives little, if any, explanation of the
miracle of their sudden transformation. The Chinese
are greater artists, greater philosophers, superior in-
tellectually and physically. They heard at an even
earlier date the same harsh summons from Europe
to wake up. But it was neglected, and, whatever
the outcome of the revolutionary movement now
progressing, the Chinese are not yet a Power to be
taken into present consideration as regards the
Pacific Ocean or world-politics generally. The most
patient search gives no certain guidance as to the
causes of Japan's sudden advance to a position
THE RISE OF JAPAN 35
amongst the world's great nations. If we could
accurately determine those causes it would probably
give a valuable clue to the study of the psychology
of races. But the effort is in vain. An analogy is
often drawn between the Japanese and the British.
Except that both were island races, there are few
points of resemblance. The British islands, inhabited
originally by the Gauls, had their human stock en-
riched from time to time by the Romans, the Danes,
the Teutons, the Normans. The British type, in
part Celtic, in part Roman, in part Danish, in part
Anglo-Saxon, in part Norman, was naturally a hard-
fighting, stubborn, adventurous race fitted for the
work of exploration and colonisation.
But the Japanese had, so far as can be ascertained,
little advantage from cross-breeding. Probably they
were originally a Tartar race. The primitive inhabi-
tants of the islands were ancestors of the Hairy
Ainus, who still survive in small numbers. Like the
aboriginals of Australia, the Ainus were a primitive
rather than a degraded type, closely allied to the
ancestors of the European races. Probably the
Tartar invaders who colonised Japan came by way
of Corea. But after their advent there was no new
element introduced to give the human race in Japan
a fresh stimulus ; and that original Tartar stock,
though vigorous and warlike, has never proved else-
where any great capacity for organisation.
In the sixth century of the Christian Era, Chinese
civilisation and the Buddhistic religion came to the
36 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
I Japanese, who at the time had about the same
standard of culture as the Red Indians of the
American continent when the Mayflower sailed.
For some four centuries the Japanese island race <
was tributary to China, and during that time there'
was evolved a national religion, Shintoism, which
probably represented the old Tartar faith modified
by Chinese philosophy. In the eighth and sub-
sequent centuries, Japan in its national organisation
very closely resembled feudal Europe. As in Europe,
there was a service tenure for the land ; a system by
which organised groups, or KO's, became answerable
collectively for the deeds of each member of the
group ; and, as in feudal Europe, Church and State
made rival claims to supreme power.
Indiscriminate fighting between rival feudal lords, '
a constant strife between the Shoguns, representing
the priestly power, and the Mikados, representing
the civil power, make up the islands' history for
century after century. Through it all there is no
gleam of light on the evolution of the latent powers
which were to come to maturity, as in an hour,
during the nineteenth century. Japan appeared to
be an average example of a semi-civilised country
which would never evolve to a much higher state
because of the undisciplined quarrelsomeness of its
people.
In the sixteenth century Europe first made the <
acquaintance of Japan. Italian, Portuguese, Dutch,
Spanish, British traders and explorers visited the
THE RISE OF JAPAN 37
country. St Francis Xavier established missions
there and baptized many in the Christian faith.
After two centuries of general toleration, with
intervals of welcome and yet other intervals of
resolute massacre, in 1741 the last of the Europeans
were ordered out of the islands, the Japanese having
decided that they wanted neither the religion, the
trade, nor the friendship of the White Man. The
same prohibitions were applied at the same time to
Chinese traders. A resolute policy of exclusiveness
was adopted.
Japan seems to have learned absolutely nothing
from her first contact with European civilisation.
She settled down to the old policy of rigorous
exclusiveness, and to a renewal of her tribal and
religious warfare, in the midst of which, like a
strange flower in a rocky cleft, flourished a dainty
aestheticism. The nineteenth century thus dawned
on Japan, a bitterly poor country, made poorer by
the devotion of much of her energies to internal
warfare and by the devotion of some of her scanty
supply of good land to the cultivation of flowers
instead of grain. The observer of the day could
hardly have imagined more unpromising material
for the making of the modern Japanese nation,
organised with Spartan thoroughness for naval,
military and industrial warfare.
The United States in 1853 led the way in the
successful attempt of White civilisation to open up
trade relations with Japan. The method was rude ;
38 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
and it was followed by resolute offers of " friendship,"
backed by armed threats, from Great Britain, France, \
Russia and Portugal. The Japanese wanted none
of them. The feeling of the people was distinctly
anti-foreign. They wished to be left to their flowers
and their family feuds. But the White Man insisted.
In 1864 a combination of Powers forced the Straits f
of Shimonoseki. The Japanese were compelled byf
these and other outrages to a feeling of national
unity. In the face of a foreign danger domestic
feuds were forgotten. By 1869 Japan had organised
her policy on a basis which has kept internal peace
ever since (with the exception of the revolt of the
Satsuma in 1884), and she had resolved on fighting out
with Russia the issue of supremacy in the Pacific.
Within a quarter of a century the new nation had
established herself as a Power by the sensational
defeat, on land and sea, of China. The Peace of
Shimonoseki extended her territory to Formosa and
the Pescadores, and filled her treasury with the great
war indemnity of 57,000,000. She then won, too,
a footing on the Asiatic mainland, but was for the
time being cheated of that by the interference of
Europe, an interference which was not repeated
when, later, having defeated Russia in war and
having won an alliance with Great Britain, she finally
annexed Corea.
From the Peace of Shimonoseki in 1895 the
progress of Japan has been marvellous. In 1900 she
appeared as one of the civilised Powers which invaded
THE RISE OF JAPAN 39
China with a view to impress upon that Empire the
duty a semi-civilised Power owed to the world of j
maintaining internal order. In 1902 she entered
into a defensive and offensive alliance with Great
Britain, by which she was guaranteed a ring clear
from interference on the part of a European combina-
tion in the struggle with Russia which she contem-
plated. The treaty was a triumph of diplomatic
wisdom. Appearing to get little, Japan in real truth <
got all that her circumstances required. A treaty!
binding Great Britain to come to her aid in any war
would have been hopeless to ask for, and not very
useful when obtained, for the Japanese attack on
Russia might then have been the signal for a general
European war in which possibly a European com-
bination would have crippled Great Britain and then
turned its united attention to the destruction of
Japan's nascent power. A treaty which kept the
ring clear for a single-handed struggle with Russia
was better than that risk. In return Japan gave
nothing in effect except a pledge to make war on
her own immediate enemy, Russia, for the assistance
of Great Britain if necessity arose.
The conditions created by the Anglo-Japanese
treaty of 1902 developed naturally to the Battle of
Mukden, the culminating point of a campaign in
which for the first time for many years the Yellow
Race vanquished the White Race in war. That
Battle of Mukden not only established Japan's position
in the world. It made the warlike awakening of
40 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
China inevitable, and restored to the daylight again
the long-hidden yet always existing arrogance of
Asia. Asia has ever nurtured an insolence beside
which any White Race pride is insignificant. That
fact is made patent during recurring epochs of
history. The Persian Darius sent to the Greeks for
earth and water, symbols to acknowledge that
"Persia ruled the land and the oceans." The Huns
later looked upon the White Men whom they con-
quered as something lower than animals. The Turks,
another great Asiatic race to war against Europe,
could compare the White Man only to that unclean
beast, the dog. The first European ambassadors
who went to China were forced to crawl with abject
humility to the feet of the Chinese dignitaries. In
his secret heart of which the European mind knows
so little the Asiatic, whether he be Japanese,
Chinese, or Indian, holds a deep disdain for the
White. The contempt we feel for them is returned
more than one hundredfold.
Mukden brought that disdain out of its slumber.
The battle was therefore an event of history more
important than any since the fall of Constantinople.
For very many years the European hegemony had
been unquestioned. True, as late as 1795, Napoleon
is credited with having believed that the power of
the Grand Turk might be revived and an Ottoman
suzerainty of Europe secured. But it was only a
dream ; more than half a century before that the
doom of the Turk, who had been the most serious
THE RISE OF JAPAN 41
foe to Christian Europe, was sealed. From 1711 to
1905, whatever questions of supremacy arose among
the different European Powers, there was never any
doubt as to the superiority of the European race
over all coloured races. The White Man moved
from one easy conquest to another. In Asia, India,
China, Persia and Japan were in turn humbled.
Africa was made the slave-farm of the White Race.
Now in the twentieth century at Mukden thej
White Race supremacy was again challenged. It was
a long-dormant though not a new issue which was
thus raised. From the times beyond which the
memory of man does not stretch, Asia had repeatedly
threatened Europe. The struggle of the Persian
Empire to smother the Greek republics is the first of
the invasions which has been accurately recorded by
historians; but probably it had been preceded by
many others. The waves of war that followed were
many. The last was the Ottoman invasion in the
fourteenth century, which brought the banners of
Asia right up to the walls of Vienna, swept the
Levant of Christian ships, and threatened even the
Adriatic ; and which has left the Turk still in the
possession of Constantinople. But by the beginning
of the eighteenth century the fear of the Turks gain-
ing the mastery of Europe had practically disappeared,
and after then the Europeans treated the coloured
races as subject to them, and their territories as liable
to partition whenever the method of division among
rival White nations could be agreed upon.
42 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Mukden made a new situation. The European
Powers were prompt to recognise the fact. Doubt
even came to Great Britain whether the part she had
played as foster-mother to this Asiatic infant of
wonderful growth had been a wise one. A peace
was practically forced upon Japan, a peace which
secured for her at the moment nothing in the way of
indemnity, but little in the way of territorial rights,
and not even the positive elimination of her enemy
from the Asiatic coast. True, she has since won
Corea on the basis of that peace and has made secure
certain suzerain rights in Manchuria, but this harvest
had to be garnered by resolute diplomacy and by
maintaining a naval and military expenditure after
the war which called for an extreme degree of self-
abnegation from her people.
If the present position of affairs could be accepted
as permanent, there would be no "problem of the
Pacific." That ocean would be Japan's home-water.
Holding her rugged islands with a veteran army and
navy ; so established on the mainland of Asia as to
be able to make a flank movement on China ; she is
the one "Power in being" of the Pacific littoral.
But as already stated, the verdict of the war with
Russia cannot be taken as final. And soon the
United States will come into the Pacific with over-
whelming force on the completion of the Panama
Canal an event which is already foreshadowed in a
modification of the Anglo-Japanese treaty to relieve
Great Britain of the possible responsibility of going
THE RISE OF JAPAN 43
to war with America on behalf of Japan. The per-
manence of the Japanese position as the chief Power
of the Pacific cannot therefore be presumed. The
very suddenness with which her greatness has been
won is in itself a prompting to the suspicion that it
will not last. It has been a mushroom growth, and
there are many indications that the forcing process
by which a Power has been so quickly raised has
exhausted the culture bed. In the character of her
population Japan is in some respects exceedingly
rich. The events of the past few years have shown
them to possess great qualities of heroism, patience
and discipline. But they have yet to prove that they
possess powers of initiative, without which they must
fail ultimately in competition with peoples who make
one conquest over Nature a stepping-stone to another.
And it is not wholly a matter of race prejudice that
makes many observers view with suspicion the "stay-
ing power " of the character of a nation which thinks
so differently from the average European in matters
of sex, in commercial honesty, and in the obligations
of good faith. Many of those who have travelled
in the East, or have done business with Japan, pro-
fess a doubt that an enduring greatness can be built
upon a national character which runs contrary in
most matters to our accepted ideas of ethics. They
profess to see in the present greatness of achievement
marking Japanese national life a " flash in the pan "
the astonishing precocity and quickness of progress
of that type of doomed infant which quickly flowers
44 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
and quickly fades in the European slums and which
is known as " The Mongol " to medical science
because of a facial peculiarity which identifies it
infallibly. "The Mongol" of European child-life
comes to an astonishingly early maturity of brain : its
smartness is marvellous. But it is destined always
to an early end from an ineradicable internal weak-
ness which is, in some strange way, the cause of its
precocious cleverness.
Whether the Japanese cleverness and progressive-
ness will last or not, the nation has to be credited
with them now as a live asset. But apart from the
national character the nation possesses little of "natural
capital." There is practically no store of precious
metals ; a poor supply of the useful minerals ; small
area of good land ; and the local fisheries have been
exploited with such energy for many generations
that they cannot possibly be expanded in productivity
now. The statesmen of New Japan have certainly
won some overseas Empire as an addition to the
resources available for a sound fabric of national
greatness. But what has been won is quite in-
sufficient to weigh in the scale against the " natural
capital " of almost any of Japan's rivals in the
Pacific.
For want of territory to colonise under her own flag,
Japan has lost many subjects to alien flags. Japanese
settlements of some strength exist on the Pacific
coast of America, in the Hawaiian Islands, and in
parts of China. There is little doubt that Japanese
THE RISE OF JAPAN 45
policy has hoped that in some cases at least her flag
would follow her nationals. Talk, not all of it quite
irresponsible, has credited Japan with definite designs
on many Pacific settlements, especially the Hawaiian
Group where her nationals to-day outnumber any
other single element of the population. But there are
now no islands or territories without a protecting flag.
Even when, as was said to be the case with Mexico and
another Latin- American country, a weak and friendly
nation seems to offer the chance of annexation of
territory following a peaceable penetration, there is
the power of the United States to interpose a veto.
Japan thus cannot add to her natural resources
without a war; and she has not, it would seem,
sufficient natural resources to back up a war with
the enemies she would have to meet now in the
Pacific.
If she were to put aside dreams of conquest and
Empire, has Japan a sound future in the Pacific as
a thriving minor manufacturing and trading power ?
I must say that it seems to me doubtful. The
nation has drunk of the wine of life and could hardly
settle down to a humdrum existence. No peaceable
policy could allow of a great prosperity, for the reasons
of natural poverty already stated. It would be a
life of drudgery without the present dream of glory.
To study the Japanese emigrant away from his own
country is to understand that he has not the
patience for such a life. In British Columbia, in
California, in Hawaii, the same conclusion is come
46 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
to by European fellow-residents, that the Japanese
worker is arrogant, unruly, unreliable. In Japan
itself there are signs that the industrial population
will not tolerate for ever a life of very poor living
and very hard working if there is not a definite and
immediate benefit of national glory promised.
The position of Japan in the Pacific seems to me,
then, that she cannot reasonably expect to win in a
struggle for its mastery: and yet that she will
inevitably be forced to enter into that struggle. A
recent report in a Tokio paper stated : " At a secret
session of the Budget Commission on February 3,
Baron Saito, Minister of Marine, declared that the
irreducible minimum of naval expansion was eight
battleships of the super -Dreadnought class, and
eight armoured cruisers of the same class, which
must be completed by 1920, construction being be-
gun in 1913. The cost is estimated at 35,000,000."
And the paper (A sold Shimbun] went on to hint at
the United States as the Power which had to be
confronted. That is only one of very many indica-
tions of Japanese national feeling. She has gone too
far on the path to greatness to be able to retire
safely into obscurity. She must "see it through."
Feats of strength far nearer to the miraculous than
those which marked her astonishing victory over
Russia would be necessary to give Japan the
slightest chance of success in the next struggle for
the hegemony of the Pacific.
CHAPTER IV
CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA
CHINA is potentially the greatest Power on the
western littoral of the Pacific. Her enormous
territory has vast agricultural and mineral resources.
Great rivers give easy access to some of the best of
her lands. A huge population has gifts of patient
labour and craftsmanship that make the Chinaman
a feared competitor by every White worker in the
world. In courage he is not inferior to the Japanese,
as General Gordon found. In intelligence, in
fidelity and in that common sense which teaches
"honesty to be the best policy," the Chinaman is
far superior to the Japanese.
The Chinaman has been outstripped up to the
present by the Japanese in the acquirement of the
arts of Western civilisation, not because of his inferior
mind, but because of his deeper disdain. He has
stood aside from the race for world supremacy on
modern lines, not as one who is too exhausted for
effort, but as one who is too experienced to try.
China has in the past experimented with many of
the vaunted ideas and methods of the new civil-
isation, from gunpowder to a peerage chosen by
47
48 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
competitive examination, and long ago came to
the conclusion that all was vanity and vexation
of spirit.
The Chinaman is not humble ; not content to
take an inferior place in the world. He has all
the arrogance of Asia. The name of " Heavenly
Kingdom " given to the land by its inhabitants, the
grandiose titles assumed by its rulers, the degrading
ceremonies which used to be exacted from foreigners
visiting China as confessions of their inferiority to
the Celestial race, show an extravagant pride of birth.
In the thirteenth century, when Confucian China,
alike with Christian Europe, had to fear the growing
power of the fanatical Mohammedans, a treaty of
alliance was suggested between France and China:
and the negotiations were broken off because of the
claim of China that France should submit to her as
a vassal, by way of preliminary. The Chinaman's
idea of his own importance has not abated since
then. His attitude towards the " foreign devils " is
still one of utter contempt. But at present that
contempt has not the backing of naval and military
strength, and so in practice counts for nothing.
China cherishes the oldest of living civilisations.
Her legendary history dates back to 2404 B.C., her
actual history to 875 B.C., when a high state of mental
culture had been reached, and a very advanced
material civilisation also ; though some caution is
necessary in accepting the statements that at that
time China made use of gunpowder, of the mariner's
CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA 49
compass, and of printing type. But certainly weaving,
pottery, metal-working, and pictorial art flourished.
The noble height to which philosophy had reached
centuries before the Christian Era is shown by the
records of Confucianism and Taoism. Political
science had been also cultivated, and there were then
Chinese Socialists to claim that "everyone should
sow and reap his own harvest."
There seem to have been at least two great parent
races of the present population of the Chinese Empire
a race dwelling in the valleys and turning its
thoughts to peace and the arts, and a race dwelling
on the Steppes and seeking joy in war. It was the
Tartar and Mongol tribes of the Steppes which sent
wave after wave of attack westward towards Europe,
under chiefs the greatest of whom was Gengis Khan.
But it was the race of the valleys, the typical Chinese,
stolid, patient, laborious, who established ultimate
supremacy in the nation, gradually absorbing the
more unruly elements and producing modern China
with its contempt for military glory. But the
Mongols by their wars left a deep impression on the
Middle Ages, founding kingdoms which were tribu-
tary to China, in Persia, Turkestan and as far west
as the Russian Volga.
The earliest record of European relations with
China was in the seventh century, when the Emperor
Theodosius sent an embassy to the Chinese Emperor.
In the thirteenth century Marco Polo visited the
Court of the Grand Khan at Pekin, and for a while
4
50 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
fairly constant communication between Europe and
China seems to have been maintained, the route
followed being by caravan across Asia. Christian
missionaries settled in China, and in 1248 there is a
record of the Pope and the Grand Khan exchanging
greetings.
When towards the end of the fourteenth century
the Ming dynasty supplanted the Mongol dynasty,
communication with Europe was broken off for more
than a century. But in 1581 Jesuit missionaries
again entered China, and the Manchu dynasty of the
seventeenth century at first protected the Christian
faith and seemed somewhat to favour Western ideas.
But in the next century the Christian missions were
persecuted and almost extirpated, to be revived in
1846. Since that date "the mailed fist" of Europe
has exacted from the Chinese a forced tolerance of
European trade and missions.
But Chinese prejudice against foreign intrusion
was given no reason for abatement by the conduct of
the European Powers, as shown, for example, in the
Opium War of 1840. That prejudice, smouldering
for long, broke out in the savage fanaticism of the
Boxer outbreak of 1900, which led to a joint punitive
expedition by the European Powers, in conjunction
with Japan. China had the mortification then of
being scourged not only by the " white devils " but
also by an upstart Yellow Man, who was her near and
her despised neighbour. All China that knew of
the expedition to Pekin of 1900 and understood its
CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA 51
significance, seems to have resolved then on some
change of national policy involving the acceptance of
European methods, in warfare at least. Responding
to the stimulus of Japan's flaunting of her success in
acquiring the ways of the European, China began to i
consider whether there was not after all something
useful to be learned from the Western barbarians.
The older Asiatic country has a deep contempt for
the younger : but proof of Japan's superior position
in the world's estimation had become too convincing
to be disregarded. China saw Japan treated with
respect, herself with contumely. She found herself
humiliated in war and in diplomacy by the upstart
relative. The reason was plain, the conclusion equally
plain. China began to arm and lay the foundations
of a modern naval and military system. The national
spirit began to show, too, in industry. Chinese
capital claimed its right and its duty to develop the
resources of China.
Early in the twentieth century " modern ideas " had
so far established themselves in China that Grand
Councillor Chang Chih-tung was able, without the
step being equivalent to suicide, to memorialise the
Throne with these suggestions for reform :
1. That the Government supply funds for free
education.
2. That the Army and Navy be reorganised with-
out delay.
3. That able and competent officials be secured for
Government services.
52 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
4. That Princes of the blood be sent abroad to
study.
5. That arsenals for manufacturing arms, ammuni-
tion, and other weapons of war, and docks and
shipbuilding yards for constructing warships, be
established without delay.
6. That only Chinese capital be invested in rail-
way and mining enterprises.
7. That a date be given for the granting of a
Constitution.
Chang Chih-tung may be taken as the repre-
sentative of the new school of Chinese thought.
His book Chuen Hsueh Pien (China's Only Hope)
is the Bible of the moderate reformers. He states
in that book :
" In order to render China powerful, and at the
same time preserve our own institutions, it is
absolutely necessary that we should utilise Western
knowledge. But unless Chinese learning is made
the basis of education, and a Chinese direction given
to thought, the strong will become anarchists, and
the weak slaves. Thus the latter end will be worse
than the former. . . . Travel abroad for one year is
more profitable than study at home for five years.
It has been well said that seeing is a hundred times
better than hearing. One year's study in a foreign
institution is better than three years in a Chinese.
Mencius remarks that a man can learn foreign things
best abroad ; but much more benefit can be derived
from travel by older and experienced men than by
CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA 53
the young, and high mandarins can learn more than
petty officials. . . . Cannot China follow the viam
mediam and learn a lesson from Japan ? As the case
stands to-day, study by travel can be better done
in that country than in Europe, for the following
reasons. ... If it were deemed advisable, some
students could afterwards be sent to Europe for a
fuller course."
After the Russian-Japanese War Chinese students
went to Japan in thousands, and these students laid
the foundation of the Republican school of reformers
which is the greatest of the forces striving for mastery
in China to-day. The flow of students to Japan
was soon checked by the then Chinese Government,
for the reason that Republican sentiments seemed
to be absorbed in the atmosphere of Japan, despite
the absolutism of the Government there. In the
United States and in Europe the Chinese scholar
was able, however, to absorb Western knowledge
without acquiring Republican opinions ! There is
some suggestion of a grim jest on the part of the
Chinese in holding to this view. It recalls Boc-
caccio's story of the Christian who despaired of the
conversion of his Jewish friend when he knew that he
contemplated a visit to Rome. The Chinese seemed
to argue that a safe precaution against acquiring
Republican views is to live in a Republican country.
Chinese confidence in the educational advantages
offered by the United States has been justified by
results. American-educated Chinese are prominent
54 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
in every phase of the Reform movement in China,
except Republican agitation. The first Reform
Foreign Minister in China, the first great native
Chinese railway builder, the first Chinese women
doctors, the greatest native Chinese banker, are
examples of American training.
It would be outside the scope of this work to
attempt to deal in any way exhaustively with the
present position in China. What the ultimate
outcome will be, it is impossible to forecast. At
present a Republic is in process of formation, after
the baby Emperor through the Dowager Empress
had promulgated an edict stating:
" We, the Emperor, have respectfully received the
following Edict from her Majesty the Dowager :
" In consequence of the uprising of the Republican
Army, to which the people in the Provinces have
responded, the Empire seethed liked a boiling
cauldron, and the people were plunged in misery.
Yuan Shih-kai, therefore, commanded the despatch
of Commissioners to confer with the Republicans
with a view to a National Assembly deciding the
form of government. Months elapsed without any
settlement being reached. It is now evident that
the majority of the people favour a Republic, and,
from the preference of the people's hearts, the will of
Heaven is discernible. How could we oppose the
desires of millions for the glory of one family?
Therefore, the Dowager Empress and the Emperor
hereby vest the sovereignty in the people. Let
CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA 55
Yuan Shih-kai organise with full powers a provisional
Republican Government, and let him confer with the
Republicans on the methods of establishing a union
which shall assure the peace of the Empire, and of
forming a great Republic, uniting Manchus, Chinese,
Mongols, Mohammedans, and Tibetans."
But all men whom I have met who have had
chances of studying Chinese conditions at first hand,
agree that the Chinese national character is not favour-
able to the permanent acceptance of Republican ideas.
If there is one thing which seems fixed in the Chinese
character it is ancestor- worship, and that is essen-
tially incompatible with Republicanism. 1 But what
1 A very clear statement as to the position in China was that
given in London during January of 1912 by Mr Kwei Chih, a
secretary of the Chinese Legation.
"None of the dynasties in China," he said, "has ever maintained
a tyrannical regime for any length of time, least of all the Manchu
dynasty, the policy of which has consisted rather of a mixture of
paternalism and obscurantism than of hard repression of the people.
. . . The present unanimous desire of the Chinese to remove the
Manchu dynasty arises solely from the fact that the Chinese have
fully awakened to the realisation that only a policy of thorough-
going Westernisation can save China from disruption and partition.
The removal of the Manchu dynasty is of no greater national
moment to China than would be the fall of a Cabinet to any
European country. Personal animus enters, indeed, so little into
the determination of the new Chinese regime that the question of
setting apart lands for the deposed dynasty, and even of granting
it ex-territorial privileges, may eventually be accepted in the way
of a solution. In regard to the adoption of Republican ideas, it
may be said that the Chinese statesman does not understand the
meaning of the Republican principle, and if a new regime should
declare itself Republican, its Republicanism will be of a much more
strongly democratic type than any known to Europe. It will even
56 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
seems absolutely certain is that a new China is coming
to birth. Slowly the great mass is being leavened
with a new spirit.
Now a new China, armed with modern weapons,
would be a terrible engine of war. A new China
organised to take the field in modern industry would
be a formidable rival in neutral markets to any exist-
ing nation. The power of such a new China put at
the disposal of Japan could at least secure all Asia for
the Asiatics and hold the dominant position in the
Northern Pacific. Possibly it could establish a world
supremacy, unless such a Yellow union forced White
Races to disregard smaller issues and unite against
a common foe. Fortunately a Chinese -Japanese
alliance is not at present in the least likely. The
Chinese hatred of the Japanese is of long standing
and resolute, though it is sometimes dissembled.
The Japanese have an ill-concealed contempt for the
Chinese. Conflict is more likely than alliance be-
tween the two kindred races.
Further, the Chinese will probably move far more
slowly on any path of aggression than did the
Japanese, for they are intensely pacific. For many
be more popular in its constitution than the American, and will far
more fully seek the development of the common weal than most
bureaucratic systems bearing the name. The suggested application
of Christian principles to the new regime may be regarded as
wholly impossible. Confucianism, by which China stands or falls,
is a secular philosophy, the only semblance of a spiritual or religious
tenet in which is the principle of ancestor-worship, and though a
theocratic idea is admitted in the creation of the universe, the
question of a life hereafter is wholly excluded from its teachings."
CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA 57
generations they have been taught to regard the
soldier as contemptible, the recluse scholar as ad-
mirable. Ideas of overseas Empire on their part are
tempered by the fanatic wish of every Chinaman that
his bones should rest in his native land. It will only
be in response to enormous pressure that China will
undertake a policy of adventure.
That pressure is now being engendered from with-
in and without. From without it is being engendered 1
by insolent robberies of territory and other outrages !
on the part of foreign Powers. More particularly of
late has the modern arrogance of Japan impressed
upon the old-fashioned arrogance of China the fact
that the grave scholar, skilled in all the lore of
Confucius, is a worthless atom beside a drilled coolie
who can shoot straight. From within the pressure is :
being engendered by the great growth of population.!
For some time past infanticide has been common
in China as a Malthusian check. Now European
missionaries seek to discourage that. European
medicine further sets itself to teach the Yellow Man
to cope with plague, smallpox, and cholera, while
European engineering abates the terrors of flood and
of crop failure.
Machiavelli would have found prompting for some
grim aphorism in this curious eagerness of Europe to
teach the teeming millions of Asia to rid themselves
of checks on their greater growth, and thus to in-
crease the pressure of the Asiatic surplus seeking an
outlet at the expense of Europe. It is in respect to
58 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
the urgent demand for room for an overcrowding
population that there exists alike to China and Japan
the strongest stimulus to warlike action in the Pacific.
China in particular wants colonies, even if they be
only such colonies as provide opportunities for her
coolies to amass enough wealth to return in old age
to China. From the fertile basin of China there
have been overflow waves of humanity ever since
there has been any record of history. Before the era
of White settlement in the Pacific the Chinese popu-
lation had pushed down the coast of Asia and pene-
trated through a great part of the Malay Archipelago,
an expansion not without its difficulties, for the fierce
Malay objected to the patient Chinaman and often
the Chinaman remained to fertilise but not to colonise
the alien soil. By some Providential chance neither
the Chinaman nor the Japanese ever reached to
Australia in the early days of the Pacific, though
there are records of Japanese fishermen getting as far
as the Hawaiian Group, a much more hazardous
journey. If the Asiatics had reached Australia
the great island would doubtless have become the
southern province of Asia, for its native popula-
tion could have offered no resistance to the feeblest
invader.
In the past, however, the great natural checks kept
the Asiatic populations within some limits. Internal
wars, famines, pestilences, infanticide all claimed
their toll. Nature exercised on man the checks
which exist throughout the whole animal kingdom,
CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA 59
and which in some regions of biology are so stern
that it is said that only one adult survives of
5,000,000 spawn of a kind of oyster. Now European
influence is steadily directed in Asia to removing all
obstacles to the growth of population. When the
Asiatics wish to fight among themselves Europe is
inclined to interfere (as at the time of the Boxer
outbreak in China), on the ground that a state of
disorder cannot be tolerated. In India internecine
warfare is strictly prohibited by the paramount
Power. In Japan all local feuds have been healed
by pressure from Europe and America, and the
fighting power of the people concentrated for
external warfare.
Not alone by checking internal warfare does
Europe insist on encouraging the growth of the
Asiatic myriads. European science suggests rail-
ways, which make famine less terrible ; flood preven-
tion works which save millions of lives. European
moralists make war on such customs as the suicide
of young widows and the exposure for death of
female children. But, far more efficacious than all,
European scientists come forward to teach to the
Asiatics aseptic surgery, inoculation, and the rest of
the wisdom of preventive and curative medicine.
Sometimes Nature is stronger than science. The
Plague, for instance, still claims its millions. But
even the Plague diminishes before modern medical
science.
In his Health and Empire (1911), Dr Francis
60 PROBLEiMS OF THE PACIFIC
Fremantle tells of the campaign against plague in
India. He writes :
" The death-rate from plague in 1904 in the Lahore
and Amritsar districts in which I worked was 25 per
1000. Over 1,000,000 Indians died of plague in
1904, over 1,000,000 in 1905 ; in 1906, 332,000, and
it was thought the end was in sight. But 640,000
died in the first four months of 1907 ; in 1908,
321,000 died; in 1909 only 175,000, but in 1910
again very nearly 500,000, and this year more than
ever. The United Provinces had barely been
reached by the epidemic in 1904 ; now with a popu-
lation equal to that of the United Kingdom, they
have been losing 20,000 every week ; and the Punjab
34,000 in one week, 39,000, 47,000, 54,000, 60,000
and so on over 430,000 in the first four months
of this year in a population of 25,000,000. Imagine
Great Britain and Ireland losing the same proportion
over 1,000,000 from plague in half a year. And
India as a whole has in fifteen years lost over 7,000,000
from plague. Why wonder at her unrest ?
" What, then, can the Government do? Extermina-
tion of rats is impossible; disinfection on a large
scale is impracticable ; evacuation of villages cannot
be done voluntarily on any universal scale; the
Government will not apply compulsion, and such
evacuation is quite useless without a rigid cordon
of police or military that will prevent communication
between one infected village and others not yet
infected. A cordon, it has been proved over and
CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA 61
over again, cannot be maintained ; the native who
wishes to pass it has only to present some official
with a cautious rupee. Extermination of rats in an
Asiatic country has often failed ; but here is without
a shadow of doubt the key to the problem. The
methods formerly adopted had been to give a
capitation grant for every rat brought to the
appointed place, and before long it was found, for
instance in Bombay, that an extensive trade had
grown up in the breeding of rats, whereby, at a few
annas apiece from the Government, many families
were able to sustain a comfortable existence. . . .
But since sentence on the rat-flea has been pro-
nounced for the murder of 7,000,000 persons and
over, the best method for his extermination will not
be far off.
"It is often debated whether even half-measures
are worth being continued. Professor W. J. Simpson,
in his exhaustive monograph on the plague, and in
1907 in his Croonian Lectures ', has shown how in
history epidemics of plague have come and gone in
different countries with long intervals between them,
often of one hundred and thirty to one hundred and
fifty years. In the eighteenth century, for instance,
India seems to have been almost free of the plague,
but early in the seventeenth century it suffered
severely. The present epidemic is assuming, as far as
we can trust previous records, unprecedented propor-
tions ; probably after a few years it will die out again.
"An occasional cynic may argue that, since we
62 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
have saved so many thousands of lives annually
from famine and wars, it may be just as well to let
the plague take their place. To such a pessimistic
and inhuman conclusion it is impossible for one
moment to submit. It may be that for economic
reasons some parts of the Indian Empire would be
happier if their population were less dense ; but it
does not follow that we should allow Death to stalk
uninterrupted, unopposed, and apparently without
limit, throughout the country. Economics apart,
we may yet be absolutely convinced, whether as
doctors or as statesmen, that it is our mission, our
duty, to protect the populations included under
British rule to the best of our ability against every
scourge as it may arise; and therefore it is urgent
that such measures as we have be pushed forward
with the utmost vigour."
That tells (in a more convincing way, because
of the impatience of the doctor, accustomed to
European conditions, at the slow result of work in
India) how resolute is the White Man's campaign
against the Yellow Man's death-rate in one part of
Asia. Such a campaign in time must succeed in
destroying the disease against which it is directed
and thus adding further to the fecundity of Asia.
Nor is the fight against diseases confined to those
parts of Asia under direct White rule. The cult of
White medicine spreads everywhere, carried by
Japanese as well as by European doctors and mission-
aries. Its effects already show in the enormous in-
CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA 63
crease of Asiatic population, proved wherever definite
figures are available. That growth adds year by year
to the danger that the Yellow Man will overrun
the Pacific and force the White Man to a second
place in the ocean's affairs, perhaps not even leaving
him that.
An older and sterner school of thought would
have condemned as fatuous the White Races'
humanitarian nurture of the Yellow Races. But the
gentler thought of to-day will probably agree with
Dr Fremantle that the White Man cannot " allow
Death to stalk uninterrupted, unopposed" even
through the territory of our racial rivals. But we
must give serious thought to the position which is
thus created, especially in view of the "levelling"
racial tendency of modern weapons of warfare.
China has a population to-day, according to Chinese
estimates, of 433,000,000 ; according to an American
diplomatist's conclusions, of not much more than
half that total. But it is, without a doubt, growing
as it never grew before ; and modern reform ideas
will continue to make it grow and render the menace
of its overflow more imminent.
At present the trend of thought in China is pacific.
But it is not possible to be sure that there will not
be a change in that regard with the ferment of new
ideas. The discussion to-day of a Republic in China,
of womanhood suffrage in China, of democratic social-
ism in China, suggests that the vast Empire, which
has been for so long the example of conservative
64 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
immobility most favoured by rhetoricians anxious to
illustrate a political argument, may plunge into
unexpected adventures. China has in the past
provided great invaders of the world's peace. She
may in the near future turn again to the thoughts of
military adventure. The chance of this would be
increased if in the settlement of her constitutional
troubles a long resort to arms were necessary.
Then the victorious army, whether monarchical or
Republican, might aspire to win for a new China
recognition abroad.
It is a fortunate fact that supposing a revival of
militancy in China, a revival which is possible but
not probable, the first brunt of the trouble would
probably fall upon .Japan. At the present moment
Japan is the most serious offender against China's
national pride. As the conqueror of Corea and the
occupier of Manchuria, she trespasses most of all
foreign Powers on the territories and the rights of
China. After Japan, Russia would have to expect a
demand for a reckoning ; Great Britain would come
third and might come into collision with an aggres-
sive China, either because of the existence of such
settlements as Hong Kong or because of the Thibetan
boundary. A China in search of enemies, however,
would find no lack of good pretexts for quarrelling.
There are, for instance, the offensive and humiliating
restrictions on Chinese immigration of the United
States, of Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
I find it necessary, however, to conclude that so
CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA 65
far as the near future is concerned, China will not
take a great warrior part in the determining of
Pacific issues. She may be able to enforce a more
wholesome respect for her territorial integrity : she
may push away some intruders : she may even insist
on a less injurious and contemptuous attitude
towards her nationals abroad. But she will not, I
think, seek greatness by a policy of aggression.
There is no analogy between her conditions and
those of Japan at the time of the Japanese acceptance
of European arts and crafts. Japan at the time was
a bitterly quarrelsome country: she turned from
civil to foreign war. China has been essentially
pacific for some centuries. Japan was faced at the
outset of her national career with the fact that she
had to expand her territory or else she could not hope
to exist as a great Power. China has within her own
borders all that is necessary for national greatness.
If at a later date the Chinese, either from a too-
thorough study of the lore of European civilisation,
or from the pressure of a population deprived of all
Malthusian checks and thus finding an outlet absol-
utely necessary, should decide to put armies and
navies to work for the obtaining of new territory,
the peril will be great to the White Man. Such a
Chinese movement could secure Asia for the Asiatics,
and might not stop at that point. But that danger
is not of +his decade, though it may have to be faced
later by the White Power which wins the supremacy
of the Pacific.
5
CHAPTER V
THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER
FOLLOWING the map of the North- Western Pacific
littoral, the eye encounters, on leaving the coast of
China, the Philippine Islands, proof of the ambition
of the United States to hold a place in the Pacific.
It is a common fallacy to ascribe to the United
States a Quakerish temperament in foreign affairs.
Certain catch-words of American local politics have
been given a fictitious value, both at home and
abroad. "Republican Simplicity," "The Rights of
Man," " European Tyranny," " Imperial Aggression,"
" The Vortex of Militarism " from these and similar
texts some United State publicists are wont to
preach of the tyranny of European kings and
emperors ; of their greed to swallow up weak
neighbours ; and of the evils of the military and
naval systems maintained to gratify such greed.
By much grandiose assertion, or by that quiet
implication which is more complete proof of a con-
vinced mind than the most grandiose of assertion,
the American nation has been pictured in happy
contrast to others, pursuing a simple and peaceful
life; with no desire for more territory; no wish to
66
THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER 67
interfere with the affairs of others ; in the world,
but not of the world.
Astonishment that such professions should carry
any weight at all in the face of the great mass of
facts showing that the American national temper is
exactly the reverse of Quakerish, is modified in the
political student by the fact that it is the rule for
nations as well as individuals to be judged in the
popular estimation by phrases rather than by facts.
Ignoring the phrases of politicians and considering
only the facts, it will be found that the American
people have Imperial ambitions worthy of their
ancestry and inseparable from the responsibility
towards civilisation which their national greatness
involves.
It was in the middle of the eighteenth century
that the United States began national housekeeping
within a small territory on the seaboard of the
Atlantic. By the nineteenth century that area had
extended over a section of the continent of America
as large almost as Europe. By the twentieth
century this Power, still represented as incurably
" peaceful and stay-at-home " by its leaders, was
established in the Caribbean Sea, on the Isthmus
of Panama, in the North and South Pacific, along
the coast of Asia, and had set up firmly the principle
that whatever affair of the world demanded inter-
national attention, from a loan to China, to the fate
of an Atlantic port of Morocco, the United States
had "interests" which must be considered, and
68 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
advice which must be regarded. The only circum-
stance that genuinely suggests a Quaker spirit in
United States foreign diplomacy is her quaint direct- !
ness of language. More effete peoples may wrap
every stage of a negotiation up to an ultimatum in
honeyed phrases of respect. America "tutoyers"
all courts and is mercilessly blunt in claim and
warning.
It would be very strange if the United States
were otherwise than Imperial in spirit. Nations,
like individuals, are affected by biological laws ; a
young, strong nation is as naturally aggressive and
ambitious as a young, strong boy. Contentment
with things as they are, a disposition to make
anxious sacrifices to the gods who grant peace, are
the signs of old age. If a boy is quite good his
parents have a reasonable right to suspect some
constitutional weakness. A new nation which
really resembled what a great many of the American
people think the United States to be, would show as
a morbid anomaly. No ; the course of the world's
future history will never be correctly forecasted except
on the assumption that the United States is an
aggressively Imperial nation, having an influence at
least equal to that of any European Power in the
settlement of international issues; and determined
to use that influence and to extend its scope year by
year. In the Problem of the Pacific particularly,
the United States must be counted, not merely as a
great factor but the greatest factor.
THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER 69
If the American citizen of to-day is considered as
though he were a British citizen of some generations
back, with a healthy young appetite for conquest
still uncloyed, some idea near to the truth will have
been reached. But since the deference exacted by
public opinion nowadays compels some degree of
pretence and does not permit us to parade our souls
naked, it is improbable that the United States citizen
of this century will adopt the frank freebooting
attitude of the Elizabethan Englishman when he was
laying the foundations of his Empire by methods in-
spired somewhat by piracy as w r ell as by patriotism.
The American will have to make some concession to
the times and seek always a moral sanction for the
extension of his boundaries. Such a search, however,
is rarely made in vain when it is backed by a resolved
purpose. It was sufficient for Francis Drake to know
that a settlement was Spanish and rich. The attack
followed. The United States needs to know that a
possession is foreign, is desirable, and is grossly ill-
governed before she will move to a remonstrance in
the sacred name of Liberty. Since good government
is an ideal which seldom comes at all close to realisa-
tion, and the reputation of no form of administration
can survive the ordeal of resolute foreign criticism,
the practical difference is slight. The American
Empire will grow with the benediction always of a
high moral purpose ; but it will grow.
It is interesting to recall the fact that at its very
birth the United States was invested by a writer of
70 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
prophetic insight with the purple of Empire. Said
the London Gazette of 1765 : " Little doubt can be
entertained that America will in time be the greatest
and most prosperous Empire that perhaps the world
has ever seen." But the early founders of the new
nation, then as now, deceived themselves and others
with the view that a pacific little Republic, not a
mighty Empire, was their aim. The Imperial instinct
showed, however, in the fact that the baby nation
had in its youngest days set up a formidable navy.
It was ostensibly " for the local defence of its shores,"
but naval power and overseas Empire are inseparably
linked.
The austere Republic began to grow in territory
and influence at a rate putting to shame the early
feats of the Roman power. By 1$93 the United
States had made it clear that she would not allow her
independence to be fettered in the slightest degree
by any claims of gratitude from France : and her
Declaration of Neutrality in the European War then
raging was a clear statement of claim to be considered
as a Power. The war with the Barbary States in 1802
to suppress piracy was a claim to police rights on the
high seas, police rights which custom gives only to a
paramount sea Power. By the next year Spain and
France had been more or less politely relieved of all
responsibilities in North America, and the United
States stretched from ocean to ocean, and from the
Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.
It is upon the early eloquence of her founders as to
THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER 71
the duty of the United States to confine her attention
strictly to America, that the common misconception
of America's place in foreign policy has been built up.
That talk, however, was in the first instance dictated^
largely by prudence. Alexander Hamilton, who
controlled the foreign policy of the infant Republic
at the outset, was particularly anxious that she should
find her feet before attempting any deeds of enter-
prise. In particular, he was anxious that the United
States should not, through considerations of sentiment,
be drawn into the position of a mere appanage of
France. He set the foundations of what was known
afterwards as the " Monroe doctrine," with the one
thought that, at the time, a policy of non-interference
with European affairs was a necessary condition of
free growth for the young nation. The same idea
governed Washington's farewell address in 1796 with
its warning against "foreign entanglements."
Afterwards the "Monroe doctrine" deriving its
name from a message by President Monroe in 1823
was given the meaning that the United States would
not tolerate any interference with the affairs of
the American continent by Europe. Finally the
" Monroe doctrine," which had begun with an affirma-
tion of America's non-participation in European affairs,
and had developed into a declaration against European
interference with American affairs, took its present
form, which is, in effect, that over all America the
United States has a paramount interest which must
not be questioned, and that as regards the rest of the
72 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
world she claims an equal voice with other Powers.
Yet, though that is the actual position, there is still
an idea in some minds that the Monroe doctrine is
an instrument of humbleness by which the United
States claims the immunity of America from foreign
interference and guarantees foreign countries from
American interference.
It will be of value to recall, in illustration of the
rapid growth of an aggressive national pride in the
United States, the circumstances which led up to Mr.
President Monroe's formal message in 1823. The
dawn of the nineteenth century found the young
American nation, after about a quarter of a century's
existence, fairly on her feet; able to vindicate her
rights abroad by a war against the Barbary pirates :
given by the cession of Louisiana from France, a
magnificent accession of territory. The Empire of
Spain was crumbling to pieces, and between 1803
and 1825 the Latin- American Republics in South
and Central America were being established on the
ruins of that Empire. Spain, her attention engaged
in European wars, was able to do little or nothing
to assert herself against the rebellious colonies. But
in 1815, Napoleon having been vanquished, the Holy
Alliance in Europe attempted to reassert the old
power of the European monarchies. The terror of
Napoleon's army had forced the kings of the earth
into a union which forgot national differences and
was anxious only to preserve the Divine Right of
Kings. The formation of this Holy Alliance was
THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER 73
viewed with suspicion and dislike in the United
States, and when in 1823 the Alliance raised the
question of joint action by European monarchies to
restore Spanish rule in South America, the United
States responded with Monroe's famous message
forbidding any European interference on the continent
of America. Such European colonies as already
existed would be tolerated, and that was all. The
message stated :
"The American continents by the free and independent
conditions which they have assumed are henceforth not to
be considered as subjects for future colonisation by any
European Power.
" We could not view any interposition for purpose of
oppressing them or controlling in any other manner their
destiny by any European Power in any other way than as
the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the
United States."
That " Monroe doctrine " was destined to be
extended greatly in scope. In 1845 Mr. President
Polk declared that no future European colony should
be planted on any part of the North American
continent, and laid it down as the duty of the United
States "to annex American territory lest it be
annexed by European countries." True to that
faith, he was responsible for the annexation of Texas,
Oregon and California. The United States claim
to overlordship of North America was still more
remarkably extended in 1867, when a protest was
entered against the Federation of the Canadian
Provinces. The protest was not insisted upon then,
74 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
though in 1870 Mr. President Grant revived the
spirit of the protest with his forecast of "the end of
European political connection with this continent."
The Venezuela controversy between Great Britain
and the United States in 1895 was responsible for
another extension of the Monroe doctrine. It was
then claimed that " foreign colonies ought to cease
in this hemisphere." Insistence on that would,
however, have led to a war in which Great Britain
probably would have had the assistance of other
European Powers affected ; and the Monroe doctrine
receded a little.
Exactly how this chief article of the United
States foreign policy stands to-day one cannot say.
Certainly the Monroe doctrine does not mean, as
it was once supposed to mean, that the United
States in return for foreign abstention from inter-
ference in American affairs pledges herself to keep
apart from all extra-American affairs. In world
politics she claims and exercises the privileges to
which her vast resources and her high state of
civilisation are the warrants. In regard to American
affairs the Monroe doctrine clearly forbids any
further European colonisation in North or South
America, and constitutes the United States as the
Suzerain Power of all the Latin- American Republics
(whether they are willing or not). What else it will
be found to mean will depend on the circumstances
of the moment and the feelings of the newspaper
proprietors who exercise so great an influence on
THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER 75
the American man-in-the-street, the governing factor
in shaping his country's foreign policy. In European
countries, however democratic, the man-in-the-street
has rarely any immediate authority over Foreign
Affairs. In Great Britain, for example, the questions
of the relations of the Government with other
countries are not canvassed before the voters. The
close oligarchy of the Cabinet (acting often with the
Opposition Front Bench) comes to decisions of peace
and war, of treaty and entente , and, after decision,
allows Parliament and the electorate to acquiesce.
But in the United States foreign policy is actually
dictated by the voters ; and that means, in effect,
by the newspapers. On occasion the Monroe
doctrine has already been interpreted into a notice
to quit to all European Powers holding settlements
on the American continent. It may in the near
future revive that claim to paramount and exclusive
authority, and it may cover a declaration of direct
suzerainty over Mexico, and over the smaller re-
publics intervening between the United States border
and the Panama Canal. In most Latin- American
republics disorder is the rule rather than the
exception ; and it may become at any moment the
honest opinion of the man-in-the-street of the United
States that the Panama Canal is too important to
civilisation to be left to the chances of interference
from less stable governments than his own.
These conclusions are inevitable to anyone making
any study of American history and the American
76 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
character. They are not hostile criticisms. They
are rather appreciations. A great nation with a belief
in its destiny must be " Imperialist " in spirit, because
it has a natural desire to spread the blessings of its
rule. The people of the United States believe as
strongly in themselves as did the ancient Hebrews,
and all must have a genuine respect for that fierce
spirit of elect nationality which made the Hebrews
found a great nation on a goat-patch. In Elizabethan
England the same spirit flourished and was respon-
sible for the founding of the British Empire. (It
survives still in the British Isles, though somewhat
spasmodically.) There is no ground at all either for
wonder or for complaint in the fact that Imperialism
has been born to vigorous life in the United States,
where the people of " God's own country " are firm
in these two articles of faith : that any interference
in the affairs of the United States is unjust, un-
necessary, tyrannical and impious ; that any United
States interference with another nation is a necessary
and salutary effort on behalf of civilisation. Let no
man of British blood complain. But let no one in
making calculations of world policy be deceived into
any other conclusion than that the United States is
the great Imperial force of this century, and also the
one Power that has enough of the splendid illusions
of youth to indulge in crusading wars, for which
Europe nowadays is too old and cautious.
In the countries of Europe other than Great
Britain that which I have stated is coming to be
THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER 77
generally recognised, and if at any time a combination
could be proposed with any hope of success " to put
America in her place," the combination would be
formed and the Old World would grapple with the
New to try conclusions. Without Great Britain,
however, such an alliance would have at present no
chance of success, and British adherence is not within
the realm of practical thought to-day.
The Imperialist tendency of United States policy
is shown with particular clarity in the history of the
Pacific Ocean. Very early in her life the vigorous
young nation saw the Fates beckoning her across the
Pacific. The downfall of the Spanish power in
North America left the United States heir to a
great stretch of rich coast line, including the noble
province of California. Russia was ousted from the
north-west coast of the Continent by a wise purchase.
Before then, American whalers sailing out of Boston
had begun to exploit the Southern Pacific. Their
whaling trips brought back knowledge of the Hawaiian
or Sandwich Group, and, following exactly the methods
of British colonisation, American missionaries were
the pioneers of American nationalisation. As far
back as 1820 Hiram Bingham preached his first
sermon at Honolulu from the text, " Fear not, for,
behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy." A
handsome church now marks the gratitude of his
native converts. With equal justice Bingham's
American compatriots might have set up a great
statue to him as the first warden of the Marches of
78 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
the Pacific for the United States. For from that
day the annexation of Hawaii was inevitable. The
process took the familiar course. First the United
States Republic exercised a benevolent suzerainty
over the Hawaiian kingdom. Then the blessing of
free institutions was bestowed on the natives by the
foundation of an Hawaiian Republic. The next
step was definite annexation. Following that, came
steps for the formation of a great naval base at
Honolulu.
When I visited the Hawaiian Group in the spring
of 1909 the work of fortifying Honolulu was being
pushed on with great vigour, and the American
military and civil authorities boasted of their intention
to make it the Gibraltar of the Pacific. The city of
Honolulu has at present a very small harbour, a
little bay to which access is given by an opening in
the coral reefs which surround the island. This port
would hardly afford shelter to a squadron of cruisers.
But to the left as one enters is Pearl Harbour, a
magnificent stretch of land-locked water sufficient
to float a great Fleet. But Pearl Harbour basin in
its natural state is too well protected, there being
no means of access except for very small boats.
American energy is now remedying that, and a
deep-water channel is being cut from Honolulu
Harbour to Pearl Harbour to take vessels of the
largest draught at all tides. When that channel
is completed, Pearl Harbour will be at once com-
modious and easily protected. The single narrow
THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER 79
entrance will be dominated by the guns of Malakiki
Hill, a great eminence, somewhat like Gibraltar in
shape, to the right of the town, which commands
the sea-front east and west : and within Pearl
Harbour the American Pacific Fleet will find a safe
haven. It will be absolutely impregnable from the
sea. Hostile ships approaching Honolulu would
have to steer straight for Malakiki and then defile
amid the coral reefs past its guns before the entrance
to Pearl Harbour would open before them.
But land defence has also to be taken into account.
The chief male element of the Hawaiian population
is not American, not native Hawaiian. It is
Japanese. The Mikado's subjects represent now the
largest fighting element in the population, out-
numbering even the natives. These Japanese, im-
ported as coolies for the sugar-fields, are mostly men
of military training. Further influx of them has
now been stopped, not under an Immigration Re-
striction Act, but by private treaty with Japan ; and,
as a measure of precaution, an Arms Registration
Ordinance provides that no citizen shall have in his
possession firearms unless he is licensed by the
Government. But this precaution would be in vain
if Japan ever seriously thought of using her 50,000
soldier-citizens in the Hawaiian Group against the
United States ; for the whole of the fishing industry
is in the hands of the Japanese, and their sampans
could land arms at various places on the islands with
ease. Such a contingency has been foreseen in the
80 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
laying out of Honolulu as a naval base, and
the land fortifications are designed with the same
thoroughness as those designed to beat off a sea
attack.
A glance at the map will show that the Power
which holds Hawaii with a powerful Fleet can
dominate the whole of the Northern Pacific, threaten-
ing every point east and west. The American posi-
tion there is weakened by only one circumstance,
the great Japanese population. This, though it may
not be recruited with further drafts of males from its
native source, will always be a very considerable, if
not the most considerable, element of the Hawaiian
population, for most of the coolies are married, and
the Japanese abroad as well as at home fills the
cradle industriously.
I remember on the morning of April 1, 1909,
coming into Honolulu city from the Moana Hotel on
the sea-beach, I found the tram rushed by Japanese
at all the stopping places. Two cruisers of their
navy had entered the harbour cruisers which were
once upon a time the Russian Variag and Koreitz.
All Japan in Honolulu was making holiday. A
fleet of sampans (the Japanese fishing- vessel) sur-
rounded the ships, which commemorated so signally
a great and successful war. The water front was
lined with Japanese, the women and children mostly
in their national costume. One Japanese father came
on to the tram with seven boys, the eldest of whom
did not seem more than ten years of age. Asked,
THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER 81
he said that they were all his own children. There
will never be a lack of a big Japanese population in
Hawaii.
The definite acquisition of Hawaii may be fairly
dated from 1851. Before then there had been a
significant proof of America's gaze turning westward
by the appointment in 1844 of Mr Caleb Gushing as
the United States Ambassador to the Court of China.
A little later (1854) the American Power found the
Japanese policy of exclusiveness intolerable, and
United States warships broke a way into Japanese
ports. It had also been decided by then that the
task, originally undertaken by a French Company,
of cutting a waterway across the Panama Isthmus
should be the responsibility of the United States.
British susceptibilities on the point were soothed
by the Clayton -Bulwer treaty guaranteeing the
neutrality of the canal, a treaty which was subse-
quently abrogated in response to the increasing
deference which the growing power of the American
Republic could exact. That abrogation created the
present position which gives the United States sole
control of that canal, and the right to fortify its
entrances.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, therefore,
the United States, a Power which some people still
insist on regarding as an essentially domestic char-
acter interested only in purely American affairs, had
established herself in a commanding strategical
position in the North Pacific, had constituted her-
6
82 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
self the arbiter of Japanese national manners, and
had obtained the control of the future waterway
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The second half
of the same century was destined to see an even
more remarkable Imperial expansion. The mis-
government of Cuba by Spain became intolerable
to American public opinion, and in 1898 war was
declared with the avowed purpose of conferring the
blessings of freedom on the people of Cuba. If one
accepted the nonsensical view that the United States
is a Power lifted above ordinary human nature by
some mysterious racial alchemy, it would be difficult
to understand why a war to free Cuba should also
have been waged in another ocean to acquire the
Philippines. But, looking at the matter in a sane
light, it was natural that, being engaged in a war
with Spain, the United States should strike at Spain
wherever a blow was possible and should destroy the
Spanish power in the Pacific Ocean as well as in the
Caribbean Sea. Besides, the opportunity offered of
stretching the arm of America right across the
Pacific to the very coast of Asia. The Filipinos
did not relish the substitution for the weak rule of
Spain of the strong rule of the United States, and
American Imperialism had the experience of having
to force, by stern warfare on the liberated, acceptance
of its role of liberator. Perhaps the experience
taught it some sympathy with older players at the
game of Empire-making : certainly it did not abate
its ardour in the good work.
THE UNITED STATES AN IMPERIAL POWER 83
So much for the past history of the United States
in the Pacific. A forecast of her influence on the
future of the ocean is clearly indicated by the past.
The United States spread from the east of the North
American continent to the west, because there is no
method known to prevent the extension of a highly
civilised, a young, an ardent nation at the expense of
backward, effete and tired peoples. It was impossible
that either the Red Indian tribes or the picturesque
old settlements of the Californian Spanish should
stand in the way of the American Republic stretching
from ocean to ocean. Once the United States was
established on the Pacific coast, it was equally inevit-
able that the arm of her power should stretch across
the ocean. The acquisition of the Hawaiian Group
was necessary for the sound defence of the coast.
The American trading ships which sought the coast
of Asia and found barbaric barriers against commerce
being battered down by European venturers, had to
do as the other White Men did. The flag thus had to
follow in the wake of the trade. It was all natural,
necessary and ultimately beneficial to civilisation.
Equally inevitable will be the future expansion of the
United States in the Pacific. The overwhelming
strength of her industrial organisation will give her a
first call on the neutral markets of the ocean i.e.
those markets to which she has the same right of
access as her trade rivals. As the tendency shows
for the area of those neutral markets to narrow
through coming under the domination of various
84 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Powers, the United States will seek to extend
her domination too. The protection of what she
has will enforce the need of acquiring pther strategi-
cal points. So her Pacific possessions will grow,
almost unconsciously, just as the British Empire
grew.
CHAPTER VI
GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC
OFF the coast of China at a point where, in a
strategical map the " spheres of influence " of Japan
and the United States and Germany would impinge,
is the island of Hong Kong, the Far East station of
the British Empire. Further south, in the Malay
Peninsula, is Singapore, standing guard over the
entrance to the Indian Ocean. On these two coaling
stations British naval power in the North Pacific is
based. The abandonment of either of them is un-
thinkable to-day, yet neither was taken possession
of until the nineteenth century Singapore in 1819,
Hong Kong in 1841. In the South Pacific there was
shown an even stronger hesitation in acquiring
territory.
Why Great Britain entered so reluctantly into the
Pacific as a colonising Power may probably be ex-
plained by the fact that at the time the ocean came
to be exploited British earth hunger had been satiated.
The unsuccessful war which attempted to hold the
American colonies to the Mother Country, had
made her doubtful whether overseas dominions were
altogether a blessing and whether the advantage to
85
86 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
be gained from them outweighed the responsibili-
ties which their holding entailed. It seemed to be
the natural conclusion from the American War of
Independence, that once a colony or a group of
colonies arrived at the stage of growth which allowed
it to be of some use to the Mother Country, the
inevitable next development was for it to throw off
the bonds of kinship and enter upon a career of
independence at the price of an expensive and humili-
ating war to its parent. Thus, whilst British sailors
were to the front in the exploration of the Pacific,
British statesmen showed a great reluctance to take
any advantage of their discoveries ; and it was a series
of accidents rather than any settled purpose which
planted the Anglo-Saxon race so firmly in this ocean.
India, it must be noted, a century ago was a country
having very little direct concern with the Pacific.
The holding of the Indian Empire did not depend
on any position in the Pacific. That situation has
since changed, and Great Britain would be forced
to an interest in the Pacific by her Indian Empire
if she had no other possessions in the ocean.
In an earlier chapter on Japan, something has been
written concerning the reasons which would argue
for the absence of an Imperial impulse in the
Japanese islands and its presence in the British
islands. The inquiry then suggested as to the
instincts of expansion and dominion which were
primarily responsible for the growth of the British
Empire is full of fascination for the historian. If
GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC 87
it comes to be considered carefully, the Empire-
making of the British people was throughout the
result of a racial impulse working instinctively,
spasmodically, though unerringly, towards an unseen
goal, rather than of a designed and purposeful
statesmanship.
The racial origin of the British people dictated
peremptorily a policy of oversea adventure, and that
adventure led inevitably to colonisation. In the
beginning Britain was a part of Gaul, a temperate
and fertile peninsula which by right of latitude should
have had the temperature of Labrador, but which,
because of the Gulf Stream, enjoyed a climate singu-
larly mild and promotive of fecundity. When the
separation from the mainland came because of the
North Sea cutting the English Channel, the Gallic
tribes left in Britain began to acquire, as the fruits of
their gracious environment and their insular position,
an exclusive patriotism and a comparative immunity
from invasion. These made the Briton at once very
proud of his country and not very fitted to defend its
shores.
With the Roman invasion there came to the
future British race a benefit from both those causes.
The comparative ease of the conquest by the Roman
Power, holding as it did the mastery of the seas,
freed the ensuing settlement by the conquerors from
a good deal of the bitterness which would have
followed a desperate resistance. The Romans were
generous winners and good colonists. Once their
88 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
power was established firmly, they treated a subject
race with kindly consideration. Soon, too, the local
pride of the Britons affected their victors. The
Roman garrison came to take an interest in their
new home, an interest which was aided by the
singular beauty and fertility of the country. It was
not long before Carausius, a Roman general in
Britain, had set himself up as independent of Italy,
and with the aid of sea-power he maintained his
position for some years. The Romans and the
Britons, too, freely intermarried, and at the time
when the failing power of the Empire compelled
the withdrawal of the Roman garrison, the south of
Britain was as much Romanised as, say, northern
Africa or Spain.
Thus from the very dawn of known history natural
position and climate marked out Britain as the vat
for the brewing of a strenuous blood. The sea served
her "in the office of a wall or of a moat defensive
to a house " to keep away all but the most vigorous
of invaders. The charm and fertility of the land
made it certain that a bold and vigorous invader
would be tempted to become a colonist and not be
satisfied with robbing and passing on.
With the decay of the Roman Empire, and the
withdrawal of the Roman legions to the defence of
Rome, the Romanised Britons were left helpless.
Civilisation and the growth of riches had made them
at once more desirable objects of prey, and less able
to resist attack. The province which Rome aban-
GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC 89
doned was worried on all sides by the incursion of
the fierce clans of the north and the west. A
decision, ultimately wise, judged by its happy results,
but at the moment disastrous, induced some of the
harried Britons to call in to their aid the Norsemen
pirates, who at the time, taking advantage of the
failing authority of Rome, were swarming out from
Scandinavia and from the shores of the Baltic in
search of booty. The Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes,
were willing enough to come to Britain as mer-
cenaries, even more willing to stay as colonists. An
Anglo-Saxon wave swept over the greater part of '
England, and was stopped only by the mountains of
Wales or of Scotland. That was the end of the
Britons as the chief power in Britain, but they
mingled with their conquerors to modify the Anglo-
Saxon type with an infusion of Celtic blood. In the
mountainous districts the Celtic blood continued to
predominate, and does to this day.
The Anglo-Saxons would have been very content
to settle down peacefully on the fat lands which had
fallen to them, but the piratical nests from which
they themselves had issued still sent forth broods of
hungry adventurers, and the invasions of the Danes
taught the Anglo-Saxons that what steel had won
must be guarded by steel. They learned, too, that
any race holding England must rely upon sea-power
for peaceful existence. After the Danish, the last
great element in the making of the present British race,
was the Norman. The Normans were not so much
90 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
foreigners as might be supposed. The Anglo-Saxons
of the day were descendants of sea-pirates who had
settled in Britain and mingled their blood with the
British. The Normans were descendants of kindred
sea-pirates who had settled in Gaul, and mingled
their blood with that of the Gauls and Franks. The
two races, Anglo-Saxon and Normans, after a while
combined amicably enough, the Anglo-Saxon blood
predominating, and the British type was evolved, in
part Celtic, in part Danish, in part Anglo-Saxon, in
part Norman a hard-fighting, stubborn adventurous
race, which in its making from such varied elements
had learned the value of compromise, and of the
common-sense principle of give-and-take. One can
see that it was just the race for the work of explora-
tion and colonisation.
When this British people, thus constituted, were
driven back to a sea- frontier by the French nation,
it was natural that they should turn their energies
overseas. To this their Anglo-Saxon blood, their
Danish blood, their Norman blood prompted. The
Elizabethan era, which was the era of the foundation
of the British Empire overseas, was marked by a
form of patriotism which was hard to distinguish in
some of its manifestations from plain robbery. The
fact calls for no particular condemnation. It was
according to the habit of thought of the time. But
it is necessary to bear in mind that the hunt for loot
and not the desire for territory was the chief motive
of the flashing glories of the Elizabethan era of
GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC 91
seamanship; for that is the explanation why there
was left as the fruit of many victories few permanent
settlements.
Drake was the first English naval leader to
penetrate to the Pacific. His famous circum-
navigation of the world is one of the boldest exploits
of history. Drake's log entry on entering the Pacific
stirs the blood :
" Now, as we were fallen to the uttermost parts
of these islands on October 28, 1578, our troubles
did make an end, the storm ceased, and all our
calamities (only the absence of our friends excepted)
were removed, as if God all this while by His secret
Providence had led us to make this discovery, which
being had according to His will, He stayed His
hand."
On this voyage Drake put in at San Francisco,
which he named New Albion. He went back to
Europe through the East Indies and around Africa.
But Drake made no attempt at colonisation. Loot-
ing of the Spanish treasure ships was the first and
last object of his cruise. What was, according to
our present lights, a more honourable descent upon
the Pacific was that of Admiral Anson in the
eighteenth century. He, in 1740, took a Fleet round
the stormy Horn to subdue the Philippines and
break the power of Spain in the Pacific. The force
thought fitting for such an enterprise in those days
was 961 men ! Anson did not subdue the Philip-
pines ; but they were guarded by the scurvy, which
92 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
attacked the English Fleet, rather than by the
Spanish might, and the little disease-racked English
squadron was able to cripple the Spanish power in
the Pacific by the mere dread of its presence. Anson
took prizes and made them masquerade before the
enemy's coast as hostile warships, and paralysed the
Spanish commerce in those seas. He returned to
England with only 335 men out of his original
complement of 961. Practically all the deaths
had been from disease. But again the idea of
the Pacific expedition was not to colonise but to
strike a blow at a rival European Power. It was
not until the nineteenth century that Great Britain
established herself on the western flank of the North
Pacific.
So far as the South Pacific was concerned British
indifference was complete, and it was shared by other
nations. In the days when the fabled wealth of the
Indies was the magnet to draw men of courage and
worth to perilous undertakings by sea and land,
there was nothing in the South Pacific to attract
their greed, and nothing, therefore, to stimulate
their enterprise. The Spaniard, blundering on
America in his quest for a western sea-passage to
the ivory, the gold, and the spices of India, found
there a land with more possibilities of plunder than
that which he had originally sought. He was
content to remain, looting the treasuries of the
Mexicans and of the Peruvians for metals, and laying
the forests of Central America under contribution
GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC 93
for precious woods. He ventured but little west-
ward, and the Hawaiian Islands represented for a
time the extreme western limit of his adventures.
Following him for plunder came the English, and
they too were content to sweep along the western
coast of South America without venturing further
towards the unknown west.
From another direction the sea-route to India was
sought by Portuguese, and Dutch, and English and
French. Groping round the African coast, they
came in time to the land of their desires, and found
besides India and Cathay, Java, the Spice Islands,
and other rich groups of the Malay Archipelago.
But they, just as the Spaniards, did not venture
west from South America ; and neither Portuguese,
Dutch, French nor English set the course of their
vessels south from the East Indies.
It was thus Australia remained for many years an
unknown continent. And when at last navigators,
more bold or less bound to an immediate greed,
touched upon the shores of Australia, or called at the
South Sea Islands, they found little that was attrac-
tive. In no case had the simple natives won to a greed
for gold and silver, and so they had no accumulations
of wealth to tempt cupidity. In the case of Australia
the coast-line was dour and forbidding, and promised
nothing but sterility.
The exploring period in which the desire for
plunder was the chief motive passed away, having
spared the South Pacific. It was therefore the fate of
94 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Australia, of New Zealand, and of most of the islands
of Polynesia and Melanesia, to be settled under
happier conditions, and to be spared the excesses of
cruelty which marked the European invasion of the
West Indies and the Americas. The Newest World
began its acquaintance with civilisation under fairly
happy auspices.
It was not until the middle of the seventeenth
century that a scientific expedition brought the South
Pacific before the attention of Britain. A transit
of Venus across the sun promised to yield valuable
knowledge as to the nature of solar phenomena.
To observe the transit under the best conditions,
astronomers knew that a station in the South Seas
was necessary, and Lieutenant Cook, R.N., an officer
who had already distinguished himself in the work
of exploration, was promoted to be Captain and
entrusted to lead a scientific expedition to Otaheite.
Added to his commission was an injunction to
explore the South Seas if time and opportunity
offered. Captain Cook was of the type which makes
time and opportunity. Certainly there was little in
the equipment of his expedition to justify an
extension of its duties after the transit of Venus had
been duly observed. But he took it that his duty
was to explore the South Seas, and explore them he
did, incidentally annexing for the British Empire
the Continent of Australia.
That was in 1770. * But still there was so little
inviting in the prospect of settlement in the South
GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC 95
Seas that it was some eighteen years before any
effort was made to follow up by colonisation this
annexation by Captain Cook. When the effort was
made it was not on very dignified lines. The
American colonies had at one time served as an
outlet for the overflow of the British prisons. The
War of Independence had closed that channel. The
overcrowding of the British prisons became desperate,
and, because it was necessary to find some relief for
this not because it was considered advantageous to
populate the new possession the First Fleet sailed
for the foundation of Australia in 1788.
We shall see in subsequent chapters how the
reluctance of the governing Power of the British race
in the Home Country to establish an Empire in the
South Pacific found a curious response in the stubborn
resoluteness of the colonists who settled in Australia
and New Zealand to be more English than the
English themselves, to be as aggressively Imperial-
istic almost as the men of the Elizabethan era.
(What might almost be called the " Jingoism " of the
British nations in the South Pacific must have a very
important effect in settling the mastery of that
ocean.) In the present chapter the establishment
of the British Power in the North Pacific chiefly will
be considered.
Singapore is to-day the capital of the three Straits
Settlements Singapore, Penang, and Malacca, but
it is the youngest of the three settlements. Malacca
is the oldest. It was taken possession of by the
96 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Portuguese under Albuquerque in 1511, and held by
them until 1641, when the Dutch were successful in
driving them out. The settlement remained under
the Government of the Dutch till 1795, when it was
captured by the English, and held by them till 1818,
at which date it was restored to the Dutch, and
finally passed into British hands in pursuance of the
treaty with Holland of 1824. By that treaty it was
arranged that the Dutch should leave the Malay
Peninsula, the British Government agreeing at the
same time to leave Sumatra to the Dutch. When
Malacca was taken possession of by the Portuguese
in 1511, it was one of the great centres for the com-
merce of the East ; but under Dutch rule it dwindled,
and Penang acquired a monopoly of the trade of the
Malayan Peninsula and Sumatra, together with a
large traffic with China, Siam, Borneo, the Celebes,
and other places in the Archipelago. When
Singapore was established Penang in its turn had
to yield the first place to the new city.
Singapore was acquired for Britain by Sir Stamford
Raffles in 1819, by virtue of a treaty with the Johore
princes. It was at first subordinate to Bencoolen in
Sumatra, but in 1823 it was placed under the Govern-
ment of Bengal; it was afterwards incorporated in
1826, with Penang and Malacca, and placed under the
Governor and Council of the Incorporated Settle-
ments. Singapore is now one of the great shipping
ports of the world, served by some fifty lines of
steamers, and with a trade of over 20,000,000 tons
GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC 97
a year. The harbour of Singapore is fortified, and
the port is indicated by one advanced school of
British Imperialists as the future chief base of a Fleet,
contributed to by India, Australia, New Zealand,
South Africa, and Canada, and kept to a standard of
strength equal to that available to any other two
Powers in the Pacific. Captain Macaulay, in a
strategical scheme for Imperial Defence which has
been received with deep attention in Great Britain,
suggests :
" The influence which an Indian Ocean Fleet,
based on Colombo and Singapore, would have on
Imperial Defence can hardly be exaggerated. The
Indian Ocean a British Mediterranean to the Pacific
with its openings east and west in our hands,
is a position of readiness for naval action in the
Western Pacific, the South Atlantic, or the Mediter-
ranean. In the first case it influences the defence of
Canada and the Australasian States ; in the second,
that of South Africa. An Indian Ocean Fleet can
reinforce, or be reinforced by the Fleets in European
waters, if the storm centre be confined to Europe or
to the Pacific. As regards the direct naval defence
of the Australasian Provinces, no better position
could be chosen than that of a Fleet based on
Singapore, with an advanced base at Hong Kong,
because it flanks all possible attack on them. An
advanced flank defence is better than any direct
defence of so large a coast-line as that of Australia
from any point within it. Moreover, Singapore and
98 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Hong Kong are much nearer to the naval bases of
any Powers in the Western Pacific than those
countries are to Australia or to Canada. Hence, in
operations for the defence of any Province, they
favour offensive-defensive action on our part. And
offensive-defensive is the great characteristic of naval
power. Any East Asian Power contemplating
aggression against Australasian or North American
territory must evidently first deal with the Indian
Ocean Fleet.
"It is impossible to ignore the strategical and
political significance of the Imperial triangle of India
based on South Africa and the Australasian States,
and its influence in the solution of the new problems
of Imperial Defence. The effective naval defence
of the self-governing Provinces is best secured by a
Fleet maintained in the North Indian Ocean ; and the
reinforcement of the British garrison in India is best
secured by units of the Imperial Army maintained
in the self-governing Provinces. If these two con-
ditions are satisfied, the problem of the defence of
the Mother Country is capable of easy solution."
Hong Kong is of less strategical importance than
Singapore. But it is marked out as the advanced
base of British naval power in the North Pacific. It
has one of the most magnificent harbours in the
world, with an area of ten square miles. The granite
hills which surround it rise between 2000 and 3000
feet high. The city of Victoria extends for four
miles at the base of the hills which protect the south
GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC 99
side of the harbour, and contains, with its suburbs,
326,961 inhabitants. It is the present base of the
China squadron, and is fortified and garrisoned.
As already stated, the conditions which some years
ago made the mastery of the Pacific unimportant to
India no longer exist, and the safety of the Indian
Empire depends almost as closely on the position in
the Pacific as the safety of England does on the
position in the Atlantic. But, except by making
some references in future chapters on strategy and
on trade to her resources and possibilities, I do not
propose to attempt any consideration of India in this
volume. That would unduly enlarge its scope. In
these days of quick communication, both power and
trade are very fluid, and there is really not any country
of the earth which has not in some way an influence
on the Pacific. But so far as possible I have sought
to deal only with the direct factors.
Having noted the British possessions in the North
Pacific, it is necessary to turn south and study the
young " nations of the blood " below the Equator
before estimating British Power in the Pacific.
CHAPTER VII
THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC
THOSE who seek to find in history the evidence of an
all-wise purpose might gather from the fantastic
history of Australasia facts to confirm their faith.
Far back in prehistoric ages, this great island was cut
adrift from the rest of the world and left lonely and
apart in the Southern Pacific. A few prehistoric mar-
supials wandered over its territory and were hunted by
poor nomads of men, without art or architecture, con-
demned by the conditions of their life to step aside
from the great onward current of human evolution.
Over this land the winds swept and the rains fell,
and, volcanic action having ceased, the mountains
were denuded and their deep stores of minerals bared
until gold lay about on the surface. Coal, copper,
silver, tin, and iron too, were made plentifully
accessible. At the same time enormous agricultural
plains were formed in the interior, but under climatic
conditions which allowed no development of vegetable
or animal types without organised culture by a
civilised people.
Nature thus seemed to work consciously for the
making of a country uniquely fitted for civilisation
100
THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC ' \^\
by a White Race, whilst at the same time ensuring
that its aboriginal inhabitants should not be able to
profit by its betterment, and thus raise themselves to
a degree of social organisation which would allow
them to resist an invading White Race. In the year
when Captain Cook acquired the Continent of
Australia for Great Britain, it was ripe for develop-
ment by civilised effort in a way which no other
territory of the earth then was ; and yet was so
hopelessly sterile to man without machinery and
the other apparatus of human science, that its
aboriginal inhabitants were the most forlorn of the
world's peoples, living a starveling life dependent
on poor hunting, scanty fisheries and a few roots
for existence.
It needs no great stretch of fancy to see a
mysterious design in the world-history of Australia.
Here was a great area of land stuffed with precious
and useful minerals, hidden away from the advancing
civilisation of man as effectually as if it had been in
the planet Mars. In other parts of the globe great
civilisations rose and fell the Assyrian, the Egyptian,
the Chinese, the Greek, the Roman, all drawing
from the bowels of the earth her hidden treasures,
and drawing on her surface riches with successive
harvests. In America, the Mexican, Peruvian and
' other civilisations learned to gather from the great
stocks of Nature, and built up fabrics of greatness
from her rifled treasures. In Australia alone, amid
dim, mysterious forests, the same prehistoric animals
](><? PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
roamed, the same poor nomads of men lived and
died, neither tilling nor mining the earth tenants
in occupation, content with a bare and accidental
livelihood in the midst of mighty riches.
Australia too was not discovered by the White Man
until the moment when a young nation could be
founded on the discovered principles of Justice. To
complete the marvel, as it would seem, Providence
ordained that its occupation and development should
be by the one people most eminently fitted for the
founding of a new nation on the virgin soil.
The fostering care of Nature did not end there.
The early settlers coming to Australia not only found
that nothing had been drawn from the soil or reef,
that an absolutely virgin country was theirs to exploit,
but also were greeted by a singularly happy climate,
free of all the diseases which afflicted older lands.
Prolific Australia, with all its marvellous potentialities,
lay open to them, with no warlike tribes to enforce
a bloody beginning to history, no epidemics to war
against, no savage beasts to encounter. And they
were greeted by an energising climate which seemed
to encourage the best faculties of man, just as it gave
to harvests a wonderful richness and to herds a
marvellous fecundity.
How it came to be that such a vast area of the
earth's surface, so near to the great Indian and
Chinese civilisations, should have so long remained
unknown, it is difficult to understand. There is faint
evidence that the existence of the great Southern
THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC 103
continent was guessed at in very early days, but no
attempt at exploration or settlement was made by
the Hindoos or the Chinese. When the Greeks,
who had penetrated to India under Alexander the
Great, returned to their homes, they brought back
some talk of a continent south from India, and
the later Greek literature and some Latin writers
have allusions to the tale. Marco Polo (thirteenth
century), during his voyages to the East Indies,
seems to have heard of a Southern continent, for
he speaks of a Java Major, a land much greater
than the isle of Java (which he knew), and which
was probably either New Guinea or Australia. On
a fifteenth-century map of the world now in the
British Museum there are indications of a knowledge
of the existence of Australia ; and it is undoubtedly
included in a map of the world of the sixteenth
century.
But there was evidently no curiosity as to the
suspected new continent. Australia to-day contains
not the slightest trace of contact with ancient or
Middle Ages civilisation. Exploration was attracted
to the East Indies and to Cathay by the tales of
spices, scents, gold, silver, and ivory. No such tales
came from Australia. It was to prove the greatest
gold-producing country of the world, but its natives
had no hunger for the precious metal, though it was
strewn about the ground in great lumps in some
places. Nor did sugar, spice, and ivory come from
the land ; nor, indeed, any product of man's industry
104 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
or Nature's bounty. Wrapped in its mysterious grey-
green forests, protected by a coast-line which appeared
always barren and inhospitable, Australia remained
unknown until comparatively modern times.
In 1581 the Spaniards, under Magalhaes, reached
the Philippine Islands by sailing west from the South
American coast. In the nature of things their ships
would have touched the coast of Australia. In 1606
De Quiros and De Torres reached some of the
Oceanian islands, and named one Terra Austrialia del
Espiritu Santo (the Southern Land of the Holy
Spirit). As was the case with Columbus in his
voyage of discovery to America, De Quiros had not
touched the mainland, but his voyage gave the name
" Australia " to the new continent.
The English were late in the work of exploring the
coast of Australia, though as far back as 1624 there
is a record of Sir William Courteen petitioning King
James I. for leave to plant colonies in " Terra
Australis." In 1688, William Dampier, in the
Cygnet, touched at the north-western coast of
Australia. The next year, in H.M.S. Roebuck, he
paid a visit to the new land, and, on returning to
England, put on record his impressions of its fauna
and flora. It was in 1770 that Captain Cook made
the first landing at Botany Bay.
The British nation at the time could find no use
for Australia. Annexed in 1770 it was not colonised
until 1787, when the idea was adopted of using the
apparently sterile and miserable Southern continent
THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC 105
as a depot for enforced exiles. It was a happy
chance that sent a " racketty " element of British
social life to be the first basis of the new Australian
population. The poachers, English Chartists, Irish
Fenians, Scottish land rebels (who formed the
majority of the convicts sent to Australia) were good
as nation-building material.
There was work to do there in the Pacific, there is
further work in the future, which calls for elements
of audacity, of contempt for convention, which are
being worked out of the average British type. There
could be no greater contrast between, say, a London
suburbanite, whose life travels along an endless maze
of little gravel paths between fences and trimly-kept
hedges, and the Australian of the " back country,"
who any day may ride out solitary on a week's
journey into a great sun-baked wilderness, his life and
that of his dog and his two horses dependent on the
accurate finding of a series of water-holes : his joy in
existence coming from the solitude and the desert,
the companionship of his three animals, his tobacco,
and the thought of his " mate " somewhere, whom he
would meet after six months' absence with a hand-
shake and a monosyllable by way of greeting, and yet
with the love of a fond brother.
That London suburbanite gives the key to his
kindly and softly sentimental character in his sub-
scription to a society which devotes itself to seeing
that the suburban house cat is not left shut up
without food when a family goes away on holidays.
106 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
That Australian shows how far he has reverted to the
older human type of relentless purpose when, in the
pursuit of his calling, he puts ten thousand sheep to
the chance of death from thirst. It is not that he is
needlessly cruel, but that he is sternly resolute. The
same man would share his last water with his dog in
the desert to give both an equal chance of life. He
feels the misery of beasts but says nothing, and allows
it to interfere nothing with his purpose.
X^here is a story of a clergyman coming to a back-
country station in Australia during the agony of a
great drought. He asked of the squatter permission
to hold prayers for rain in the woolshed. The
squatter turned on him, fiercely gripping him by
the arm.
" Listen ! " he cried.
From all around came the hoarse, pitiful lowing
and bleating of thousands of animals dying of thirst
and hunger.
" Listen ! If the Almighty does not hear that, will
he hear us V/
That is the type of man, bred from the wilder
types of the British race, who is the backbone of the
Australian population, and who will be the backbone
of the resistance which the White Man will make to
any overflow of Asia along the Pacific littoral.
The Australian took instinctively to his task in the
work of White civilisation that of keeping the Asiatic
out of Australia. In the early days of the goldfields,
the Chinese began to crowd to the continent, and some
THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC 107
squatters of those days designed to introduce them as
cheap and reliable shepherds. The mass of the White
population protested, with riot and rebellion in some
cases. At one time it seemed as though the guns of
British warships would fire on Australian citizens in
vindication of the right of Chinese to enter Australia.
But maternal affection was stronger than logic. The
cause of " White Australia " had its way ; and by
poll taxes and other restrictive legislation any great
influx of Asiatics was stopped. At a later date the
laws regarding alien immigration were so strengthened
that it is now almost impossible for a coloured man
to enter Australia as a colonist, even though he be a
British subject and a graduate of Oxford University.
Around the ethics of the "White Australia"
policy there has raged a fierce controversy. But it \
is certain that, without that policy, without an in-
stinctive revolt on the part of the Australian
colonists against any intrusion of coloured races,
Australia would be to-day an Asiatic colony, still
nominally held, perhaps, by a small band of White
suzerains, but ripe to fall at any moment into the
hands of its 10,000,000 or 20,000,000 Asiatic in-
habitants.
Instead of that, Australia is at once the fortress
which the White Race has thinly garrisoned against
an Asiatic advance southward, and the most tempt-
ing prize to inspire the Asiatic to that advance.
There is not the least doubt that, given Australia,
Japan could establish a power threatening the very
108 PROBLEMS FO THE PACIFIC
greatest in Europe. Her fecund people within a
couple of generations would people the coast-line
and prepare for the colonisation of the interior.
Rich fields and rich mines put at the disposal of a
frugal and industrious people would yield enormous
material wealth.
An organised China would put the island continent
to even greater use. But there Australia is, held by
a tiny White population, which increases very slowly
(for men and women have the ideas of comfort and
luxury which lead to small families), but which is
now fairly awake to the fact that on the bosom of
the Pacific and along its shores will be fought the
great race battles of the future.
It is curious for the peoples of Europe, accustomed
to associate extreme democracy and socialistic lean-
ings with ideals of pacificism and "international
brotherhood," to observe the warlike spirit of the
Australian peoples. There are no folk more "ad-
vanced " in politics. Their ideal is frankly stated to
be to make a "working man's Paradise" of the
continent. Yet they are entering cheerfully on a
great naval expenditure, and their adoption of a
system of universal training for military service
provides the only instance, except that of Switzer-
land, where the responsibility of national defence is
freely accepted by the citizen manhood of the nation.
Universal training for military service in Australia,
legally enforced in 1909, was made inevitable in
1903, when in taking over the administration of the
THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC 109
defences the first Commonwealth Government pro-
vided in its Defence Act for the levying of the
whole male population for service in case of war.
That provision was evidence of the wholesome and
natural view taken by Australians of the citizen's
duty to his nation. It was also evidence of an
ignorance of, or a blindness to, the conditions of
modern campaigning. Raw levies, if equipped with
courage and hardihood, could be of almost immediate
usefulness in the warfare of a century ago. To-day
they would be worse than useless, a burden on the
commissariat, no support in the field. The logical
Australian mind was quick to recognise this. With-
in five years it was established that, admitting a
universal duty to serve, a necessary sequence was
universal training for service.
One argument the Australian advocates of uni-
versal service had not to meet. In that pioneer
country the feeling which is responsible for a kind
of benevolent cosmopolitanism, and finds expression
in Peace Societies, had little chance of growth. The
direct conflict with Nature had brought a sense of
the reality of life's struggle, of its reality and of its
essential beauty. There is no maundering horror of
the natural facts of existence. Australian veins when
scratched bleed red blood, not a pale ichor of
Olympus. The combative instinct is recognised as
a part of human nature, a necessary and valuable
part. That defencelessness is the best means of
defence would never occur to the Australian as
110 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
being anything but an absurd idea. He recognises
the part which the combative instinct has played,
the part it still must play in civilisation : how in its
various phases it has assisted man in his upward
path ; how it has still some part to play in the
preservation and further evolution of civilisation.
The original fighting instinct was purely brutal
a rough deadly scramble for food. But it un-
doubtedly had its value in securing the survival of
the best types for the propagation of the species.
With its first great refinement, in becoming the
fight for mateship, the combative instinct was still
more valuable to evolution. The next step, when
fights came to be for ideas, marked a rapid growth
of civilisation. Exclude chivalry, patriotism, Im-
perialism, from the motives of the world, and there
would never have been a great civilisation. TVA* -
A distinguished British statesman spoke the other
day of the expenditure on armaments as possibly a
sign of "relapsing into barbarism." He might more
truly have described it as an insurance against
barbarism at once a sign of the continued existence
of the forces which made civilisation, and a proof
that the advanced races are prepared to guard with
the sword what they have won by the sword. The
Pacific has seen the tragedy of one nation which,
having won to a suave and graceful civilisation,
came to utter ruin through the elimination of the
combative instinct from its people. The Peruvians
had apparently everything to make life happy : but
THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC 111
because they had eliminated the fighting instinct
their civilisation was shattered to fragments in a
year by the irruption of a handful of Spaniards.
The Australian feels that safety and independence
must be paid for with strength, and not with abject-
ness. He does not wish to be another Peruvian :
and he builds up his socialistic Utopia with a sword
in one hand as was built a temple of Jerusalem.
Some doubt having arisen in the Australian mind,
after a system of universal training had been adopted,
whether the scheme of training was sufficient, the
greatest organiser of the British Army, Field Marshal
Lord Kitchener, was asked to visit the Common-
wealth and report on that point. His report
suggested some slight changes, which were promptly
adopted, but on the whole he approved thoroughly
of the proposed scheme, though it provided periods
of training which seem startlingly small to the
European soldier. But Lord Kitchener agreed, as
every other competent observer has agreed, that the
Australian is so much of a natural soldier owing to
his pioneering habit of life, that it takes but little
special military discipline to make him an effective
fighting unit.
Committed to a military system which will, in a
short time, make some 200,000 citizens soldiers
available in case of need, Australia's martial en-
thusiasm finds expression also in a naval programme
which is of great magnitude for so small a people.
In July 1909, an Imperial Conference on Defence
112 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
met in London, and the British Admiralty brought
down certain proposals for Imperial naval co-opera-
tion. Inter alia, the British Admiralty memorandum
stated :
" In the opinion of the Admiralty, a Dominion
Government desirous of creating a Navy should aim
at forming a distinct Fleet unit ; and the smallest
unit is one which, while manageable in time of peace,
is capable of being used in its component parts in the
time of war.
" Under certain conditions the establishment of
local defence flotillas, consisting of torpedo craft and
submarines, might be of assistance in time of war to
the operations of the Fleet, but such flotillas cannot
co-operate on the high seas in the wider duties of
protection of trade and preventing attacks from
hostile cruisers and squadrons. The operations of
Destroyers and torpedo-boats are necessarily limited
to the waters near the coast or to a radius of action
not far distant from a base, while there are great
difficulties in manning such a force and keeping it
always thoroughly efficient.
" A scheme limited to torpedo craft would not in
itself, moreover, be a good means of gradually
developing a self-contained Fleet capable of both
offence and defence. Unless a naval force what-
ever its size complies with this condition, it can
never take its proper place in the organisation of
an Imperial Navy distributed strategically over the
whole area of British interests.
THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC 113
" The Fleet unit to be aimed at should, therefore,
in the opinion of the Admiralty, consist at least of
the following : one armoured cruiser (new Indomitable
class, which is of the Dreadnought type), three
unarmoured cruisers (Bristol class), six destroyers,
three submarines, with the necessary auxiliaries such
as depot and store ships, etc., which are not here
specified.
" Such a Fleet unit would be capable of action
not only in the defence of coasts, but also of the
trade routes, and would be sufficiently powerful to
deal with small hostile squadrons, should such ever
attempt to act in its waters.
"Simply to man such a squadron, omitting
auxiliary requirements and any margin for reliefs,
sickness, etc., the minimum numbers required would
be about 2300 officers and men, according to the
Admiralty scheme of complements.
" The estimated first cost of building and arming
such a complete Fleet unit would be approximately
3,700,000, and the cost of maintenance, including
upkeep of vessels, pay, and interest and sinking
fund, at British rates, approximately 600,000 per
annum.
"The estimated cost of the officers and men
required to man the ships does not comprise the
whole cost. There would be other charges to be
provided for, such as the pay of persons employed
in subsidiary services, those undergoing training, sick,
in reserve, etc.
8
114 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
" As the armoured cruiser is the essential part of
the Fleet unit, it is important that an Indomitable
of the Dreadnought type should be the first vessel
to be built in commencing the formation of a Fleet
unit. She should be officered and manned, as far
as possible, by Colonial officers and men, supple-
mented by the loan of Imperial officers and men
who might volunteer for the service. While on the
station the ship would be under the exclusive control
of the Dominion Government as regards her move-
ments and general administration, but officers and
men would be governed by regulations similar to
the King's Regulations, and be under naval dis-
cipline. The question of pay and allowances would
have to be settled on lines the most suitable to
each Dominion Government concerned. The other
vessels, when built, would be treated in the same
manner.
" It is recognised that, to carry out completely
such a scheme as that indicated, would ultimately
mean a greater charge for naval defence than that
which the Dominions have hitherto borne ; but, on
the other hand, the building of a Dreadnought (or
its equivalent), which certain Governments have
offered to undertake, would form part of the scheme,
and therefore, as regards the most expensive item of
the shipbuilding programme suggested, no additional
cost to those Governments would be involved.
" Pari passu with the creation of the Fleet unit, it
would be necessary to consider the development of
THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC 115
local resources in everything which relates to the
maintenance of a Fleet. A careful inquiry should
be made into the shipbuilding and repairing estab-
lishments, with a view to their general adaptation to
the needs of the local squadron. Training schools
for officers and men would have to be established ;
arrangements would have to be made for the manu-
facture, supply, and replenishment of the various
naval, ordnance, and victualling stores required by
the squadron.
" All these requirements might be met according
to the views of the Dominion Governments, in so
far as the form and manner of the provision made
are concerned. But as regards shipbuilding, arma-
ments, and warlike stores, etc., on the one hand, and
training and discipline in peace and war, on the other,
there should be one common standard. If the Fleet
unit maintained by a Dominion is to be treated as an
integral part of the Imperial forces, with a wide range
of interchangeability among its component parts with
those forces, its general efficiency should be the same,
and the facilities for refitting and replenishing His
Majesty's ships, whether belonging to a Dominion
Fleet or to the Fleet of the United Kingdom, should
be the same. Further, as it is a sine qua non that
successful action in time of war depends upon unity
of command and direction, the general discipline
must be the same throughout the whole Imperial
service, and without this it would not be possible to
arrange for that mutual co-operation and assistance
J16 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
which would be indispensable in the building up and
establishing of a local naval force in close connection
with the Royal Navy. It has been recognised by the
Colonial Governments that, in time of war, the local
naval forces should come under the general directions
of the Admiralty."
The Commonwealth of Australia representatives
accepted in full the proposals as set forth in the
Admiralty memorandum. It was agreed that the
Australian Fleet unit thus constituted should form
part of the Eastern Fleet of the Empire, to be
composed of similar units of the Royal Navy, to
be known as the China and the East Indies units
respectively, and the Australian unit.
The initial cost was estimated to be approximately :
1 armoured cruiser (new Indomitable 2,000,000
class).
3 unarmoured cruisers (B?istols) at 1,050,000
350,000.
6 destroyers (River class) at 80,000 480,000
3 submarines (C class) at 55,000 . 165,000
Total 3,695,000
The annual expenditure in connection with the
maintenance of the Fleet unit, pay of personnel, and
interest on first cost and sinking fund, was estimated
to be about 600,000, to which amount a further
additional sum would have to be added in view of
the higher rates of pay in Australia and the cost of
training and subsidiary establishments, making an
estimated total of 750,000 a year.
THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC 117
The Imperial Government, until such time as the
Commonwealth could take over the whole cost,
offered to assist the Commonwealth Government by
an annual contribution of 250,000 towards the
maintenance of the complete Fleet unit; but the
offer was refused, and the Australian taxpayer took
on the whole burden at once.
Still not content, the Australian Government
arranged for a British Admiral of standing to visit
the Commonwealth and report on its naval needs.
His report suggested the quick construction of a
Fleet and of docks, etc., involving an expenditure,
within a very short time, of 28,000,000. There was
no grumbling at this from the Labour Party Govern-
ment then in power. " We have called in a doctor.
We must take his prescription," said one of the
Australian Cabinet philosophically.
The Australian, so aggressive in his patriotism, so
determined in his warlike preparations, so fitted by
heredity and environment for martial exploits, is
to-day the greatest factor in the Southern Pacific.
His aggressiveness, which is almost truculence, is a
guarantee that the British Empire will never be
allowed to withdraw from a sphere into which it
entered reluctantly. It will be necessary to point
out in a future chapter how the failure, so far, of
the Australian colonists to people their continent
adequately constitutes one of the grave dangers to
the British Power in the Pacific. That failure has
been the prompting for much criticism. It has led
118 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
to some extraordinary proposals being put forward in
Great Britain, one of the latest being that half of
Australia should be made over to Germany as a
peace offering ! But, apart from all failures and
neglect of the past (which may be remedied for the
future: indeed are now in process of remedy),
Australia is probably potentially the greatest asset of
the British race. Her capacity as a varied food pro-
ducer in particular gives her value. There is much
talk in the world to-day of "places in the sun."
Claims founded on national pride are put forward for
the right to expand. Very soon there must be a far
more weighty and dangerous clamour for " places at
table," for the right to share in the food lands of the
Earth. Populations begin to press against their
boundaries. Modern science has helped the race of
man to reach numbers once considered impossible.
Machinery, preventive medicine, surgery, sanitation,
all have helped to raise vastly his numbers. The feed-
ing of these increasing numbers becomes with each
year a more difficult problem. Territories do not
stretch with populations. Even the comparatively
new nation of the United States finds her food supply
and raw material supply tightening, and has just been
checked in an attempt to obtain a lien on the natural
resources of the British Dominion of Canada. Now,
excluding manufactures, the 4^ million people of
Australia produce wealth from farm and field and
mine to the total of 134,500,000 a year. Those 4J
millions could be raised to 40 millions without much
THE BRITISH CONTINENT IN THE PACIFIC 119
lessening of the average rate of production (only
mining and forestry would be affected).
The food production possibilities of Australia make
her of enormous future importance. They make her,
too, the object of the bitterest envy on the part of
the overcrowded, hungry peoples of the Asiatic
littoral. The Continent must be held by the British
race. It would appear to be almost as certain that
it must be attacked one day by an Asiatic race.
CHAPTER VIII
NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER BRITISH
PACIFIC COLONIES
A THOUSAND miles east of Australia is another ag-
gressive young democracy preparing to arm to the
teeth for the conflict of the Pacific, and eager to
embark upon a policy of forward Imperialism on its
own account : with aspirations, indeed, to be made
overlord of all the Pacific islands under the British
Flag.
New Zealand had a softer beginning than Australia,
and did not win, therefore, the advantages and dis-
advantages springing from the wild type of colonists
who gave to the Australian Commonwealth a sturdy
foundation. Nor has New Zealand the " Bush "
conditions which make the back-country Australian
quite a distinct type of white man. On those hot
plains of Australia, cruel to a first knowledge, very
rich in profit and welcome to the man who learns
their secrets, most potent of attraction with familiarity
and mastery, Nature exacts from man a resolute
wooing before she grants a smile of favour. But,
once conquered, she responds with most generous
120
NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER COLONIES 121
lavishness. In return, however, she sets her stamp
on the men who come to her favour, and they show
that stamp on their faces. Thin, wiry, with deep-set
peering eyes, they suggest sun-dried men. But whilst
leaching out the fat and softness from them, Nature
has compensated the " Bush " Australians with an
enduring vitality. No other men, probably, of the
world's peoples could stand such strain of work, of
hunger, of thirst. No men have finer nerves, greater
courage. They must dice with Death for their lives,
time and again staking all on their endurance, and
on the chance of the next water-hole being still un-
parched. This gives them a contempt of danger,
and some contempt of life, which shows in a cruel
touch in their character.
Imagine a white man who, keeping all his educa-
tion and maintaining his sympathy with modern
science and modern thought, withal reverts in some
characteristics to the type of the Bedouin of the
desert, and you have the typical Australian Bushman.
He is fierce in his friendships, stern in his enmities,
passionately fond of his horse, so contemptuous of
dwellings that he will often refuse to sleep in them,
Arabian in his hospitality, fatalistic in his philosophy.
He has been known to inflict torture on a native
whom he suspects of concealing the whereabouts of
a water-hole, and yet will almost kill himself to get
help for a mate in need. He is so independent that
he hates working for a " boss," and will rarely take
work on wages, preferring to live as his own master,
122 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
by hunting or fossicking, or by undertaking contract
work for forest clearing.
There is material for a great warrior nation in these
Bushmen, with their capacity for living anyhow, their
deadliness as shots, their perfect command of the
horse, their Stoic cruelty which would enable them to
face any hardship without flinching, and to inflict any
revenge without remorse.
New Zealand has not the " Bushman " type. But
as some compensation, the early New Zealand settlers
had the advantage of meeting at the very outset an
effective savage. The Australian learned all his
hardihood from Nature ; the New Zealand colonist
had the Maori to teach him, not only self-reliance but
community reliance. Whilst Nature was very kind
to him, sparing the infliction of the drought, giving
always a reasonable surety of food, he was obliged to
walk warily in fear of the powerful and warlike Maori
tribes. The phenomenon, so frequent in Australia,
of a squatter leading his family, his flocks, and his
herds out into the wilderness and fighting out there,
alone, a battle with Nature was rare in New Zealand.
There the White settlers were forced into groups by
the fear of and respect for the Maoris. From the
first they knew the value of a fortified post. Until a
very late period of their history they saw frequently
the uniforms of troops from Great Britain helping
them to garrison the towns against the natives.
As was the case with Australia, the British Empire
was very reluctant to assume control of New Zealand.
NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER COLONIES 123
Captain Cook, who annexed Australia in 1770, had
visited New Zealand in 1769, but had not acquired it
formally for the British Crown. The same explorer
returned to New Zealand several years after. But
from the date of his last departure, 1776, three decades
passed before any White settlement was attempted.
In 1788 the colonisation of Australia was begun, but
it was not until 1814 that a small body of Europeans
left Sydney and settled in New Zealand. The Rev.
Samuel Marsden, who had been Chaplain to the
Convict Colony of New South Wales, was the leader
of the band, and its mission was to Christianise the
natives. A little later the Wesleyan Church founded
a Mission in the same neighbourhood. In 1825 a
Company was formed in London to colonise New
Zealand, and it sent away a band of pioneers in the
ship Rosanna. The wild mien of the natives so
thoroughly frightened these colonists that almost all
of them returned to England. Desultory efforts at
settlement followed, small bands of British subjects
forming tiny stations at various points of the New
Zealand coast, and getting on as well as they might
with the natives, for they had no direct protection
from the British Government, which was entirely
opposed to any idea of annexing the group. There
was no fever for expansion in England at the time.
The United States had broken away. Canada seemed
to be en the point of secession. The new settlement
in Australia promised little. But the hand of the
British Government was destined to be forced in
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
the matter, and, willy-nilly, Britain had to take over
a country which is now one of her most valued
possessions.
Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield was responsible for
forcing on the British Government the acquisition of
New Zealand. The era was one of philanthropy and
keen thought for social reform in Great Britain.
The doctrines of the French Revolution still rever-
berated through Europe, and the rights of humanity
were everywhere preached to men confronted with
the existence of great social misery, which seemed to
deny to the majority of mankind even the degree of
comfort enjoyed by animals. Wakefield's remedy
was the emigration of the surplus population of the
British islands well, the British islands except Ireland,
to which country and its inhabitants Wakefield had
an invincible antipathy. The prospectus of the
Company to colonise New Zealand stated :
" The aim of this Company is not confined to mere
emigration, but is directed to colonisation in its
ancient and systematic form. Its object is to trans-
plant English society with its various graduations in
due proportions, carrying out our laws, customs,
associations, habits, manners, feelings everything of
England, in short, but the soil. We desire so now
to cast the foundations of the colony that in a few
generations New Zealand shall offer to the world a
counterpart of our country in all the most cherished
peculiarities of our own social system and national
character, as well as in wealth and power."
NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER COLONIES 125
In due time twelve ships carrying 1125 people
sailed for New Zealand. That was the beginning of
a steady flow of emigrants mostly recruited by various
Churches, and settled in groups in different parts of
the New Zealand islands members of the Free
Church of Scotland at Otago, of the Church of
England at Canterbury, men of Devon and Cornwall
men at New Plymouth.
The British Government could hardly shake off all
responsibility for these exiles. But it did its best to
avoid annexation, and even adopted the remarkable
expedient of recognising the Maoris as a nation,
and encouraging them to choose a national standard.
The Maori Flag was actually flown on the high seas
for a while, and at least on one occasion received a
salute from a British warship. But no standard could
give a settled polity to a group of savage tribes. The
experiment of setting up " The Independent Tribes of
New Zealand " as a nation failed. In 1840, Great
Britain formally took over the New Zealand islands
from the natives under the treaty of Waitangi, which
is said to be the only treaty on record between a white
race and a coloured race which has been faithfully
kept to this day.
" This famous instrument," writes a New Zealand
critic, " by which the Maoris, at a time when they
were apparently unconquerable, voluntarily ceded
sovereign rights over their country to Queen Victoria,
is practically the only compact between a civilised and
an uncivilised race which has been regarded and
126 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
honoured through generations of difficulties, distrust,
and even warfare. By guaranteeing to the Maori
the absolute ownership of their patrimonial lands and
the enjoyment of their ancestral rights and customs,
it enabled them to take their place as fully enfran-
chised citizens of the British Empire, and to present
the solitary example of a dark race surviving contact
with a white, and associating with it on terms of
mutual regard, equality and unquestioned loyalty.
The measure of this relationship is evident from the
fact that Maori interests are represented by educated
natives in both houses of the New Zealand Parliament
and in the Ministry. The strict observance of the
Treaty of Waitangi is part and parcel of the national
faith of the New Zealanders, and a glorious monu-
ment to the high qualities of one of the finest races
of aboriginal peoples the world has ever seen."
The New Zealand colonists, having won the blessing
of the British Flag, were not well content. Very
shortly afterwards we find Mr James Edward Fitz-
Gerald writing to Wakefield, who was contemplating
a trip to New Zealand.
" After all, this place is but a village. Its politics
are not large enough for you. But there are politics
on this side the world which would be so. It seems
unquestionable that in the course of a very few years
sometimes I think months the Australian colonies
will declare their independence. We shall live to see
an Australasian Empire rivalling the United States
in greatness, wealth and power. There is a field for
NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER COLONIES 127
great statesmen. Only yesterday I was saying,
talking about you, that if you come across the world
it must be to Australia ; just in time to draw up the
Declaration of Independence."
But that phase passed. New Zealand to-day
emulates Australia in a fervent Imperial patriotism,
and at the 1911 Imperial Conference her Prime
Minister, Sir Joseph Ward, was responsible for the
following proposal which was too forward in its
Imperialism to be immediately acceptable to his
fellow delegates :
"That the Empire has now reached a stage of
Imperial development which renders it expedient that
there should be an Imperial Council of State, with
representatives from all the self-governing parts of
the Empire, in theory and in fact advisory to the
Imperial Government on all questions affecting the
interests of his Majesty's Dominions oversea."
He urged the resolution on the following grounds :
(1) Imperial unity ; (2) organised Imperial defence ;
(3) the equal distribution of the burden of defence
throughout the Empire ; (4) the representation of
self-governing oversea Dominions in an Imperial
Parliament of defence for the purpose of determining
peace or war, the contributions to Imperial defence,
foreign policy as far as it affects the Empire, inter-
national treaties so far as they affect the Empire, and
such other Imperial matters as might by agreement
be transferred to such Parliament.
In advocating his resolution Sir Joseph Ward made
128 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
an interesting forecast of the future of the British
nations whose shores were washed by the Pacific.
He estimated that if the present rate of increase were
maintained, Canada would have in twenty-five years
from now between 30,000,000 and 40,000,000 in-
habitants. In Australia, South Africa, and New
Zealand the proportionate increase could not be
expected to be so great, but he believed that in
twenty-five years' time the combined population of
those oversea Dominions would be much greater
than that of the United Kingdom. Those who
controlled the destinies of the British Empire would
have to consider before many years had passed the
expansion of these oversea countries into powerful
nations, all preserving their own local autonomy, all
being governed to suit the requirements of the
people within their own territory, but all deeply
concerned in keeping together in some loose form of
federation to serve the general interests of all parts
of the Empire.
At a later stage, in reply to Sir Wilfrid Laurier,
Prime Minister of Canada, Sir Joseph Ward indulged
in an even more optimistic prophecy. The United
States, he said, had something like 100,000,000 people.
The prospective possibility of Canada for settlement
purposes was not less than that of the United States,
and the Dominion was capable of holding a popula-
tion of 100,000,000 in the future. Australia also
was capable of holding a similar number, although
it would necessarily be a great number of years
NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER COLONIES 129
before that position was reached. South Africa, too,
could hold 100,000,000 people. It was no exaggera-
tion to suggest that those three Dominions were
capable of holding 300,000,000 of people with great
comfort as compared with certain overcrowded
countries. New Zealand, in the opinion of many
well-qualified men, could carry upwards of 40,000,000
people with comparative ease and comfort.
But these figures are hardly scientific. Climatic
and other considerations will prevent Canada from
reaching quite the same degree of greatness as the
United States. British South Africa could " hold "
100,000,000 people, but it could not support them
on present appearances. The possibilities of Aus-
tralian settlement are difficult to be exaggerated in
view of the steady dwindling of the "desert" area
in the light of recent research and exploration, and
of the fact that all her area is blessed with a genial
climate. New Zeaktfcl, "to keep 40,000,000 people,
would need, however, to^have a density of 400
people per square inile, a density surpassed to-day
in Belgium and Holland but not reached by Great
Britain. A fairly conservative estimate of the
possibilities of the British Empire would allow it for
the future a white population of 200,000,000, of
whom at least half would be grouped near the shores
of the Pacific. Presuming a British Imperial
Federation on Sir Joseph Ward's lines with such a
population, and the mastery of the Pacific would be
settled. But that is for the future, the far future.
9
130 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Sir Joseph Ward, in the event, was not able to
carry the Imperial Conference with him, the majority
of the delegates considering that the time had not yet
come for the organisation of an Imperial Federal
system. But it is possible that with the passing of
time and the growth of the population of the
Dominions overseas, some such system may evolve :
and a British Empire Parliament may sit one day at
Westminster, at Vancouver or at Sydney. Certainly
the likelihood is that the numerical balance of the
British race will shift one day from the Atlantic to
the Pacific.
Following Australia's example, New Zealand has
adopted a system of universal training for military
service, but there are indications that she will not
enforce it quite so rigorously as her neighbour. In
the matter of naval defence, at the Conference of
1909 the New Zealand attitude was thus defined by
her Prime Minister :
"I favour one great Imperial Navy with all the
Overseas Dominions contributing, either in ships or
money, and with naval stations at the self-governing
Dominions supplied with ships by and under the
control of the Admiralty. I, however, realise the
difficulties, and recognise that Australia and Canada
in this important matter are doing that which their
respective Governments consider to be best ; but the
fact remains that the alterations that will be brought
about upon the establishment of an Australian unit
will alter the present position with New Zealand.
NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER COLONIES 131
"New Zealand's maritime interests in her own
waters, and her dependent islands in the Pacific
would, under the altered arrangements, be almost
entirely represented by the Australian Fleet unit,
and not, as at present, by the Imperial Fleet. This
important fact, I consider, necessitates some suitable
provision being made for New Zealand, which
country has the most friendly feeling in every respect
for Australia and her people, and I am anxious that
in the initiation of new arrangements with the
Imperial Government under the altered conditions,
the interests of New Zealand should not be over-
looked. I consider it my duty to point this out, and
to have the direct connection between New Zealand
and the Royal Navy maintained in some concrete
form.
" New Zealand will supply a Dreadnought for the
British Navy as already offered, the ship to be under
the control of and stationed wherever the Admiralty
considers advisable.
" I fully realise that the creation of specific units,
one in the East, one in Australia, and, if possible,
one in Canada, would be a great improvement upon
the existing condition of affairs, and the fact that the
New Zealand Dreadnought was to be the flag-ship of
the China-Pacific unit is, in my opinion, satisfactory.
I, however, consider it is desirable that a portion of
the China-Pacific unit should remain in New Zealand
waters, and I would suggest that two of the new
" Bristol " cruisers, together with three destroyers
132 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
and two submarines, should be detached from the
China station in time of peace and stationed in New
Zealand waters ; that these vessels should come
under the flag of the Admiral of the China unit ;
that the flagship should make periodical visits to New
Zealand waters ; and that there should be an inter-
change in the service of the cruisers between New
Zealand and China, under conditions to be laid down.
" The ships should be manned, as far as possible,
by New Zealand officers and men, and, in order that
New Zealanders might be attracted to serve in the
Fleet, local rates should be paid to those New
Zealanders who enter, in the same manner as under
the present Australian and New Zealand agreement,
such local rates being treated as deferred pay.
"The determination of the agreement with
Australia has, of necessity, brought up the position
of New Zealand under that joint agreement. I
therefore suggest that on completion of the China
unit, the present agreement with New Zealand should
cease, that its contribution of 100,000 per annum
should continue and be used to pay the difference in
the rates of pay to New Zealanders above what
would be paid under the ordinary British rate. If
the contribution for the advanced rate of pay did not
amount to 100,000 per annum, any balance to be at
the disposal of the Admiralty.
" The whole of this Fleet unit to be taken in hand
and completed before the end of 1912, and I should
be glad if the squadron as a whole would then visit
NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER COLONIES 133
New Zealand on the way to China, leaving the New
Zealand detachment there under its senior officer."
From the difference between the naval arrange-
ments of Australia and New Zealand can be gathered
some hints of the difference between the national
characteristics of the two young nations. Australia
is aggressively independent in all her arrangements :
loyal to the British Empire and determined to help its
aims in every way, but to help after her own fashion
and with armies and navies recruited and trained
by herself. New Zealand, with an equal Imperial
zeal, has not the same national self-consciousness and
is willing to allow her share of naval defence to take
the form of a cash payment. Probably the most
effective naval policy of New Zealand would be
founded on a close partnership with Australia, the
two nations combining to maintain one Fleet. But
that New Zealand does not seem to desire. She is,
however, content to be a partner with Australia in
one detail of military administration. The military
college for the training of officers at the Australian
Federal capital is shared with New Zealand. The
present Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Fisher, is
taking steps towards securing a closer defence bond
with New Zealand. 1
In an aspiration towards forward Imperialism, New
1 Since writing, in March 1.912, there has been an attempt on
the part of the Australian Prime Minister to come to some closer
naval arrangement with New Zealand ; and the attempt seems to
promise to be successful.
134 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Zealand is fully at one with Australia. But she has
the idea that the control of the Southern Pacific,
outside of the continent of Australia, is the right of
New Zealand, and dreams of a New Zealand Empire
embracing the island groups of Polynesia. It will be
one of the problems of the future for the British
Power to restrain the exuberant racial pride of
these South Pacific nations, who see nothing in the
European situation which should interfere with a
full British control of the South Pacific.
In addition to Australia and New Zealand, the
British Empire has a number of minor possessions in
the South Pacific. In regard to almost all of them,
the same tale of reluctant acceptance has to be told.
New Guinea was annexed by the Colony of Queens-
land, anxious to set on foot a foreign policy of her
own, in 1883. The British Government repudiated
the annexation, and in the following year reluctantly
consented to take over for the Empire a third of the
great island on condition that the Australian States
agreed to guarantee the cost of the administration of
the new possession. The Fiji Group was offered to
Great Britain by King Thakombau in 1859, and was
refused. Some English settlers then began to ad-
minister the group on a system of constitutional
government under Thakombau. It was not until
1874 that the British Government accepted these
rich islands, and then somewhat ungraciously and
reluctantly, influenced to the decision by the fact
that the alternative was German acquisition.
NEW ZEALAND AND THE SMALLER COLONIES 135
It was no affectation of coyness on the part of the
successive British Governments which dictated a
refusal when South Pacific annexations were mooted.
Time after time it was made clear that the Home
Country wanted no responsibilities there. Yet to-
day, as the result mainly of the impulse of Empire
and adventure in individual British men, the British
Flag flies over the whole continent of Australia,
Tasmania, New Zealand, a part of New Guinea,
Fiji, and the Ellice, Gilbert, Kermadec, Friendly,
Chatham, Cook, and many other groups. It is a
strange instance of greatness thrust upon a people.
CHAPTER IX
THE NATIVE RACES
THE native races of the South Pacific, with the possible
exception of the Maori, will have no influence in
settling the destiny of the ocean. Neither the
Australian aboriginal nor the Kanaka under which
last general title may be grouped all the tribes of
Papua, the Solomons, the New Hebrides and other
Oceanic islands will provide the foundation of a
nation. It is one of the curiosities of world-history
that no great race has ever survived which had its
origin in a land south of the Equator. From the
earliest civilisations to the latest, there is not a single
instance of a people of the southern hemisphere
exercising any notable effect on the world's destinies.
Sometimes there seems no adequate reason for this.
That Africa north of the Equator should have pro-
duced a great civilisation, which was the early guide
and instructor of the European civilisations, may be
explained in part by the curious phenomenon of the
Nile delta, a tract of land the irrigation of which
at regular intervals by mysterious natural forces
prompted inquiry, and suggested that all the asperities
of Nature could be softened by effort. (The spirit of
136
THE NATIVE RACES 137
inquiry and the desire for artificial comfort are the
great promptings to civilisation.) But it is difficult
to understand why in America the aboriginal Mexicans
should have been so much more warlike than the
Peruvians or any other people in South America ;
and why the West Pacific should wash with its
northern waters the lands of two great races, and with
its southern waters flow past lands which, though of
greater fertility, remained almost empty, or else were
peopled by childlike races, careless of progress and
keen only to enjoy the simple happiness offered by
Nature's bounty.
The Australian aboriginal race is rapidly dwindling :
one of its branches, that which populated the fertile
and temperate island of Tasmania, is already extinct.
In Tasmania, reacting to the influence of a mild and
yet stimulating climate, a climate comparable with
that of Devon in England, but more sunny, the
Australasian native had won to his highest point of
development. Apparently, too, he had won to his
highest possible point, for there is evidence that for
many generations no progress at all had been made
towards civilisation. Yet that point was so low in
the stage of evolution that it was impossible for the
poor natives to take any part, either as a separate
race, or by mingling their blood with another race, in
the future of the Pacific. The black Australian is
a primitive rather than a degraded man. Most
ethnologists have concluded that this black Australian
is a Caucasian. Wallace ascribes to him kinship with
138 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
the Veddas and the Ainus of Asia. Stratz takes the
Australian as the prototype of all the races of man.
Schoetensack contends that the human race had its
origin in the Australian continent.
But, however dignified by ancestry, the Australian
aboriginal was pathetically out of touch with modern
civilisation. He broke down utterly at its advent,
not so much because of his bad qualities as because of
his childishness. Not only were alcohol, opium and
greed strange to him^ but also weapons of steel and
horses and clothing. He had never learnt to dig, to
build, to weave. War organisation had not been
thought of, and his tribal fights were prodigal of
noise but sparing of slaughter. When the White
Man came, it was inevitable that this simple primitive
should dwindle from the face of the earth. It is not
possible to hold out any hope for the future of the
Australian blacks. They can never emulate the
Maoris of New Zealand, who will take a small share
in the building up of a nation. All that may be hoped
for is that their certain end will be kept back as
long as is humanly possible, and that their declining
days will be softened by all kindness. A great reserve
in the Northern Territory a reserve from which the
White population would be jealously excluded, and
almost as jealously the White fashions of clothing and
house-building holds out the best hope for their
future. It is comforting to think that the Australian
Government is now resolved to do all in its power for
the aboriginals. Indeed, to be just, authority has
THE NATIVE RACES 139
rarely lacked in kindness of intention ; it has been the
cruelty of individuals acting in defiance of authority,
but aided by the supineness of authority, that has
been responsible for most of the cruelty.
The Maori or native New Zealander was of a
different type. The Maori was an immigrant to New
Zealand. Some time back there was an overflow of
population from the fertile sub-tropical islands of
Malaysia. A tribe which had already learned some
of the arts of life, which was of a proud and warlike
character, took to the sea, as the Norsemen did in
Europe, and sought fresh lands for colonisation. Not
one wave, but several, of this outflow of colonists
struck New Zealand. The primitive people there, the
Morioris, could offer but little resistance to the war-
like Malaysians, and speedily were vanquished, a few
remnants finding refuge in the outlying islets of the
New Zealand group. Probably much the same type
of emigrant occupied Hawaii at one time, for the
Hawaiian and the Maori have much in common.
But whilst the perpetual summer of Hawaii softened
and enervated its colonists, the bracing and vigorous
climate of New Zealand had a precisely opposite
effect. The dark race of the Pacific reached there a
very high state of development.
The Maori system of government was tribal, and
there does not seem to have been, up to the time of
the coming of the White Man, any attempt on the
part of one chief to seize supreme power and become
king. Land was held on a communal system, and
140 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
cultivated fairly well. Art existed, and was applied
to boat-building, to architecture, to the embroidering
of fabrics, to the carving of stone and wood. War
was the great pastime, and cannibalism was customary.
Probably this practice was brought by the Maoris
from their old home. If it had not been, it might
well have sprung up under the strange conditions of
life in the new country, for New Zealand naturally
possessed not a single mammal, not a beast whose
flesh might be eaten. There were birds and lizards,
and that was all. The Maoris brought with them
dogs, which were bred for eating, but were too few
in number to provide a satisfactory food-supply ;
and rats, which were also eaten. With these
exceptions there was no flesh food, and the invitation
to cannibalism was clear.
A more pleasant feature of the national life of the
Maori was a high degree of chivalry. In war and
in love he seems to have had very much the same
ideas of conduct as the European of the Age of
Chivalry. He liked the combat for the combat's
own sake, and it is recorded as one of the incidents
of the Maori War that when a besieged British
force ran short of ammunition, the Maori enemy
halved with them their supply, "so as to have a
fair fight."
In his love affairs the Maori was romantic and
poetic. His legends and his native poetry suggest
a state of society in which there was a high respect
for women, who had to be wooed and won, and were
THE NATIVE RACES 141
not the mere chattels of the men-warriors. Since
this respect for womenkind is a great force for civilisa-
tion, there is but little doubt that, if the Maoris had
been left undisturbed for a few more centuries, they
would have evolved a state of civilisation comparable
with that of the Japanese or the Mexicans.
When Captain Cook visited New Zealand in 1769
the Maori race probably numbered some 100,000.
The results of coming into contact with civilisation
quickly reduced that number to about 50,000. But
there was then a stay in the process of extinction.
The Maori began to learn the virtues as well as the
vices of civilisation. " Pakeha " medicine and sanita-
tion were adopted, and the Maori birth-rate began to
creep up, the Maori death-rate to decrease. It is
not probable that the Maori race will ever come to
such numbers as to be a factor of importance in the
Pacific. But it will have some indirect influence.
Having established the right to grow up side by
side with the White colonists, possessing full political
and social rights, the Maoris will probably modify
somewhat the New Zealand national type. We
shall see in New Zealand, within a reasonable time,
a population of at least 10,000,000 of people, of
whom perhaps 1,000,000 will be Maoris. The effect
of this mixture of the British colonising type with a
type somewhat akin to the Japanese will be interest-
ing to watch. In all probability New Zealand will
shelter a highly aggressive and a fiercely patriotic
nation in the future (as indeed she does at present).
142 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
The Malay States bred a vigorous and courageous
race of seamen, and Malay blood has been dispersed
over many parts of the Pacific, Malays probably
providing the chief parent stock both for the
Hawaiians and the Maoris. But the Malay Power
has been broken up to such an extent that a Malay
nation is now impossible. Since the British overlord-
ship of the Malay Peninsula, the Chinese have been
allowed free access to the land and free trading
rights ; and they have ousted the original inhabitants
to a large extent.
The Maori excepted, no race of Polynesia or
Melanesia will survive to affect the destinies of the
Pacific Ocean. Nature was cruelly kind to the
Kanaka peoples in the past, and they must pay for
their happiness now. In the South Pacific islands,
until White civilisation intruded, the curse of Adam,
which is that with the sweat of the brow bread must
be won, had not fallen. Nature provided a Garden
of Eden where rich food came without digging and
raiment was not needed. Laughing nations of
happy children grew up. True, wars they had, and
war brought woe. But the great trouble, and also
the great incentive to progress of life, they had not.
There was no toiling for leave to live. Civilisation,
alas ! intrudes now, more urgent each year, to bring
its "blessings" of toil, disease, and drabness of
fettered life ; and the Paradise of the South Sea yields
to its advance here with the sullen and passionate
resentment of the angry child, there with the pathetic
THE NATIVE RACES 143
listlessness of the child too afraid to be angry. But,
still, there survives in tree and flower, bird and beast,
and in aboriginal man, much that has the suggestion
rather of the Garden of Eden than of this curious
world which man has made for himself a world of
exacting tasks and harsh taskmasters, of ugly houses
and smoke-stained skies, of machinery and of en-
slaving conventions.
With the White Man came sugar plantations and
cotton fields. The Kanaka heard the words " work "
and "wages." He laughed brightly, and went on
chasing the butterfly happiness. To work a little
while, for the fun of the thing, he was willing enough.
Indeed, any new sort of task had a fascination for
his childish nature. But steady toil he abhorred,
and for wages he had no use.
Some three years ago I watched for an hour or
two, from the veranda of a house at Suva, a Fijian
garden-boy at work. This was a " good " garden-boy,
noted in the town for his industry. And he played
with his work with an elegant naivete that was al-
together charming to one who had not to be his
paymaster. Almost bare of clothing, his fine bronzed
muscles rippled and glanced to show that he had the
strength for any task if he had but the will. Perhaps
the gentleness of his energy was inspired by the
aesthetic idea of just keeping his bronze skin a little
moist, so as to bring out to the full its satin grace
without blurring the fine anatomical lines with drops
of visible sweat. His languid grace deserved that it
144 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
should have had some such prompting. If a bird
alighted on a tree, the Fijian quickly dropped his hoe
and pursued it with stones, which his bright smile
said were not maliciously meant, but had a purpose
of greeting. An insect, a passing wayfarer, the fall
of a leaf, a cloud in the sky, all provided equally
good reasons for stopping work. Finally, at three a
little shower came, and the " model boy " of Fijian
industry thankfully ceased work for the day.
A gracious, sweet, well-fed idleness was Nature's
dower to the Pacific Islander, until the White Man
came with his work, as an angel with a flaming sword,
and Paradise ended. Now the fruit of that idleness
is that the Kanaka can take no part in the bustling
life of modern civilisation.
In one British settlement, Papua, a part of New
Guinea, the Australian Government is endeavouring
to lead a Kanaka race along the path of modern
progress. " Papua for the Papuans," is the keynote
of the administration, and all kinds of devices are
adopted to tempt the coloured man to industry.
His Excellency, Colonel Murray, the Administrator
of Papua, told me in London (where he was on leave)
last year (1911) that he had some hopes that the
cupidity of the Papuans would in time tempt them
to some settled industry. They had a great liking
for the White Man's adornments and tools, and, to
gratify that liking, were showing some inclination for
work. The effort is well meant, but probably vain.
" Civilisation is impossible where the banana grows,"
THE NATIVE RACES 145
declared an American philosopher : and the generalisa-
tion was sound. The banana tree provides food
without tillage : and an organic law of this civilisation
of ours is that man must be driven, by hunger and
thirst and the desire for shelter, to plan, to organise,
to make machines, to store.
Every nation in the Pacific has the same experience.
In the Hawaiian Group, the American Power finds
the native race helpless material for nation-making.
The Hawaiian takes on a veneer of civilisation, but
nothing can shake him from his habits of indolence.
He adopts American clothes, lives in American houses,
learns to eat pie and to enjoy ice-cream soda. He
plays at the game of politics with voluble zeal. But
he is still a Kanaka, and takes no real part in the
progress of the flourishing territory of Hawaii.
Americans do the work of administration. Im-
ported Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and others,
are the coolies and the traders. The Hawaiian
talks, basks in the sun, adorns himself with wreaths
of odorous flowers, and occasionally declaims with
the pathetic bleat of an enraged sheep at " American
tyranny."
When White civilisation came to the South Pacific,
the various islands held several millions of coloured
peoples, very many of them enjoying an idyllically
happy system of existence. To-day, 50,000 Maoris,
beginning to hold their own in the islands of New
Zealand, represent the sole hope of all those peoples
to have any voice at all in the Pacific. Humanitarian
10
146 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
effort may secure the survival for a time of other
groups of islanders, but the ultimate prospects are
not bright. Probably what is happening at Fiji,
where the Fijian fades away in the face of a more
strenuous coolie type imported from India, and at
Hawaii, will happen everywhere in the South Pacific.
CHAPTER X
LATIN AMERICA
LATIN AMERICA is the world's great example of race-
mixture. Europeans and Indians have intermixed
from Terra del Fuego to the northern boundary of
Mexico, and the resultant race, with some differences
due to climate, has general points of resemblance
over all that vast territory. There is prompting to
speculation as to the reasons why in Spanish and
Portuguese America race mixture was the rule, in
Anglo-Saxon America the exception. It was not
the superior kindness of the Latin people which paved
the way to confidence and inter- marriage. No one
can doubt that, badly stained as are the records of
the Anglo-Saxons in America, the records of the
Latins are far, far worse. Yet the Latin, between
intervals of massacre, prepared the nuptial couch, and
a Latin-Indian race survives to-day whilst there is
no Teutonic-Indian race.
Probably it is a superior sense of racial responsibility
and racial superiority which has kept the Anglo-
Saxon colonist from mingling his blood with that
of the races he made subject to him. He shows a
reproduction in a modern people of the old Hebraic
147
148 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
spirit of elect nationality. In truth, there may be
advanced some excuse for those fantastic theorists
who write large volumes to prove that ten tribes
were once lost from Israel and might have been
found soon after in Britain. If there were no other
circumstances on which to found the theory (which, I
believe, has not the slightest historical basis), the
translation of the Old Testament into the English
language would amply serve. It is the one great
successful translation of the world's literary history :
it makes any other version of the Bible in a European
language including that pseudo-English one done
at Douai seem pallid and feeble ; it rescues the
Hebrew sentiment and the Hebrew poetry from out
the morass of the dull Greek translation. And it
does all this seemingly because the Elizabethan
Englishman resembled in temperament, in outlook,
in thought, the Chosen People of the time of
David.
The Elizabethan Anglo-Saxon wandering out on
the Empire trail treated with cruelty and contempt
the Gentile races which he encountered. He has
since learned to treat them with kindness and con-
tempt. But he has never sunk the contempt, and
the contempt saves him from any general practice
of miscegenation. In ruling the blind heathen, more
fussy peoples fail because they wish to set the
heathen right : to induce the barbarian to become
as they are. The Anglo-Saxon does not particularly
wish to set the heathen right. He is right: that
LATIN AMERICA 149
suffices. It is not possible for inferior races ever to
be like him. It is wise, therefore, to let them wallow.
So long as they give to him the proper reverence,
he is satisfied. Thus the superb, imperturbable
Anglo-Saxon holds aloof from inferior races: governs
them coolly, on the whole justly ; but never attempts
to share their life. His plan is to enforce strictly
from a subject people the one thing that he wants
of them, and to leave the rest of their lives without
interference. They may fill the interval with hoodoo
rites, caste divisions or Mumbo-Jumbo worship, as
they please. So long as such diversions have no
seditious tendencies they are viewed, if not with
approval, at least with tolerance. Indeed, if that
be suitable to his purpose, the Anglo-Saxon governor
of the heathen will subsidise the Dark Races' High
Priest of Mumbo-Jumbo. Thus a favourite British
remedy for the sorcerer, who is the great evil of the
South Sea Islands, is not a crusade against sorcery,
which would be very troublesome and rather useless,
but to purchase over the chief sorcerers who come
very cheap when translated into English currency
and make them do their incantations on behalf of
orderly government (insisting, by the way, on more
faithful service than Balaam gave).
It is his race arrogance, equally with his robust
common-sense, that makes the Anglo-Saxon the ideal
coloniser and governor of Coloured Races : and there
is no room for miscegenation in an ideal system.
America, considered in its two sections, Latin
150 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
America and Anglo-Saxon America, gives a good
opportunity for comparison of colonising methods.
To-day North of the 30th parallel the Republic of
the United States shows as the greatest White nation
of the world, greatest in population and material
prosperity ; and the young nation of Canada enters
buoyantly upon the path of a big career. South of
that parallel there are great populations, but they
are poor in resources, and as a rule poorly governed,
poorly educated. Some of the Latin- American races
show promise Chili and the Argentine Republic
most of all, yet none is comparable or ever likely
to be comparable with the Republic of North
America.
Yet before Columbus sailed from Europe the
position was exactly reversed. North of the 30th
parallel of northern latitude there was but a vagabond
beginning of civilisation. South of that parallel two
fine nations had built up polities comparable in
many respects with those of the European peoples
of to-day. What Peru and Mexico would have
become under conditions of Anglo-Saxon conquest,
it is, of course, impossible to say. But there is an
obvious conclusion to be drawn from the fact that
the Anglo-Saxon colonists found a wilderness and
built up two great nations: the Latin colonists
found two highly organised civilisations, and left a
wilderness from which there now emerges a hope,
faint and not yet certain, of a Latin - American
Power.
LATIN AMERICA 151
The story of Peru is one of the great tragedies
of history. The Peruvian Empire at the time of
the Spanish invasion stretched along the Pacific
Ocean over the territory which now comprises
Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chili. Natural con-
ditions along that coastal belt had been favourable
to the growth of civilisation. A strip of land about
twenty leagues wide runs along the coast, hemmed
in by the Andes on one side, by the sea on the other.
This strip of coast land is fed by a few scanty
streams. Above, the steppes of the Sierra, of granite
and porphyry, have their heights wrapped in eternal
snows. Here was the call for work, which is the
main essential of civilisation. The Peruvians con-
structed a system of canals and subterranean aque-
ducts, wrought with extraordinary skill by instruments
and tools made of stone and copper (though iron
was plentiful its use had not been learned). Thus
they cultivated the waste places. In some respects
their life conditions were similar to those of the
Egyptians. Their agriculture was highly advanced
and comprehensive. Their religion was sun-worship,
and on it was based a highly organised theocracy.
Tradition said that a son and daughter of the Sun,
who were also man and wife, were sent by their
father to teach the secrets of life to the Peruvians.
These divinities were the first Incas.
The civil and military systems of the Peruvians
were admirable in theory, though doomed to break
down utterly under the savage test of the Spanish
152 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
invasion. The Empire was divided into four- parts ;
into each ran one of the great roads which diverged
from Cuzco ( u the navel "), the capital. The provinces
were ruled by viceroys, assisted by councils ; all
magistrates and governors were selected from the
nobility. By law, the Peruvian was forced to marry
at a certain age. Sufficient land was allotted him
to maintain himself and his wife, and an additional
grant was made for each child. There was a yearly
adjustment and renewal of land grants. Conditions
of theocratic and despotic socialism marked most
departments of civil life. In what may be called
"foreign politics" the Incas pursued conquest by a
Florentine policy of negotiation and intrigue. In
dealing with neighbouring foes they acted so that
when they at last came into the Peruvian Empire,
they should have uncrippled resources and amicable
sentiments. The Spaniards have described the
Peruvians as "lazy, luxurious and sensual." It
would have been equally correct to have said that
they were contented, refined and amiable. Their
very virtues made it impossible for them to defend
themselves against the Spaniards.
The Spanish adventurers who were destined to
destroy the elegant and happy civilisation of the
Peruvians a civilisation which had solved the prob-
lem of poverty, and gave to every citizen a comfort-
able existence were children of Spain at her highest
pitch of power and pride. Gold and his God were
the two objects of worship of the Spaniard of that
LATIN AMERICA 153
day, and his greed did no more to sully his wild
courage with cruelty than his religion, which had been
given a fierce and gloomy bent towards persecution
by the struggles with the Moors.
In 15M Vasco Nunez da Balboa was told in Mexico
of a fabulously rich land where " gold was as cheap
as iron." Balboa in the search for it achieved the fine
feat of crossing from Central America the mountain
rampart of the isthmus. Reaching the Pacific, he
rushed into its waters crying, " I claim this unknown
sea with all it contains for the King of Castile, and
I will make good this claim against all who dare to
gainsay it." There Balboa got clearer news of Peru,
and pushed on to within about twenty leagues of the
Gulf of St Michael. But the achievement of Peru was
reserved for another man. In 1524 Francisco Pizarro
set out upon the conquest of Peru. Pizarro had
all the motives for wild adventure. An illegitimate
child his father a colonel of infantry, his mother
of humble condition, he had reached middle age
without winning a fortune, yet without abating his
ambition. He was ready for any desperate enter-
prise. After two unsuccessful attempts to reach
Peru, the Spanish freebooter finally succeeded, lead-
ing a tiny force across the Andes to Caxamalco,
where he encountered the Inca, who received the
strangers peaceably. But no kindness could stave
off the lust for gold and slaughter of the Spaniards.
Because the Inca refused at a moment's notice to
accept the Christian God, as explained to him by
154 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
a Spanish friar, a holy war was declared against
the Peruvians. The wretched people understood as
little the treachery and the resolute cruelty of the
Spaniards as their gunpowder and their horses.
Paralysed by their virtues, they fell easy victims,
as sheep to wolves.
A career of rapine and bloodshed led to the com-
plete occupation of the country by the Spaniards, and
the vassalage of the natives. Civil war amongst the
conquerors, into which the natives were willy-nilly
dragged, aggravated the horrors of this murder of a
nation. The Spaniards looted and tortured the men,
violated the women, and were so merciless as to carry
on their war even against the natural resources of the
country. They used to kill the llama or native sheep
for the sake of its brains, which were considered a
delicacy. Yet Pizarro, in his instructions from Spain,
which secured to him the right of conquest and dis-
covery in Peru, and various titles and privileges,
was expressly enjoined "to observe all regulations
for the good government and protection of the
natives."
The fact that the Spaniards condescended to racial
mixture with the Indians did nothing to heal the
scars of such suffering. The half-breeds grew up with
a hatred of Spain, and they had borrowed from their
fathers some of their savagery. The mild Peruvian
would have bred victims for generation after genera-
tion. The Spanish-Peruvian cross bred avengers.
Early in the nineteenth century Spain was driven out
LATIN AMERICA 155
of South America and a series of Latin- American
Republics instituted.
In 1815 the Napoleonic wars having ended with
the cageing of the great soldier, Spain proposed to
the Holy Alliance of European monarchs a joint
European effort to restore her dominion over the
revolted colonies in South America. But Napoleon
had done his work too well to allow of any alliance,
however " holy," to re-assert the divine right of kings.
Whilst he had been overthrowing the thrones of
Europe, both in North and South America free
nations had won recognition with the blood of their
people. The United States, still nationally an infant,
but sturdy withal, promulgated the Monroe doctrine
as a veto on any European war of revenge against
the South American Republics. Great Britain was
more sympathetic to America than to the Holy
Alliance. The momentarily re-established Kings
and Emperors of Europe had therefore to hold their
hand. It was a significant year, creating at once
a free Latin America and a tradition that Latin
America should look to Anglo-Saxon America for
protection.
Passing north of the Isthmus of Panama, there
come up for consideration another group of Latin-
American States of which the racial history resembles
closely that of South America. The little cluster of
Central American States can hardly be taken seriously.
Their ultimate fate will probably be that of Cuba
nominal independence under the close surveillance
156 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
of the United States. But, farther north, Mexico
claims more serious attention. Some time before
Peru had received the blessings of civilisation from
Pizarro, Mexico had reluctantly yielded her independ-
ence to Cortez, a Spanish leader whose task was
much more severe than that of Pizarro. Whilst the
mild Peruvians gave up without a struggle, the fierce
Mexicans contested the issue with stubbornness and
with a courage which was enterprising enough to
allow them to seize the firearms of dead Spanish
soldiers and use them against the invaders.
The original Aztec civilisation was warlike and
Spartan. Extreme severity marked the penal codes.
Intemperance, the consuming canker of Indian races,
was severely penalised. There were several classes of
slaves, the most unhappy being prisoners of war, who
were often used as sacrificial victims to the gods.
Sacrificed human beings were eaten at banquets
attended by both sexes. The Aztecs were constantly
at war with their neighbours, and needed no better
pretext for a campaign than the need to capture
sacrifices for their gods.
Grijalba was the first Spaniard to set foot on
Mexico. He held a conference with an Aztec chief,
and interchanged toys and trinkets for a rich treasure
of jewels and gold. Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico,
was sent to Mexico by Velasquez, conqueror of Cuba.
He landed in Mexico with the avowed object of
Christianising the natives, and considered himself a
Soldier of the Cross. Like a good Crusader, he was
LATIN AMERICA 157
ready to argue with the sword when words failed to
convince. For some while he engaged in amicable
relations with the Mexicans, exchanging worthless
trifles for Mexican gold. But eventually various
small wars led up to a three months' siege of the
Aztec capital, which fell after a display of grand
courage on the part of the Mexicans. Their civilisa-
tion, when at a point of high development, was then
blotted out for ever.
It was in 1521 that the Spaniards first landed in
Mexico. Their rule extended over three centuries.
In 1813 Mexico first declared her independence, and
in 1821 achieved the separation from Spain. The
war of liberation had been fierce and sanguinary. It
was succeeded by civil wars which threatened to tear
to pieces the new nation. In 1822 an Empire was
attempted. It ended with the assassination of the
Emperor, Augustin de Yturbidi. A series of military
dictatorships followed, until in 1857 a Republican
constitution was promulgated. Because this consti-
tution was strongly anti- clerical, it led to another
series of wars.
Meanwhile greedy eyes were fixed upon the rich
territories thus ravaged by civil strife. The United
States to the north coveted the coastal provinces of
California. Napoleon III. of France conceived the
idea of reviving French influence on the American
continent, and in 1864 helped to set up the second
Empire of Mexico with the unhappy Maximilian at
its head. Maximilian left Europe in the spring of
158 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
1864. After three years of civil war he was shot by
the revolutionary commander. His rule had not
commended itself to the Mexicans and was viewed
with suspicion by the United States, which saw
in it an attempt to revive European continental
influences.
Then anarchy reigned for many years, until in 1876
the strong hands of Diaz, one of the great men of
the century, took control. He did for the Mexican
revolutionaries what Napoleon had done for the French
Terrorists. But it was different material that he had
to work upon. The Mexicans, their Aztec blood
not much improved by an admixture of European,
gave reluctant obedience to Diaz, and he was never
able to lead them towards either a peaceful and stable
democracy or a really progressive despotism. For
more than a quarter of a century, however, he held
power, nominally as the elected head of a Republic,
really as the despotic centre of a tiny oligarchy.
The country he ruled over, however, was not the
old Spanish Mexico. There had been a steady
process of absorption of territory by her powerful
northern neighbour. Over 1,000,000 square miles,
included in the rich Calif ornian and Texas districts,
had passed over by right of conquest or forced sale
to the United States. The present area of Mexico is
767,000 square miles. So more than half of this
portion of Spanish America has passed over to the
Stars and Stripes.
The fall of Diaz in 1911 seemed to presage the
LATIN AMERICA 159
acquirement by the United States of the rest of
Mexico. There had been for some months rumours
of an alliance between Mexico and Japan, which
would have had an obviously unfriendly purpose
towards the United States. The rumours were
steadily denied. But many believed that they had
some foundation, and that the mobilisation of United
States troops on the Mexican frontier was not solely
due to the desire to keep the frontier line secure from
invasions by the Mexican revolutionaries. Whatever
the real position, the tension relaxed when the
abdication of Diaz allayed for a while the revolu-
tionary disorders in Mexico. Now (1912) disorder
again riots through Mexico, and again the authorities
of the United States are anxiously considering
whether intervention is not necessary. 1
1 A dispatch from Washington, February 7, 1912, stated:
President Taft and Secretary Knox held a long conference this
morning on the state of affairs in Mexico, which, it is believed, are
worse than is officially admitted. Reluctant as the President is
to take any steps that might compel intervention or the military
occupation of Mexico, he is forced to view both as ultimate possi-
bilities, and to make preparations accordingly. Thus the Army
on the border is being strengthened, although thus far no impor-
tant military movements have taken place, but the plans are
complete for mobilisation.
While Congress is opposed to involving the country in war, or to
any action which will lead to hostilities with Mexico, it will support
the President if war is the only alternative, and the large amount
of British and other foreign capital invested in Mexico makes it
incumbent upon the United States, in view of the Monroe doctrine,
to protect the lives and property of foreigners in the Republic.
Otherwise, the duty of protection must be undertaken by the
Governments whose nationals are in jeopardy, which would be an
160 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
I am strongly of the opinion that by the time the
Panama Canal has been opened for world shipping,
the United States will have found some form of
supervision over all Latin North America necessary :
and that her diplomacy is now shaping also for the
inclusion of Latin South America in an American
Imperial system by adding to the present measure of
diplomatic suzerainty which the Monroe doctrine
represents a preferential tariff system. Before dis-
cussing that point, the actual strength of Latin
America should be summarised. To-day the chief
nations of Latin America all of Spanish-Indian or
of Portuguese- Indian origin are :-
The Republic of Argentina, area 3,954,911 square
miles; population, 6,489,000 (increasing largely by
immigration from all parts of Europe) ; revenue,
about 20,000,000 a year.
The Republic of Bolivia, area 605,400 square miles ;
population 2,049,000; revenue, about 1,300,000
a year.
The Republic of Brazil, area 3,218,991 square
miles; population 21,461,000 (there is a great European
immigration) ; revenue, about 18,000,000 a year.
The Republic of Chili, area 2474 square miles;
population about 4,500,000; revenue about 1,400,000
a year.
admission on the part of the United States that the Monroe
doctrine exists for the benefit of the United States, but imposes
no obligations. That is an admission Congress will not make so
long as there is an Army ready to take the field.
LATIN AMERICA 161
The Republic of Ecuador, area 116,000 square
miles; population about 1,400,000; revenue about
1,400,000.
The Republic of Uruguay, area 72,210 square
miles ; population 1,042,668 ; revenue about
5,000,000.
The Republic of Venezuela, area 393,870 square
miles ; revenue about 2,000,000.
The Republic of Paraguay, area 98,000 square
miles ; population about 650,000.
The Republic of Mexico, area 767,000 square
miles ; population about 14,000,000.
The total of populations is between 50,000,000 and
60,000,000.
These peoples have the possibility but as yet only
the possibility of organising appreciable naval power,
and are possessed now of a military power, not alto-
gether contemptible, and equal to the task at most
points of holding the land against a European or
Asiatic invader, if that invader had to face the United
States' naval power also. Presuming their peaceable
acceptance of a plan to embrace them in the ambit of
an American Imperial system a system which would
still leave them with their local liberties, there is no
doubt at all that they could add enormously to the
strength of the United States. Presuming, on the
other hand, a determined plan on their part to form
among themselves a grand Federal League, and
to aim at a Latin-American Empire, they might
make some counterbalance to the power of the
11
162 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
United States on the American continent and in the
Pacific.
Neither contingency seems immediately likely.
These Latin-American peoples have not yet shown
any genius for self-government. They produce
revolutionary heroes, but not statesmen. Among
themselves they quarrel bitterly, and a Latin- American
Confederation does not seem to be possible. On the
other hand, Latin America is jealous of the United
States : resents, whilst it accepts the benefits of, the
Monroe doctrine, and would take as a danger signal
any action hostile to the Mexican Republic which
the Anglo-Celtic Republic should be forced to take.
Any attempt on the part of the United States to
" force the pace " in regard to Latin America would
saddle her with half a dozen annoying wars.
What seems to be the aim of United States diplo-
macy, and what seems to be an attainable aim, is
that very gradually the countries of South America
will be brought closer to the northern Republic,
coaxed by a system of reciprocity in trade which
would offer them advantageous terms. Commercial
union would thus pave the way to a closer political
union. Such a development would be a very serious
detriment to British trade interests, and to the British
position in the Pacific. British export trade with
Latin America is very considerable, amounting to
some 60,000,000 worth a year. The two greatest
contributors to the total are Brazil (16,426,000 in
1910) and the Argentine Republic (19,097,000 in
LATIN AMERICA 163
1910). Their communications with Great Britain
will be left unchanged with the opening of the
Panama Canal : and that event consequently will not
strengthen American influence there. The same
remark applies to trade with Mexico (2,399,000 in
1910), with Columbia (1,196,000), with Uruguay
(2,940,000). But trade with Peru (1,315,000) and
Chili (5,479,000) will be affected by the canal bring-
ing New York competition nearer.
There would, however, be a very serious position
created for British trading interests if a proposal were
carried out of an American preferential tariff system
embracing the United States and Latin America.
The total of British trade with Latin America (about
60,000,000) is nearly one-third of the total of British
foreign trade (183,986,000 in 1910), and is more
than half the total British trade with British posses-
sions. Moreover, it is almost exclusively in lines in
which United States competition is already keenly
felt. A tariff preference of any extent to the United
States would drive British goods, to a large degree,
out of the Latin- American market.
The position of Latin America in its effect on the
dominance of the Pacific may be summed up as this :
racial instability will probably prevent the Latin-
American nations from federating and forming a
great Power; the veto of the United States will
prevent them from falling into the sphere of influence
of any European Power ; their jealousy and distrust
of the United States, whether it be without or with
164 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
reason, will stand in the way of their speedy absorption
in an American Imperial system. But that absorption
seems ultimately inevitable (though its form will
leave their local independence intact). Its first step
has been taken with the Monroe declaration ; its
second step is now being prepared with proposals for
trade reciprocity.
CHAPTER XI
CANADA AND THE PACIFIC
THE existence, side by side, of two races and two
languages in Canada makes it a matter of some
doubt as to what the future Canadian nation will
be. The French race, so far proving more stubborn
in its characteristics than the British race in Canada,
has been the predominant influence up to recently,
though its influence has sought the impossible aim
of a French-Canadian nation rather than a Canadian
nation. Thus it was at once a bulwark of national
spirit and yet an obstacle to a genuinely progressive
nationalism. Patriotic in its resistance to all external
influences which threatened Canadian independence,
it yet failed iri its duty to promote an internal
progress towards a homogeneous people.
Canada, it is perhaps needless to recall to mind,
was originally a French colony. In the sixteenth
century, when the British settlements in America
were scattered along the Atlantic seaboard of what
is now the United States, the French colonised in the
valley of the Mississippi and along the course of the
great river known as the St Lawrence. Their design
of founding an Empire in America, a " New France,"
165
166 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
took the bold form of isolating the seaboard colonies
of the British, and effectively occupying all of what
is now the Middle- West of the United States, to-
gether with Canada and the country bordering on
the Gulf of Mexico. It is not possible to imagine
greater courage, more patient endurance, more
strenuous enterprise, than was shown by the early
founders of New France. If they did not achieve,
they at least fully deserved an Empire.
French colonists in Canada occupied at first the
province of Acadia, now known as Nova Scotia, and
the province of Quebec on the River St Lawrence.
Jacques Cartier, a sailor of St Malo, was the first
explorer of the St Lawrence. Acadia was colonised
in 1604 by an expedition from the Huguenot town
of La Rochelle, under the command of Champlain,
De Monts, and Poutrincourt. Then a tardy English
rivalry was aroused. In 1614 the Governor of
Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale, sent an expedition to
Acadia, and took possession of the French fort.
That was the first blow in a long struggle between
English and French for supremacy in North America.
In 1629, the date of Richelieu's supremacy in France,
an incident of a somewhat irregular war between
England and France was the capture, by David
Kirk, an English Admiral, of Quebec, the newly-
founded capital of " New France " ; and the English
Flag floated over Fort St Louis. But it was dis-
covered that this capture had been effected after
peace had been declared between the two European
CANADA AND THE PACIFIC 167
Powers, and, by the treaty of St Germain-en-Laye,
Quebec was restored to France.
But the French colonies in America were still
inconsiderable and were always threatened by the
Red Indians, until Colbert, the great Minister of
Louis XIV., made them a royal province, and, with
Jean Baptiste Talon as Governor, Monseigneur
Laval as Bishop, and the Marquis de Tracy as soldier,
French Canada was organised under a system of
theocratic despotism. The new regime was strictly
paternal. The colonists were allowed no self-
governing rights ; a feudal system was set up, and
the land divided into seignories, whose vassals were
known as " habitants," a name which still survives.
In all things the Governor and the Bishop exercised
a sway. Wives were brought from France for the
habitants, early marriages and large families en-
couraged, and religious orthodoxy carefully safe-
guarded.
The French Canada of to-day shows the enduring
nature of the lessons which Talon and Laval then
inculcated. With the growth of modern thought
the feudal system has passed away, and the habi-
tants are independent farmers instead of vassals to a
seigneur. But in most other things they are the
same as their forefathers of the seventeenth century.
When Canada passed into the hands of the English,
it had to be recognised that there was no hope of
holding the country on any terms antagonistic to the
habitants and their firmly fixed principles of life.
168 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
In regard to religion, to education, to marriage and
many other things, the old Roman Catholic ecclesi-
astical influence was preserved, and continues almost
undiminished to this day.
The French-Canadian is a Frenchman of the
era before the Revolution a Frenchman without
scepticism, and with a belief in large families. He is
the Breton peasant of a century ago, who has come
to a new land, increased and multiplied. He is
devoutly attached to the Roman Catholic Church,
and follows its guidance in all things.
A somewhat frigid and calculating "loyalty" to
Great Britain ; a deep sentimental attachment to
France as " the Mother Country " ; a rooted dislike
to the United States, founded on the conviction that
if Canada joined the great Republic he would lose
his language and religious privileges these are the
elements which go to the making of the French-
Canadian's national character.
Very jealously the French-Canadian priesthood
preserves the ideas of the ancient order. Marriage
of French-Canadians with Protestants, or even with
Roman Catholics of other than French- Canadian
blood, is discouraged. The education of the children
the numerous children of this race which counts a
family not of respectable size until it has reached a
dozen is kept in the hands of the Church in schools
where the French tongue alone is taught. Thus the
French- Canadian influence, instead of permeating
through the whole nation, aims at a people within a
CANADA AND THE PACIFIC 169
people. The aim cannot be realised; and already
the theocratic idea, on which French - Canadian
nationalism is largely based, shows signs of weaken-
ing. There are to be found French- Canadians who
are confessedly " ant i- clerical." That marks the
beginning of the end. One may foresee in the near
future the French- Canadian element merging in the
general mass of the community to the great benefit
of all of the French-Canadian, who needs to be
somewhat modernised ; of the British- Canadian, who
will be all the better for a mingling of a measure of
the exalted idealism and spiritual strength of the
French element ; and of the nation at large, for a
complete merging of the two races, French and
British, in Canada would produce a people from
which might be expected any degree of greatness.
Canada, facing to-day both the Atlantic and the
Pacific, has the possibilities of greatness on either
ocean, or indeed on both ; I do not think it a wild
forecast to say that ultimately her Pacific provinces
may be greater than those bordering the Atlantic,
and may draw to their port a large share of the trade
of the Middle - West. Entering Canada by her
Pacific gate, and passing through the coastal region
over the Selkirks and Rockies to the prairie, one sees
all the material for the making of a mighty nation.
The coastal waters, and the rivers flowing into them,
teem with fish, and here are the possibilities of a
huge fishing population. At present those possi-
bilities are, in the main, neglected, or allowed to be
170 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
exploited by Asiatics. But a movement is already
afoot to organise their control for the benefit of a
British population. The coastal strip and the valleys
running into the ranges are mild of climate and rich
of soil. An agricultural population of 10,000,000
could here find sustenance, first levying toll on the
great forests, and later growing grain and fruit.
Within the ranges are great stores of minerals, from
gold down to coal and iron. Everywhere are rush-
ing rivers and rapids to provide electrical power.
Fishermen, lumbermen, farmers, mountain graziers,
miners, manufacturers for all these there is golden
opportunity. The rigours of the Eastern Canadian
climate are missing : but there is no enervating heat.
The somewhat old-fashioned traditions of the Eastern
provinces are also missing, and the people facing the
Pacific have the lusty confidence of youth.
At present the balance of political power in Canada
is with the east. But each year sees it move farther
west. The Pacific provinces count for more and
more, partly from their increasing population, partly
from their increasing influence over the prairie
farmers and ranchers. The last General Election in
Canada showed clearly this tendency. In every part
of the nation there was a revulsion from the political
ideals represented by Sir Wilfrid Laurier : and that
revulsion was most complete in the west, where as a
movement it had had its birth.
It would be outside of the scope of this book to
discuss the domestic politics of Canada, but the
CANADA AND THE PACIFIC 171
Canadian General Election of 1911 was so significant
in its bearing on the future of the Pacific, that some
reference to its issues and decisions is necessary.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier up to 1911 had held the balance
even between the British and the French elements
in Canada without working for their amalgamation.
His aim always was to pursue a programme of
peaceful material development. With the ideals of
British Imperialism he had but little real sympathy,
and his conception of the duty of the Canadian
nation was that it should grow prosperous quickly,
push forward with its railways, and avoid entangling
participation in matters outside the boundaries of
Canada. He was not blind to the existence of the
United States Monroe doctrine as a safeguard to
Canadian territory against European invasion, and
was not disposed to waste money on armaments
which, to his mind, were unnecessary. The Canadian
militia, which from the character of the people might
have been the finest in the world, was allowed to
become a mostly ornamental institution. 1
1 It can be at least said on behalf of the Canadian militia that
their condition was no worse than that of the militia of the United
States. In 1906 Mr President Taft (then Secretary for War) con-
tributed a preface to a pamphlet by Mr Htiidekoper on the United
States Army. Mr Taft then wrote :
"Our confidence in ourselves and in our power of quickly
adapting circumstances to meet any national emergency so far has
carried away some of our public men so that they have been
deliberately blind to the commonest and most generally accepted
military principles, and they have been misled by the general
success or good luck which has attended us in most of our wars.
172 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
At the Imperial Defence Conference in 1909, Sir
Wilfrid refused to follow the lead of other self-
governing Dominions in organising Fleet units, and
the Canadian attitude was recorded officially as this :
" As regards Canada, it was recognised that while
on naval strategical considerations a Fleet unit on the
Pacific might in the future form an acceptable system
of naval defence, Canada's double seaboard rendered
the provision of such a Fleet unit unsuitable for the
present. Two alternative plans, based upon annual
expenditures respectively of 600,000 and 400,000,
The awful sacrifice of life and money which we had to undergo
during the four years in order to train our civil war veterans and
to produce that army is entirely forgotten, and the country is
lulled into the utterly unfounded assurance that a volunteer
enlisted to-day, or a militiaman enrolled to-morrow, can in a \veek
or month be made an effective soldier. The people of this country
and the Government of this country, down to the time of the
Spanish War, had pursued a policy which seemed utterly to ignore
the lessons of the past/'
Mr Huidekoper (an acknowledged expert) maintained :
" Judged by purely military standards, the invasion of Cuba was
a trivial affair ; but never in modern times has there been an
expedition which contained so many elements of weakness ; that
it succeeded at all is, indeed, a marvel. The disorders of demoralisa-
tion and incapacity which attended the opening operations were
nothing but the logical outcome of the unwillingness of Congress
to prepare for war until the last possible moment, and merely
demonstrated once again the utterly vicious system to which our
legislators have persistently bound us, by neglecting to provide a
force of thoroughly trained soldiers either large enough or elastic
enough to meet the requirements of war as well as peace, supported
by a militia which has previously had sufficient training to make
it, when called out as volunteers, fairly dependable against the
regular forces of other nations."
Then in 191 1, Mr Dickinson, U.S. Secretary for War, in an
CANADA AND THE PACIFIC 173
were considered, the former contemplating the pro-
vision of four cruisers of the 'Bristol' class, one
cruiser of the * Boadicea ' class, and six destroyers
of the improved ' River ' class, the ' Boadicea ' and
destroyers to be placed on the Atlantic side and the
' Bristol ' cruisers to be divided between the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans." Yet it had been expected that
Canada would at least have followed the Australian
offer of a Pacific Fleet unit at a cost of 3,000,000
a year.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier's fall came when, in the natural
development of his ideals of a peaceful and prosperous
official report, condemned absolutely the U.S. militia on the
grounds that : ft It is lacking in proper proportions of cavalry,
field artillery, engineer, signal corps and sanitary troops ; it is not
fully or properly organised into the higher units, brigades and
divisions ; it has no reserve supplies of arms and field equipment
to raise its units from a peace to a war footing ; it is so widely
scattered throughout the country as to make its prompt concen-
tration impossible ; its personnel is deficient in training ; it is to a
degree deficient in physical stamina, and has upon its rolls a large
number of men who by reason of their family relations and business
responsibilities cannot be counted upon for service during any long
period of war."
It will thus be seen that not only in Canada, but also in the
United States, the militia has become " mostly ornamental." But
the United States is now awakening to the possibility of having to
defend the Pacific coast against an Asiatic Power or combination
of Powers holding command of the ocean, and promises to re-
organise her militia. It is perhaps interesting to note that whilst
to-day the British Imperial Defence authorities discourage Canada
from any militia dispositions or manoeuvres founded on the idea of
an invasion from the United States, the militia of the Republic,
when it takes the field for mimic warfare, often presumes "an
invasion by the British forces."
174 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Canada, sharing none of the responsibilities of the
British Empire, but reckoning for her safety partly
on its power, partly on the power of the United
States, he proposed to enter into a Trade Reciprocity
Treaty with the United States. The proposal was
fiercely attacked, not only on the ground that it re-
presented a partial surrender of Canadian nationalist
ideals, but also on the charge that it was against the
interests of British Imperialism. At the General
Election which followed, Sir Wilfrid Laurier was
decisively defeated. As an indication of the issues
affecting the result, there is the anecdote that one of
Sir Wilfrid Laurier's supporters ascribed the defeat
chiefly to " the chap who wrote ' Rule Britannia.' '
Canada to-day faces the future with a purpose made
clear, of cherishing her separate nationalism and her
partnership in the British Empire. She will cultivate
friendship with the United States, but she will not
tolerate anything leading to absorption with the great
Republic : and she will take a more active part in the
defence of the Empire. The Laurier naval policy,
which was to spend a little money uselessly, has been
set aside, and Canada's share in the naval defence of
the Empire is to be discussed afresh with the British
Admiralty. A military reorganisation, of which the
full details are not available yet, is also projected. It
is known that the Defence Minister, Colonel Hughes,
intends to strengthen the rural regiments, to establish
local in addition to central armouries, and to stimulate
recruiting by increasing the pay of the volunteers.
CANADA AND THE PACIFIC 175
He also contemplates a vigorous movement for the
organisation of cadet corps throughout the whole
country. It is a reasonable forecast that Canada, in
the near future, will contribute to the defence of the
Pacific a Fleet unit based on a " Dreadnought " cruiser
and a militia force capable of holding her western
coast against any but a most powerful invader. Her
ultimate power in the Pacific can hardly be over-
estimated. The wheat lands of the Middle- West and
the cattle lands of the West will probably find an
outlet west as well as east, when the growing indus-
trial populations of Asia begin to come as customers
into the world's food markets. Electric power
developed in the great mountain ranges will make her
also a great manufacturing nation : and she will suffer
less in the future than in the past from the draining
away of the most ambitious of her young men to the
United States. The tide of migration has turned,
and it is Canada now which draws away young blood
from the Southern Republic.
CHAPTER XII
THE NAVIES OF THE PACIFIC
THE present year (1912) is not a good one for an
estimate of the naval forces of the Pacific. The
Powers interested in the destiny of that ocean have
but recently awakened to a sense of the importance
of speedy naval preparation to avert, or to face with
confidence, the struggle that they deem to be im-
pending. By 1915 the naval forces in the Pacific will
be vastly greater, and the opening of the Panama
Canal will have materially altered the land frontiers of
the ocean. A statement of the naval forces of to-day,
to be useful, must be combined with a reasonable
forecast of their strength in 1915.
Following, for convenience' sake, geographical
order, the Pacific Powers have naval strength as
follows :
Russia. Russia is spending some 12,000,000 a
year on her navy, and is said to contemplate a force
of sixteen " Dreadnoughts." Of these, four are now in
hand, but the date of their completion is uncertain.
At present Russia has no effective naval force in
the Pacific, and but little elsewhere. The " Dread-
noughts" building which are of a much-criticised
176
THE NAVIES OF THE PACIFIC 177
type are intended for use in European waters. The
naval force of Russia in the Pacific for the present
and the near future may be set down as negligible.
Japan. Japan has two battleships of the " Dread-
nought " class, the Satsuma and the Aki, in actual
commission. By the time that this book is in print
there should be two more in commission. They were
launched in November 1910. According to modern
methods of computation, a navy can be best judged
by its " Dreadnought " strength, always presuming
that the subsidiary vessels of a Fleet unit cruisers,
destroyers and submarines are maintained in proper
proportion of strength. Japan's naval programme
aims at a combination of fortress ships (" Dread-
noughts"), speed ships (destroyers) and submarines,
in practically the same proportion as that ruling in the
British navy. The full programme, at first dated for
completion in 1915, now in 1920, provides for twenty
modern battleships, twenty modern armoured cruisers,
one hundred destroyers, fifty submarines and various
other boats. But it is likely that financial need will
prevent that programme from being realised. For
the current year the Japanese naval estimates amount
to 8,800,000. At present the Japanese navy includes
some two hundred ships, of which thirty-eight are
practically useless. The possibly useful Fleet com-
prises seventeen battleships and battleship cruisers,
nine armcured cruisers, fifty-seven destroyers, twelve
submarines, four torpedo gunboats and forty-nine
torpedo boats.
12
178 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
The Japanese navy is by far the strongest force in
the Pacific, and is the only navy in the world with
actual experience of up-to-date warfare, though its
experience, recent as it is, has not tested the value of
the " Dreadnought " type, which theoretically is the
only effective type of battleship.
China. At present China has twenty-six small
boats in commission and five building. Her biggest
fighting ship is a protected cruiser carrying six-inch
guns. The naval strength of China is thus negligible.
The United States. The United States cannot be
considered as a serious Pacific naval Power until the
Panama Canal has been completed. 1 Then under
certain circumstances the greater part of her Fleet
would be available for service in the Pacific. She
spends some 26,000,000 yearly on her navy. She
has at present four " Dreadnoughts " in commission,
and by the time that this book is in print should have
six. Her building programme provides for two
new " Dreadnoughts," and the proper complement
of smaller craft, each year.
In the last annual report on the United States navy
(December 1911), Secretary Meyer stated that a total
1 A "Reuter" telegram from Washington, dated March 17,
stated :
"Significant orders have been issued by the Navy Department
directing three big armoured cruisers of the Pacific Fleet to pro-
ceed immediately to the Philippines for an indefinite stay. Their
arrival will make the American Fleet in the Orient the most
powerful there excepting the Japanese. The vessels under order
are the cruisers California, South Dakota, and Colorado."
THE NAVIES OF THE PACIFIC 179
of forty battleships, with a proportional number of
other fighting and auxiliary vessels, was the least that
would place the United States on a safe basis in its
relations with the other world Powers, and " while at
least two other Powers have more ambitious building
plans, it is believed that if we maintain an efficient
Fleet of the size mentioned, we shall be secure from
attack, and our country will be free to work out its
destiny in peace and without hindrance. The history
of all times, including the present, shows the futility
and danger of trusting to good-will and fair dealing,
or even to the most solemnly binding treaties between
nations, for the protection of a nation's sovereign rights
and interests, and without doubt the time is remote
when a comparatively unarmed and helpless nation
may be reasonably safe from attack by ambitious
well-armed Powers, especially in a commercial age
such as the present."
Battleships 36 and 37, at the time in course of
construction, were, he claimed, a distinct advance
on any vessels in existence. These vessels would be
oil-burners, and would carry no coal. They were to
be of about the same size as the Delaware, but their
machinery would weigh 3000 tons less, or a saving of
30 per cent., and the fire-room force would be reduced
by 50 per cent. Concluding his report, Mr. Meyer
said : " The Panama Canal is destined to become the
most important strategical point in the Western
Hemisphere, and makes a Caribbean base absolutely
necessary. The best base is Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
180 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
which Cuba has ceded to the United States for
naval purposes. This base will enable the United
States to control the Caribbean with all its lines of
approach to the canal, and, with a torpedo base at
Key West, will render the Gulf of Mexico immune
from attack."
A new type of war machine, which is a combination
of a submarine and a torpedo boat, is now being pre-
pared for use in the United States navy. She is
known as the "sub-surface torpedo boat." There is
a submarine hull with machinery and torpedo arma-
ments, and a surface hull said to be unsinkable
divided into compartments. The whole vessel weighs
six tons, can be carried on the deck of a battleship,
travels eighteen knots an hour for a radius of two
hundred miles, and needs a crew of two men. She
carries a thousand pounds of gun-cotton. The sub-
surface boat may be used as an ordinary torpedo boat,
or she may be bodily directed at a hostile ship after
her crew of two have left. It is estimated that the
sub-surface boat will cost about 5000, all told,
and it seems possible that it will be a serious weapon
of naval warfare.
Great Britain. Great Britain spent last year
nearly 45,000,000 on her navy, which is the supreme
naval force of the world. But its weight in a Pacific
combat at present would be felt chiefly in regard to
keeping the ring clear. No European Power hostile
to Great Britain could send a Fleet into the Pacific.
The United States could not despatch its Atlantic
THE NAVIES OF THE PACIFIC 181
Fleet for service in the Pacific without a fore-
knowledge of benevolent neutrality on the part of
Great Britain.
At the Imperial Defence Conference of 1909, it
was decided to re-create the British Pacific Fleet,
which, after the alliance with Japan, had been allowed
to dwindle to insignificance. The future Pacific naval
strength of Great Britain may be set down, estimating
most conservatively, at a unit on the China station
consisting of one " Dreadnought " cruiser, three swift
unarmoured cruisers, six destroyers and three sub-
marines. This would match the Australian unit of
the same strength. But it is probable that a far
greater strength will shortly be reached. It may be
accepted as an axiom that the British i.e. the Home
Country Fleet in Pacific waters will be at least kept
up to the strength of the Australian unit. The
future growth of that unit is indicated in the report
on naval defence presented to the Commonwealth
Government by Admiral Sir Reginald Henderson, a
report which has been accepted in substance.
He proposes a completed Fleet to be composed
as follows :
8 Armoured Cruisers,
10 Protected Cruisers,
18 Destroyers,
12 Submarines,
3 Depot Ships for Flotillas,
1 Fleet Repair Ship,
52.
182
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
This Fleet would, when fully manned, require a
personnel of approximately 15,000 officers and men.
The Fleet to be divided into two divisions as
follows :
EASTERN DIVISION.
Number.
Class of Vessel.
In Full
With
Com-
Reduced
Total.
mission.
Crew.
Armoured cruiser ....
3
1
4
Protected cruiser ....
3
2
5
Torpedo-boat destroyer
8
4
12
Submarine .....
3
3
Dep6t ship for torpedo-boat destroyers
2
2
Fleet repair ship
...
Total .
19
7
26
WESTERN DIVISION.
Armoured cruiser
3
1
4
Protected cruiser ....
3
2
5
Torpedo-boat destroyer
4
2
6
Submarine ...
9
9
Depdt ship for torpedo-boat destroyers
1
...
l
Fleet repair ship
1
...
1
Total .
21
5
26
Grand total of both divisions .
40
12
52
That would necessitate 3,000,000 a year expendi-
ture for the first five years, rising gradually to
5,000,000 a year. To this the Australian Govern-
ment is understood to be agreeable.
THE NAVIES OF THE PACIFIC 183
New Zealand does not propose to organise a
naval force of her own, but will assist the British
Admiralty with a subsidy. That subsidy is to be
devoted to the use of the unit in China waters.
Canada's naval plans at present are not known.
After the Imperial Defence Conference of 1909
Sir Wilfrid Laurier found both his instincts for
frugality and for peace outraged by the forward
policy favoured by other of the Dominions. He
decided to sacrifice the former and not the latter,
and embarked on a naval programme which, whilst
it involved a good deal of expenditure, made it fairly
certain that no Canadian warship would ever fire a
shot in anger, since none would be completed until
she had become hopelessly obsolete. His successor
in office has stopped that naval programme. It is
possible that the new administration will decide that
Canada should contribute in some effective form to
Imperial naval defence, and she may be responsible
for a naval unit in the Pacific.
Latin A merica. Brazil (whose interests, how-
ever, are in the Atlantic rather than the Pacific) has
two modern battleships of the " Dreadnought " type,
and one other building. Chili has at present no really
modern warship, but projects two " Dreadnoughts "
and up-to-date small craft. The existing Fleet con-
sists of one battleship, two armoured cruisers, and four
protected cruisers. The Republic of Argentine has
at present several vessels practically obsolete, the most
modern cruisers having been built in 1896. There
184
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
are three battleships, four armoured cruisers, and three
protected cruisers. A modern navy is projected with,
as a nucleus, two 25,000- ton battleships of twenty-
two knots, armed with twelve-inch guns. Mexico,
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay,
Venezuela, have no useful Fleets.
The following table will give as accurate a forecast
as possible of naval strength in the Pacific in the
immediate future :
"DREADNOUGHT" TYPES IN 1912 AND 1915.
1912. 1915.
British Empire
Germany .
United States
Japan
Brazil
Argentine Republic
Chili .
20
11
8
4
3
38
21
14
Note. All the South American " Dreadnoughts "
are open to some doubt, though Brazil has three
vessels of the type actually in the water. Battleships
and cruisers of the " Dreadnought " type are included
in the above table. It has been computed on the
presumption that there will be no change in the
1912 naval programmes. The United States, the
British Empire and Japan, are stronger in battle-
ships of the pre-Dreadnought period than is Germany.
Russia is ignored, for she has no present intention of
restoring her Pacific naval Power. Germany is in-
cluded because of her future position as the second
naval Power of the world, and her possible appear-
THE NAVIES OF THE PACIFIC 185
ance in the Pacific as the ally of one or other of the
Powers established there now.
The following additional table deals not merely
with warships of the " Dreadnought " type, but with
the effective tonnage, i.e. the tonnage of ships of all
classes of the three greatest naval Powers :
"EFFECTIVE TONNAGE" IN 1912 AND 1913-14.
1912. 1913-14.
British Empire . 1,896,149 2,324,579
United States . 757,711 885,066
Germany . . 749,699 1,087,399
CHAPTER XIII
THE ARMIES OF THE PACIFIC
THE military forces available for service in the
Pacific are those (1) of Russia; (2) of China; (3) of
Japan ; (4) of the United States ; (5) of the British
Empire including India ; (6) of the Latin- American
peoples of Mexico and South America. The great
armies of France, Germany, and Austro- Hungary
can have no voice in the destinies of the Pacific
Ocean unless indirectly, as, for instance, through
Germany or Austria helping or hindering a Russian
movement in the Far East by guaranteeing or
threatening her European frontier.
The Russian army, though driven back by the
forces of Japan during the recent war, still demands
respectful consideration in any calculations as to the
future of the Asian littoral of the Pacific Ocean.
The Russians, as has been pointed out in a previous
chapter, fought that campaign under many serious
disadvantages. The Siberian railway gave them a
very slender line of communication with their base.
Now that railway is being duplicated, and in a
future war would have at least double its old
military capacity. The conditions of unrest at
186
THE ARMIES OF THE PACIFIC 187
home in Russia during the war were so serious as
almost to paralyse the executive government. Those
conditions are not likely to be repeated, since Russia
has now entered upon a fairly peaceful, if somewhat
slow, progress towards constitutional reform. In a
war on a land frontier for which the people were
enthusiastic, the military power of Russia would be
tremendous, though there was never any real founda-
tion for the bogey of Russia as an all-powerful
aggressive force.
The Russian army, based upon conditions of
universal liability to service, can muster in the field
for war some 4,000,000 of men. But considering
the vast frontiers to be defended, and the great
claims therefore made by garrison fortresses, it is not
likely that more than 1,500,000 could be mobilised
in any one district. It is reasonably possible to
imagine a Russian army of a million men being
brought to and maintained on the Pacific littoral : of
an even greater army based on, say, Harbin. That
would be a formidable force, especially if enrolled
to fight for the White Races against an Asiatic peril :
for then it would share the old military enthusiasm
of the Cossacks.
There is nothing which will give the inquirer into
national characteristics a better key to the Russian
than a knowledge of the old Cossack organisation.
It was formed, in the days of Russia's making as a
nation, from the free spirits of the land, suffering on
the one side from Turkish cruelty, on the other from
188 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
the devastations of the Tartars. " Cossacks " meant
simply "free men," and, at the outset, they were
freebooters mainly, the Robin Hoods and Hereward
the Wakes of Russia. But the patriotic work of
resisting the Tartars and the Turks gave them a
national aim, and in time they formed a military
and religious organisation, unique in the history of
European civilisation. From the village Cossacks-
irregular volunteer troops, pursuing normally the
life of villagers, but ready ever to take up arms
against Tartar or Turkish bandits, or to become in
turn themselves raiders of the enemy's caravans
and villages sprung up the Cossack Zaporojskoe,
garrisoning the " Seteh," a great military camp in
the heart of the Cossack country. The Cossacks
who joined the Setch devoted themselves wholly to
military life. They had to swear to complete
chastity, to abstinence whilst at war from alcohol,
and to obedience to the Greek Church. The
Cossack could leave the Setch if he were so in-
clined, but while he remained within its boundaries
discipline was inexorable.
In the Setch there was neither organised training,
nor compulsory drill, nor military manoeuvres.
With the exception of a few elected officers, there
were, in time of peace, no social distinctions ; but
the bravest and the most experienced were treated
with respect. For war a Cossack was elected to
command each hundred men ; his power was
absolute. Several hundreds formed a regiment,
THE ARMIES OF THE PACIFIC 189
with a colonel at its head, a temporary officer,
elected for one campaign only. The organisation
had some artillery and infantry, but its chief strength
lay in its cavalry. It also built a Fleet of small
boats with which it repeatedly raided the Turkish
coast.
This military monastic order passed away with
the closer organisation of the Russian nation.
Despotic Czars could not tolerate a community so
formidable in its virtues. Characteristically enough,
it was Catherine the Great who dealt the final blow
to the Cossack Setch. But the Cossack organisa-
tion and spirit, as well as the Cossack name, survive
in the Russian army to-day, and the million or so
men whom Russia could muster on the shores of
the North Pacific might have some great say in the
future destinies of the ocean.
The Japanese army of to-day, an army of veterans,
must be credited, in calculating its value as a military
engine, with the moral force of its record of victory.
I confess to a belief in the superiority of the White
Man, qua White Man over any Asiatic : and I am
not inclined, therefore, to accept Japanese generalship
and Japanese initiative at their Tokio valuation.
But the 600,000 men whom Japan can put into the
field, perfect in discipline, armed as to the infantry
with a first-class rifle, a little deficient though they
may be in artillery and cavalry, is a most formidable
force, unassailable in Japan's home territory, not to
be regarded lightly if called to a campaign on the
190 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Asiatic mainland. Since the war with Russia the
Japanese army has been increased: the fact is
evidence of the unslaked warlike enthusiasm of the
people.
China will probably emerge from her present re-
volutionary troubles, whatever may be their result,
with a seasoned army of great proportions. The
actual military organisation of China at the time of
the outbreak of the present revolt was somewhat
nebulous. But an effort was being made to organise
an Imperial army (on plans laid down in 1905) which
would have numbered about 360,000 men trained on
the Japanese model. Should the reformed China
decide to follow in the footsteps of Japan as regards
military organisation, the Chinese field force of the
future would number some 2,500,000 men. It is
already announced that the new Chinese Republic
will adopt universal military training as part of its
system of national reorganisation.
The United States, relying on a purely voluntary
system for its military organisation, has, in the opinion
of most critics, the framework of an army rather than
an army. The peace strength of the United States
regular army is about 100,000, and from these the
Philippine garrison draws 13,000 men, and the
Hawaiian garrison 1000 of all ranks. A partially
trained militia numbers about 100,000 men. For
the rest there are 16,000,000 of men of military age
in the nation, but they are absolutely untrained. In
case of a powerful enemy obtaining naval control of
THE ARMIES OF THE PACIFIC 191
the Pacific, there is danger that the United States
would suffer the ignominy of the occupation, for a
time, of her Pacific coast.
British military forces available for the Pacific
ome under three headings :
British garrisons in India and elsewhere in the
Pacific.
The citizen armies of Australia and New Zealand,
and the militia forces of Canada.
The Sepoy forces in India.
The British garrisons total some 80,000 men. They
may be classed, without prejudice, among the best
troops in the world, well trained and with some
experience of warfare. But the majority of them
are stationed in India, and few of them could be
safely drawn from there in an emergency. The
Sepoy troops number some 250,000, officered generally
by British leaders. It is conceivable that a portion
of them could be used outside of India against
coloured races.
The citizen armies of Australia and New Zealand
must be spoken of in the future tense : for their
organisation has just begun, and it will be some five
years before that organisation will be well under way.
But so important is the bearing on Pacific problems
of the training of some quarter of a million of citizen
soldiers in the Australasian Dominions of the British
Empire that attention must be given here to a de-
scription of this army of the future.
Taking the Australian organisation as the model :
192 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
The population of Australia in 1911 was about 4|
millions, of whom there were, on the basis of the
last census
188,000 males of 14 years and under 18 years ; and
295,000 males of 18 years and under 25 years.
Allowing for those living in districts too thinly
populated to admit of training without excessive
expenditure, or medically unfit for training, upon
the figures at present available, it is estimated that
Australia will have in training, when the scheme is
in full operation, each year
100,000 senior cadets ; and
112,000 citizen soldiers.
The system will give in eight years' time a force
of 126,000 trained men, and fully equipped. Every
year afterwards will increase the reserve by 12,000
men. And if the training be extended into the
country areas, the numbers may be increased by 40
per cent. Increase of population will bring, too, an
increase of numbers, and my estimate of an eventual
200,000 for the Australian army and 50,000 for the
New Zealand army is probably correct.
For the leading positions in this army there is
provision to train a number of professional officers.
The Military College of Australia is already in ex-
istence, and is organised on a basis of simplicity and
efficiency which reflects the serious purpose of this
democratic military organisation. It is not reserved
for the children of the rich. It is not allowed to
become intolerable to the children of the poor by
THE ARMIES OF THE PACIFIC 193
the luxury of wealthy cadets. To quote from the
official conditions :
" The Military College of Australia is established
to educate candidates for commissions in all arms of
the Military Forces of the Commonwealth.
" Only candidates who intend to make the Military
Forces their profession in life will be admitted as
Cadets to the Military College. Parents or guardians
are therefore not at liberty to withdraw their sons or
wards at will.
" Cadets, in joining the Military College, shall be
enlisted in the Permanent Military Forces for a term
of twelve years. Service as a Cadet at the Military
College shall be deemed service in the ranks of the
Permanent Military Forces of the Commonwealth.
" No fees will be charged for equipment or in-
struction or maintenance of Cadets, and their travell-
ing expenses within the Commonwealth between
their parents' or guardians' residences and the College
will be paid on first joining and on graduation.
"The following charges will be admitted against
the public and credited to Cadets' accounts after
they have joined :
" Outfit allowance 30 on joining.
"Daily allowance of five shillings and sixpence
(5s. 6d.) to cover cost of uniform and clothing,
books, instruments, messing, washing and
other expenses.
"No Cadet will be permitted to receive money,
or any other supplies from his parents or guardians,
13
194, PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
or any person whomsoever, without the sanction of
the Commandant. A most rigid observance of this
order is urged upon all parents and guardians, as its
violation would make distinctions between Cadets,
which it is particularly desired to prevent.
" No Cadet, when within the Federal Territory, or
when absent on duty from College, or when in
uniform, shall drink any spirituous or intoxicating
liquor, or bring or cause the same to be brought
within the College, or have the same in his room,
tent, or otherwise in his possession.
"Gambling, lotteries, and raffles are strictly pro-
hibited. They are serious offences, which will be
severely punished.
" Smoking may be permitted during certain hours
and in authorised places. The smoking of cigarettes
is at all times prohibited. A Cadet found in pos-
session of cigarettes is liable to punishment for dis-
obedience of orders."
Canada has a militia force credited at present with
a total strength of 55,000 men. Sir Wilfrid Laurier,
who controlled the destinies of Canada for fifteen
years up to 1911, was no military enthusiast and
believed profoundly in a peaceful future for his
country. In one respect, and in one respect only,
Canada under his rule progressed in defence organisa-
tion : she had her own rifle factory turning out a rifle
of Canadian design.
But a new spirit moves in Canada to-day in
matters of Defence as in other things. I remember
THE ARMIES OF THE PACIFIC 195
in 1909 speaking at Toronto in advocacy of a system
of universal training for military service. Lieut. -Col.
Wm. Hamilton Merritt, a Canadian militia officer
who had learned enthusiasm for the idea of a " citizen
army " on a visit to Switzerland, invited me to come
up to Toronto from New York to speak on the
Australian campaign for the universal training of
citizens. The meeting was friendly but not par-
ticularly enthusiastic. My strongest recollection of
it is that one Canadian paper most unjustifiably and
absurdly twisted some words of mine advocating
Canadian self-reliance into advice that Canada should
arm " to attack the United States." But the outcome
of the meeting was that a "Canadian Patriotic
League" was formed, and from it sprang the
" Canadian Defence League, a non-political associa-
tion to urge the importance to Canada of universal
physical and naval or military training. " For two years
and more, in spite of the earnest efforts of Canadian
enthusiasts, the movement languished. After the
General Election of 1911, however, a quickening
came to every department of Canadian life, and this
particularly showed itself in matters of Defence. In
November of that year, Colonel the Hon. S. Hughes,
the Canadian Minister of Militia, called a conference
of experts to consider the organisation of the militia.
To that conference the Canadian Defence League
was invited to send representatives, and their presence
seemed to inspire the whole gathering with an en-
thusiasm for a universal service system. Summarising
196 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
from a report sent to me by the Canadian Defence
League : " Universal military training has at last
become a live issue throughout the Dominion of
Canada. It was the mainspring behind the whole
machinery of the Militia Conference ; almost every
man present was in favour of it, but a few, if the
question had come to vote, would have either
refrained from voting or voted against it, because
they were afraid of the possibility of being misunder-
stood by the public at large. The cavalry section
made no recommendation, and the infantry section
discussed it, while the artillery, which is always in
the front, was strongly in favour of it. Colonel
Logie of Hamilton moved and Colonel Fotheringham
of Toronto seconded a resolution recommending the
adoption of the Australian system in Canada. This
motion was with a view to placing the conference on
record; but the Minister, in his wisdom, held the
resolution in abeyance, and it did not come to a vote.
But in the closing hours of the conference Senator
Power of Nova Scotia positively and definitely
advocated universal military training for the whole
of Canada."
A universal service system in Canada would provide
a citizen army of probably 250,000 men of the
finest type: and the effect of this force on Pacific
issues would be equal to that of the combined armies
of Australia and New Zealand.
The military strength of Latin America (the South
American Republics and Mexico) it is difficult to
THE ARMIES OF THE PACIFIC 197
estimate accurately. In almost all cases the constitu-
tion of the Republics provides for " universal service "
but fails to provide for universal training for service.
Under modern conditions of warfare, it is useless to
enact that men shall serve unless the necessary
sacrifices of money and leisure are made to train
them to serve. Raw levies could be made of some
use almost immediately in a past epoch of warfare,
when the soldier with his " Brown Bess " musket had
the injunction from the drill sergeant to " wait until
he could see the whites of the eyes " of his enemy
and then to fire. That needed stolid nerves mainly,
and but little training. In these days raw levies
would be worse than useless, of no value in battles,
a burden on the commissariat and hospital services
between battles. The Latin- American armies must
be judged in the light of that fact. Apart from that
caution, the numbers are imposing enough.
Mexico has an army organisation providing for
30,000 men on a peace footing and 84,000 men on a
war footing. The Argentine army on a peace footing
is about 18,000 strong; on a war footing about
120,000 strong, exclusive of the National Guard and
Territorial troops (forming a second line). In the
Republic of Bolivia the peace footing of the army
is 2500: the probable war footing 30,000. The
Republic of Brazil has a universal service system.
The peace strength of the army is 29,000 (to which
may be added a gendarmerie of 20,000). On the out-
break of war there could be mobilised, it is claimed,
198 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
five divisions totalling, say, 60,000 men. Chili has,
on a peace footing, about 10,000 men ; on a war
footing 50,000, exclusive of the reserves (about
34,000). Colombia makes every man liable to
service, but the training is not regular. Possibly
10,000 men could be mobilised in time of war.
Ecuador maintains a permanent force of about 5000
men, and claims that it could mobilise 90,000 in case
of war. Paraguay has a permanent force of 2500
men and a National Guard available for service in
case of war.
The South American has proved himself, on
occasions, a good and plucky fighter. But I doubt
whether his military forces can be seriously considered
as a factor in the fate of the Pacific, except in the
matter of defending his own territory from invasion.
The only armies that count greatly to-day in the
Pacific are those of Japan, Russia, and Great Britain,
in that order, with China and the United States as
potential rather than actual military forces.
CHAPTER XIV
TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC
THERE is one actual alliance between two Pacific
Powers, Great Britain and Japan : an entente between
Great Britain and Russia : and an instinct towards
friendliness between Great Britain and the United
States. There are several other possible combinations
affecting the ocean in the future. But no Power
of the Triple Alliance, nor yet France, can be con-
sidered a factor in the Pacific except in so far as
it may help or hinder a Power already established
there. Germany, for instance, might enter the
Pacific as an ally of Japan or the United States ; but
she could not without an alliance bring naval or
military force there unless Great Britain had first
been humbled in a European war.
To the alliance between Great Britain and Japan
not very much importance can be ascribed since its
revision in 1911. It threatens to die now of inani-
tion, as it becomes clear that British aims and
Japanese aims in the Pacific do not move towards a
common end. The first British-Japanese treaty,
signed on January 30, 1902, had for its main pro-
visions
199
200 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
"The Governments of Great Britain and Japan,
actuated solely by a desire to maintain the status quo
and general peace in the extreme East, being more-
over specially interested in maintaining the inde-
pendence and territorial integrity of the Empire of
China and the Empire of Corea, and in securing
equal opportunities in those countries for the com-
merce and industry of all nations, hereby agree as
follows :
" The High Contracting Parties, having mutually
recognised the independence of China and of Corea,
declare themselves to be entirely uninfluenced by any
aggressive tendencies in either country. Having in
view, however, their special interests, of which those
of Great Britain relate principally to China, while
Japan, in addition to the interests which she possesses
in China, is interested in a peculiar degree politically,
as well as commercially and industrially, in Corea,
the High Contracting Parties recognise that it will
be admissible for either of them to take such measures
as may be indispensable in order to safeguard those
interests if threatened either by the aggressive action
of any other Power, or by disturbances arising in
China or Corea, and necessitating the intervention of
either of the High Contracting Parties for the pro-
tection of the lives and property of its subjects.
" If either Great Britain or Japan, in the defence of
their respective interests as above described, should
become involved in war with another Power, the
other High Contracting Party will maintain a strict
TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC 201
neutrality, and use its efforts to prevent other Powers
from joining in hostilities against its ally.
" If in the above event any other Power or Powers
should join in hostilities against that ally, the other
High Contracting Party will come to its assistance
and will conduct the war in common, and make peace
in mutual agreement with it.
" The High Contracting Parties agree that neither
of them will, without consulting the other, enter into
separate arrangements with another Power to the
prejudice of the interests above described.
" Whenever, in the opinion of either Great Britain
or Japan, the above-mentioned interests are in
jeopardy, the two Governments will communicate
with one another fully and frankly."
A letter covering the treaty, addressed by the
Marquess of Lansdowne to the British Minister at
Tokio, Sir C. Macdonald, explained the fact that
there was to be no disturbance of Chinese or Corean
territory : " We have each of us desired that the
integrity and independence of the Chinese Empire
should be preserved, that there should be no disturb-
ance of the territorial status quo either in China or in
the adjoining regions, that all nations should, within
those regions, as well as within the limits of the
Chinese Empire, be afforded equal opportunities for
the development of their commerce and industry, and
that peace should not only be restored, but should,
for the future, be maintained. We have thought it
desirable to record in the preamble of that instru-
202 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
merit the main objects of our common policy in the
Far East to which I have already referred, and in the
first Article we join in entirely disclaiming any
aggressive tendencies either in China or Corea."
But that stipulation did nothing to safeguard
Corea's independence, which was soon sacrificed to
Japanese ambition. There was a widespread feeling
of uneasiness in the British Dominions in the Pacific
when this treaty was announced. At the time
Canada was having serious trouble on her Pacific
Coast with Japanese immigrants, and the Canadian
Pacific provinces were anxious to prohibit absolutely
the entry of more Japanese to their territory. 1
Australia in 1901 had made the first great deed of
her new national organisation a law practically
prohibiting all coloured immigration, and making the
entry of Japanese colonists impossible. The Act
certainly veiled its hostility to the Asiatic races by a
subterfuge. It was not stated in so many words that
black skin, brown skin, and yellow skin were pro-
hibited from entry, but an educational standard was
set up which might be applied to any immigrant, but
needed to be applied to none. In practice it is never
applied to the decent White but always to the
coloured man : and its application is such that the
coloured man can never be sure that his standard of
1 This proposal has now (1912) been revived in the face of the
disquieting uprise of Chinese power. It is an indication of the
stubborn resolve of the White populations to prohibit Asiatic
immigration.
TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC 203
education will be sufficiently high to satisfy the
fastidious sense of culture of an Australian Customs
officer. He may be a learned Baboo, B. A. of Oxford,
and Barrister of the Inner Temple, and yet fail to
pass the Australian Education Test, for the ordeal is
to take dictation in any European language, not
necessarily English, but perhaps Russian or modern
Greek. New Zealand, without going so far by her
legislation, shows an equal repugnance to any form
of Asiatic immigration.
The "official" view of the British Alliance with
Japan, advocated with some energy, was that it was a
benefit to the AVhite Dominions in the Pacific, for it
made them secure against the one aggressive Asiatic
Power. But nevertheless the policy of making the
wolf a guardian of the sheep-fold was questioned in
many quarters. The question was asked : " Presum-
ing a Pacific war in which the United States was the
enemy of Japan ? " The answer in the minds of
many, in Australia at any rate, and probably also in
Canada and New Zealand, was that in such event
the sympathy, if not the active support, of the British
Dominions in the Pacific would be with the United
States, whether Great Britain kept to her Treaty or
not. It was recognised, however, as almost un-
thinkable that Great Britain would go to war by the
side of Japan against the American Republic.
Gre<it Britain is very sensitive to the opinions of
her Dominions in these days of the industrious pro-
mulgation of Imperialist sentiment in Great Britain :
204 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
and a Canadian or an Australian voter though he
has no vote for the House of Commons has far more
influence on the destinies of the Empire than his
British compeer. The overseas objection to the
Treaty with Japan had its full effect in the British
Cabinet, and that effect was seen in subsequent
modifications of the Treaty.
On August 12, 1905, the British- Japanese Treaty
was renewed, and the chief articles of the new treaty
were :
" The Governments of Great Britain and Japan,
being desirous of replacing the agreement concluded
between them on the 30th January, 1902, by fresh
stipulations, have agreed upon the following articles,
which have for their object
" (a) The consolidation and maintenance of the
general peace in the regions of Eastern Asia and
of India ;
" (b) The preservation of the common interests of
all Powers in China by insuring the independence
and integrity of the Chinese Empire and the principle
of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry
of all nations in China ;
" (c) The maintenance of the territorial rights of the
High Contracting Parties in the regions of Eastern
Asia and of India, and the defence of their special
interests in the said regions :
" It is agreed that whenever, in the opinion of
either Great Britain or Japan, any of the rights
and interests referred to in the preamble of this
TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC 205
Agreement are in jeopardy, the two Governments
will communicate with one another fully and frankly,
and will consider in common the measures which
should be taken to safeguard those menaced rights
or interests.
"If by reason of unprovoked attack or aggressive
action, wherever arising, on the part of any other
Power or Powers, either Contracting Party should
be involved in war in defence of its territorial rights
or special interests mentioned in the preamble of this
Agreement, the other Contracting Party will at once
come to the assistance of its ally, and will conduct
the war in common, and make peace in mutual
agreement with it.
" Japan possessing paramount political, military, and
economic interests in Corea, Gerat Britain recognises
the right of Japan to take such measures of guidance,
control, and protection in Corea as she may deem
proper and necessary to safeguard and advance those
interests, provided always that such measures are
not contrary to the principle of equal opportunities
for the commerce and industry of all nations.
" Great Britain having a special interest in all that
concerns the security of the Indian frontier, Japan
recognises her right to take such measures in the
proximity of that frontier as she may find necessary
for safeguarding her Indian possessions.
" The High Contracting Parties agree that neither
of them will, without consulting the other, enter into
separate arrangements with another Power to the
206 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
prejudice of the objects described in the preamble of
this Agreement.
" The conditions under which armed assistance shall
be afforded by either Power to the other in the cir-
cumstances mentioned in the present Agreement,
and the means by which such assistance is to be
made available, will be arranged by the naval and
military authorities of the Contracting Parties, who
will from time to time consult one another fully and
freely upon all questions of mutual interest.
" The present Agreement shall, subject to the pro-
visions of Article VI., come into effect immediately
after the date of its signature, and remain in force
for ten years from that date."
It will be noted that there is, as regards the
general responsibility under the Treaty, some water-
ing down. One Power is bound to come to the
help of the other Power only by reason of "un-
provoked attack or aggressive action " on the part of
another Power. The fiction of preserving the in-
dependence of Corea is abandoned.
On April 3, 1911, a Treaty of Commerce and
Navigation was entered into between Great Britain
and Japan. The Japanese Government had revised
its tariff in such a way as to prejudice seriously
foreign trade. It was announced in Japan that
certain nations would have the benefit of " most-
favoured nation " rates under the new tariff, but that
Great Britain would not have that benefit, since, being
a Free Trade country, she was able to give no con-
TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC 207
cessions in return. Then the diplomatic Treaty of
1905 was used by the British Government as an
argument for securing more favoured treatment for
British merchants. If the Trade Treaty of 1911 is
closely studied, it will be found that the trade advan-
tages given to Japan by Great Britain, in return for
some real concessions on the part of Japan to Great
Britain, are wholly illusory. It is difficult to see
how they could have been otherwise, since a Free
Trade country can give nothing better than Free
Trade to another country. But Great Britain, a
good deal out of conceit at this time with the
diplomatic value of the Treaty of 1905, did not
hesitate to use it as a means of securing some trade
benefits. The effect on Japanese public opinion was
not favourable. But the diplomatic position had so
changed that that was not considered a serious cir-
cumstance in Great Britain.
Two articles of the British-Japanese Trade Treaty
of 1911 should be quoted to show the mutual
acceptance by the two Powers of the independent
right of the British overseas Dominions to restrict or
prohibit Japanese immigration :
" The subjects of each of the High Contracting
Parties shall have full liberty to enter, travel and
reside in the territories of the other, and, conforming
themselves to the laws of the country,
" They shall in all that relates to travel and
residence be placed in all respects on the same
footing as native subjects.
208 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
"They shall have the right, equally with native
subjects, to carry on their commerce and manufac-
ture, and to trade in all kinds of merchandise of
lawful commerce, either in person or by agents,
singly or in partnerships with foreigners or native
subjects.
" They shall in all that relates to the pursuit of
their industries, callings, professions, and educational
studies be placed in all respects on the same footing
as the subjects or citizens of the most favoured
nation."
But Article 26 makes this reservation :
" The stipulations of the present Treaty shall not
be applicable to any of His Britannic Majesty's
Dominions, Colonies, Possessions, or Protectorates
beyond the seas, unless notice of adhesion shall have
been given on behalf of any such Dominion, Colony,
Possession, or Protectorate by His Britannic Majesty's
Representative at Tokio before the expiration of two
years from the date of the exchange of the ratifica-
tions of the present Treaty."
A few weeks after the conclusion of this Trade
Treaty the British-Japanese Alliance was renewed on
terms which practically " draw its sting " and abolish
the contingency of a British-Japanese war against
the United States, or against any Power with which
Great Britain makes an Arbitration Treaty. The
preamble of the British-Japanese Treaty now reads :
" The Government of Great Britain and the Govern-
ment of Japan, having in view the important changes
TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC 209
which have taken place in the situation since the
conclusion of the Anglo- Japanese Agreement of the
12th August, 1905, and believing that a revision of
that Agreement responding to such changes would
contribute to the general stability and repose, have
agreed upon the following stipulations to replace the
Agreement above mentioned, such stipulations having
the same object as the said Agreement, namely :
" (a) The consolidation and maintenance of the
general peace in the regions of Eastern Asia and of
India.
" (b) The preservation of the common interests of
all Powers in China by insuring the independence
and integrity of the Chinese Empire, and the principle
of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry
of all nations in China.
" (c) The maintenance of the territorial rights of
the High Contracting Parties in the regions of Eastern
Asia and of India and the defence of their special
interests in the said regions."
The chief clauses are :
"If, by reason of unprovoked attack or aggressive
action wherever arising on the part of any Power or
Powers, either High Contracting Party should be
involved in war in defence of its territorial rights or
special interests mentioned in the preamble of this
Agreement, the other High Contracting Party will at
once come to the assistance of its ally and will
conduct the war in common and make peace in
mutual agreement with it.
14
210 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
" The High Contracting Parties agree that neither of
them will, without consulting the other, enter into
separate arrangements with another Power to the
prejudice of the objects described in the preamble of
this Agreement.
" Should either High Contracting Party conclude a
Treaty of General Arbitration with a third Power, it
is agreed that nothing in this Agreement shall entail
upon such Contracting Party an obligation to go to
war with the Power with whom such Treaty of
Arbitration is in force.
" The present Agreement shall come into effect
immediately after the date of its signature, and
remain in force for ten years from that date."
It will be recognised that there is very little left
now of the very thorough Treaty of 1902. It does
not suit Japanese foreign policy that this fact should
be accentuated, and public opinion in that country
has been generally muzzled. Nevertheless, some
candid opinions on the subject have been published
in the Japanese press. Thus the Osaka Mainichi last
January, discussing evidently a Japanese disappoint-
ment at the failure of Great Britain to join Japan in
some move against Russia, claimed that "for all
practical purposes, the Anglo -Japanese Alliance
ended with its revision last July." In the opinion
of the Mainichi, " the Alliance no longer furnishes
any guarantee for the preservation of Chinese in-
tegrity. So far from Japan and Great Britain
taking, as the terms of the Alliance provide, joint
TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC 211
action to protect the rights and interests of the two
nations when the same are threatened, no measures
have been taken at all." According to the Mainichi,
" England is no longer faithful to the principle of the
Alliance as regards the territorial integrity of China,
and it is even rumoured that she has intentions on
Tibet, similar to those of Russia in Mongolia.
Consequently it is a matter of supreme importance
to know whether the Alliance is to be considered as
still alive or not, and the Japanese Government
would do well to make some explicit declaration on
the subject."
This view was supported by the Tokio Nichi-
Nichi, which wrote : " For a long time now the
feeling between Great Britain and Japan has been
undergoing a change. There is no concealing the
fact that it is no longer what it was before the
Russo-Japanese War. At the time of the Tariff
the friendly relations were only maintained by con-
cessions from the side of the Japanese. The revision
of the terms of the Alliance has reduced it from a
real value to this country to a merely nominal value.
The friendship which has been steadily growing
between Great Britain and Russia is something to
be watched. The action of Great Britain in the
China trouble has not been true to the Alliance.
The tacit consent given to Russian action in
Mongolia is a violation of the integrity of China,
and on top of it we are informed that Great Britain
at the right moment will adopt similar steps in Tibet."
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
The British-Japanese Treaty, for as much as it
stands for, is the only definite treaty affecting big
issues in the Pacific to-day. To attempt to discuss
all possible treaties and combinations in the Pacific
would be, of course, impossible. But some notice
must be given of the recent remarkable hint of the
possibilities of an " understanding " between Germany
and the United States on Pacific questions. In
February Mr Knox, the United States Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, communicated in a formal
Note to Germany some views on Pacific questions.
Commenting on this, the New York Sun, whose
correspondent at Washington is a great deal in the
confidence of the Government, commented : " The
significance of Mr Knox's Note as a warning will,
it is thought, be clearly seen by the other Powers.
The fact that the writing and publication of Mr
Knox's Note are the result of an understanding
between Germany and the United States will greatly
add to the force of the document. The other Powers,
according to the Washington view, will hesitate long
before embarking upon the policy of advancing their
special interests by taking advantage of China's
distress when Germany and the United States are
standing together before the world in opposition to
any such move."
An "understanding" between Germany and the
United States to act together on the Asiatic side of
the Pacific littoral would have its strategic importance
in the fact that German power in the Atlantic would
TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC 213
help to lessen certain risks consequent upon the United
States concentrating her naval forces in the Pacific.
Another reasonably possible combination should
be noted. As one of three partners in the Triple
Entente, Great Britain has an understanding with
Russia, which might possibly affect one day the
position in the Pacific. It is a fact rumoured among
European diplomats that France, with the idea of
maintaining the Triple Entente as a basis of future
world-action, has urged Russia to build a Pacific
Fleet, abandoning naval expansion in the Baltic and
the Black Sea. With a strong Pacific Fleet Russia
would certainly be a much more valuable friend to
France and to Great Britain than at present. But
that is "in the air." The actual position is that
Great Britain and Russia are on such excellent terms
that they can fish amicably together to-day in the
very disturbed waters of Persia, and are possible
future partners in the Pacific.
Those who consider a British-Russian alliance as
impossible, forget the history of centuries and re-
member only that of a generation. Anciently the
Russian and the Englishman were the best of friends,
and Russian aid was often of very material use to
Great Britain. It was in the eleventh century that
King Canute established English naval power in the
Baltic, and thus opened up a great trade with the
Russian town of Novgorod. He helped the young
Russian nation much in so doing. After Canute's
death this trade with Russia languished for five
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
centuries. But in the sixteenth century it was revived,
and some centuries later it was said of this revival :
" The discovery of a maritime intercourse with the
Great Empire of Russia, and the consequent extension
of commerce and navigation, is justly regarded by
historians as the first dawn of the wealth and naval
preponderance of England." Some indeed hold that
the great exploits of the Elizabethan era of British
seamanship would not have been possible without the
maritime supplies cordage, canvas, tallow, spars and
salt beef obtained from Russia.
The benefits of the friendship were not all on one
side. In the seventeenth century England helped
Russia with arms, supplies and troops against the
Poles. In 1747 England paid Russia to obtain an
army of 37,000 troops which was employed in
Holland. Later it was agreed that Russia was to
keep ready, on the frontiers of Livonia, an army of
47,000 troops beside forty galleys to be used in the
defence of Hanover, for England, if needed. At a
later date Catherine the Great of Russia was appealed
to for 20,000 troops for service against the revolted
American colonies, an appeal which she very wisely
rejected. In the wars against Napoleon, Great
Britain and Russia were joint chiefs of the European
coalition, and a Russian Fleet was stationed in British
waters doing good service at the time of the Mutiny
of the Nore. A British-Russian understanding, in
short, has been the rule rather than the exception in
European politics since the fifteenth century.
TREATIES IN THE PACIFIC
An instinct of friendliness between Great Britain
and the United States, though expressed in no formal
bonds, is yet a great force in the Pacific. There has
been at least one occasion on which an American
force in the Pacific has gone to the help of a British
naval force engaging an Asiatic enemy. There are
various more or less authentic stories showing the
instinct of the armed forces of both nations to
fraternise. Sometimes it is the American, sometimes
the British sailor who is accused of breaking inter-
national law in his bias for the men of his own speech
and race. It would not be wise to record incidents,
which were irregular if they ever happened, and
which, therefore, had best be forgotten. But the
fact of the American man-of-war's-men in Apia
Harbour, Samoa, finding time during their own
rush to destruction at the hands of a hurricane to
cheer a British warship steaming out to safety, is
authentic, and can be cited without any harm as one
instance of the instinctive friendship of the two
peoples in the Pacific of common blood and common
language.
CHAPTER XV
THE PANAMA CANAL
THE poetry that is latent in modern science, still
awaiting its singer, shows in the story of the Panama
Canal. Nature fought the great French engineer,
de Lesseps, on that narrow peninsula, and conquered
him. His project for uniting the waterways of the
Pacific and the Atlantic was defeated. But not by
hills or distances. Nature's chief means of resistance
to science was the mobilising of her armies of subtle
poisoners. The microbes of malaria, yellow fever,
of other diseases of the tropical marshes, fell upon
the canal workers. The mortality was frightful.
Coolie workers, according to one calculation, had a
year's probability of life when they took to work on
the canal. The superintendents and engineers of
the White Race went to their tasks as soldiers go to
a forlorn hope. Finally the forces of disease con-
quered. The French project for cutting a canal
through the isthmus of Panama was abandoned,
having ruined the majority of those who had sub-
scribed to its funds, having killed the majority of
those who had given to it of their labour.
The United States having decided to take over
216
THE PANAMA CANAL 217
the responsibility for a task of such advantage to
the world's civilisation, gave to it at the outset the
benefit of a scientific consideration touched with
imagination. There were hills to be levelled, ditches
to be dug, water-courses to be tamed, locks to be
built. All that was clear enough. But how to
secure the safety of the workers ? Nature's defenders,
though fed fat with victory, were still eager, relent-
less for new victims. Science said that to build a
canal, wholesome working conditions must be created :
yellow fever and malaria abolished. Science also
told how. The massacre of the mosquitoes of the
isthmus was the first task in canal-building.
The mosquitoes, the disseminators of the deadly
tropical diseases, were attacked in their breeding
grounds, and their larvae easily destroyed by put-
ting a film of oil over the surface of the shallow
waters in which they lived. The oil smothered the
life in the larvae, and they perished before they had
fully developed. The insect fortunately has no great
range of flight. Its life is short, and it cannot pass far
from its birthplace. Herodotus tells how Egyptians
avoided mosquitoes by sleeping in high towers. The
natives of Papua escape them by building their huts
in the forks of great trees. If the mosquitoes are
effectively exterminated within a certain area, there
is certainty of future immunity from them within
that area if the marshes, j the pools the stagnant
waters generally on its boundaries are thereafter
guarded during the hatching season against
218 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
chance of mosquito larvae coming to winged life.
At Suez scientists had found this all out. Science
conquered the mosquito in Panama as it had been
conquered elsewhere, and the entrenchments of
Nature crumbled away. Henceforth it was a matter
of rock-cutters, steam shovels and explosives, the
ABC of modern knowledge. But the mosquito
put up a stubborn fight. Driven out of the marshes,
it found a refuge in the cisterns of houses, even
in the holy- water founts of churches. Every bit of
stagnant water within the isthmus area had to be
protected against the chance of mosquitoes coming
to life before the campaign was successful. To-day
the isthmus of Panama is by no means unhealthy,
and the work of canal- cut ting progresses so well that
Mr President Taft was able to announce recently the
probability of it being opened two years before the
due date. That brings the canal as a realised fact
right into the present.
Some few facts regarding this engineering work.
It will cost about 70,000,000. The total length of
the canal to be made from sea to sea is 50^ miles,
with a maximum width on the bottom of 1000 feet.
The land excavation is 40^ miles of cutting through
rock, sand and clay, leaving 10 miles of channel to
be deepened to reach the sea at either end. Some of
the other construction dimensions are these :
Locks, usable length . . . 1,000 feet.
Locks, usable width . . . .110 feet.
Gatun Lake, area . .164 square miles.
THE PANAMA CANAL 219
Gatun Lake, channel depth . . 84 to 45 feet.
Excavation, estimated
total . . . 174,666,594 cubic yards.
Concrete, total esti-
mated for canal . 5,000,000 cubic yards.
The Gatun is the greatest rock and earth-fill dam
ever attempted. Forming Gatun Lake by impound-
ing the waters of the Chagres and other streams, it
will be nearly 1^ miles long, nearly ^ mile wide at
its base, about 400 feet wide at the water surface,
about 100 feet wide at the top. Its crest, as planned,
will be at an elevation of 115 feet above mean sea-
level, or 30 feet above the normal level of the lake.
The interior of the dam is being formed of a natural
mixture of sand and clay placed between two large
masses of rock, and miscellaneous material obtained
from steam-shovel excavation at various points along
the canal.
Gatun Lake will cover an area of 164 square
miles, with a depth in the ship channel varying from
85 to 45 feet. The necessity for this artificial lake
is because of the rugged hills of Panama. A sea-
level canal would have been a financial impossibility.
By a lock system lifting vessels up to Gatun Lake
(a height of 85 feet), an immense amount of
excavation was saved. Incidentally the alarm was
allayed of that ingenious speculator who foretold
that the Gulf Stream would take a new path
through the Panama Canal and desert the West
Coast of Europe, on the climate of which it has
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
so profound an influence. When the canal was
opened England was to revert to her "natural
climate " that of Labrador ! But since the canal
will not be a sea-level one, it cannot of course have
the slightest effect on ocean currents. The amount
of Pacific and Atlantic water which will be mutu-
ally exchanged by its agency each year will be
insignificant.
The Panama Canal, when opened, will be exclus-
ively United States property ; it will be fortified and
defended by the United States army and navy : and
it will probably in time of peace be used to help
United States trade, and in time of war to help the
United States arms. All those conclusions are
natural, since the United States has found the money
for the work, and claims under the Monroe doctrine
an exclusive hegemony of the American continent
south of the Canadian border. But originally it was
thought that the canal would be, in a sense, an inter-
national one. Later the idea was entertained, and
actually embodied, in a treaty between Great Britain
and the United States that whilst " the United States
should have the exclusive right of providing for the
regulation and management of the canal," it should
not be fortified. But the Treaty of 1902 between
Great Britain and the United States abrogated that,
and provided for the " neutralisation " of the canal.
It was stipulated that " the United States adopts, as
the basis of the neutralisation of such ship canal, the
following rules, substantially as embodied in the Con-
THE PANAMA CANAL
vention of Constantinople, signed the 28th October
1888, for the free navigation of the Suez Canal."
The Rules provide that the canal shall be open to
the vessels of commerce and war of all nations on
terms of equality, so that there shall be no discrimina-
tion against any nation or its citizens or subjects in
respect to conditions or charges.
Rule 2 states: "The canal shall never be block-
aded, nor shall any right of war be exercised, nor any
act of hostility be committed within it. The United
States, however, shall be at liberty to maintain such
military police along the canal as may be necessary
to protect it against lawlessness and disorder." The
third rule prohibits vessels of war of a belligerent
from revictualling or taking on stores in the canal
except so far as may be strictly necessary. Under
Rule 4 belligerents may not embark or disembark
troops, munitions of war, or warlike materials, except
in case of accidental hindrance in transit, "and in
that case the transit shall be resumed with all possible
despatch. Waters adjacent to the canal within three
marine miles of either end are considered as part of
the canal. Vessels of war of a belligerent are not
permitted to remain in those waters longer than
twenty-four hours, except in case of distress." The
"last rule makes the plant, establishments, buildings,
and the works necessary for the construction, main-
tenance and operation of the canal part of the canal,
" and in time of war, as in time of peace, they shall
enjoy complete immunity from attack or injury by
222 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
belligerents, arid from acts calculated to impair their
usefulness as part of the canal."
But it seems clear that anything, stated or implied,
in that Treaty, which is calculated to limit the
sovereign rights of the United States in regard to
the canal, will be allowed to be forgotten, for the
canal has lately, since the question of the control of
the Pacific came to the front, shown to the United
States even more as a military than as an industrial
necessity. In war time the United States will use
the canal so that she may mobilise her Fleet in either
ocean. Already she has passed estimates amount-
ing to 3,000,000 for installing 14-inch guns, search-
lights, and submarine mines at either entrance. She
is also establishing a naval base at Cuba to guard the
Atlantic entrance, and designs yet another base at
the Galapagos Islands. At present those islands
belong to Ecuador, and Ecuador objects to parting
with them. But it is probable that a way will be
found out of that difficulty, for it is clear that a strong-
United States naval base must be established on the
Pacific as well as the Atlantic threshold of the canal.
This base, with another at Cuba, would meet the
objection I saw raised by an American Admiral last
year when he said : " In the event of the United
States being at war with a first-class naval Power, F
doubt very much whether the canal would be used
once hostilities were declared. I assume that our
opponent would have so disposed his Fleets as to
engage ours in the Atlantic or Pacific coasts accord-
THE PANAMA CANAL
ing as circumstances might require, and that if we
were stupid or careless enough to be caught napping
with our vessels scattered, no person in authority
with any sense would risk sending our ships through
the canal. Our enemy would lie in wait for us and
pick off our vessels as they entered or emerged from
the canal, and every advantage would be on their
side and against us. This, of course, is on the
assumption that the opposing force would be at least
as powerful as our own. If we had preponderating
strength conditions would be different, but if the
navies were evenly matched it would be hazardous in
the extreme to use the canal. Nor would the fortifi-
cations be of much help to us. So long as our ships
remained within the waters of the canal zone they
would, of course, be under the protection of the
guns of the forts, but as soon as they came on the
high seas, where they would have to come if they
were to be of any use, the fortifications would be
of little benefit to them, and little injury to the
enemy."
But when to the actual fortification of the canal is
added the provision of a strong advanced base near
each entrance, this criticism falls to the ground.
Between those advanced bases would be " American
water," and on either base a portion of the American
Fleet could hold an enemy in check until the
mobilisation of the whole Fleet.
The world must make up its mind to the fact that
the Panama Canal is intended by the United States
224 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
as a means of securing her dominance in the Pacific,
without leaving her Atlantic coast too bare of pro-
tection in the event of a great war. Great Britain is
the only Power with any shadow of a claim to object,
and her claim would be founded on treaties and
arrangements which she has either abrogated or
allowed to fall into oblivion. Probably it will never
be put forward. By a course of negotiation, which,
for steadiness of purpose and complete concealment
of that purpose until the right time came for dis-
closure, might be a pattern to the most effective
fighting despotism, the American democracy has
surmounted all obstacles of diplomacy in Panama
just as the obstacles of disease and distance were
surmounted. The reluctance of a disorderly sister
Republic to grant the territory for the canal was
overcome by adding a beneficent one to its numerous
useless revolutions. The jealousy of Europe was
first soothed and ultimately defied. It is safe to
venture the opinion that the reluctance of Ecuador
to part with the Galapagos will also be overcome.
Then from New York to Pekin will stretch a series
of American naval bases Cuba, Panama, the Gala-
pagos, Hawaii, the Philippines.
The intention, announced on some authority, of the
United States to use the canal in times of peace as a
tariff weapon for the furthering of American trade
may arouse some protest, but it is difficult to see how
such a protest can have any effect. The United
States will be able to reply that it is her canal,
THE PANAMA CANAL
bought with her own money, and that it is her right,
therefore, to do with it as she pleases. In a special
message to Congress at the end of 1911, Mr Taft
urged the necessity for the establishment of preferen-
tial rates for American shipping passing through the
Panama Canal. He cited the practice of foreign
Governments in subsidising their merchant vessels,
and declared that an equivalent remission of canal
tolls in favour of American commerce could not be
held to be discrimination. The message went on :
" Mr Taft does not believe that it would be the best
policy wholly to remit the tolls for domestic commerce
for reasons purely fiscal. He desires to make the
canal sufficiently profitable to meet the debt amassed
for its construction, and to pay the interest upon it.
On the other hand, he wishes to encourage American
commerce between the Atlantic and the Pacific,
especially in so far as it will insure the effectiveness
of the canal as a competitor with the trans- Continental
railways." The President concluded, therefore, that
some experimentation in tolls would be necessary
before rates could be adjusted properly, or the burden
which American shipping could equitably bear could
be definitely ascertained. He hinted at the desira-
bility of entrusting such experimentation to the
executive rather than to the legislative branch of the
Government.
In plain language, the United States Government
asked for a free hand to shape rates for the use of
the Panama Canal so that American shipping interests
15
226 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
could be promoted. The shipping affected would
not be merely from one American port to another,
but between American and foreign countries. By
the present shipping laws American " coastal trade "
i.e. trade between one American port and another,
even if one of the ports be Manila or Honolulu, is
closely safeguarded for American bottoms by a rigid
system of Protection.
A Daily Telegraph correspondent, writing from
New York to London at the time of Mr President
Taft's message, described the trend of American public
opinion which was shown by the changing of the
registry of the Red Star liners Kroonland and Finland
from Belgian to American. " This morning Captain
Bradshaw, an American, assumed command, and the
ceremony of hauling down the foreign flag and
hoisting the Stars and Stripes took place. The
reasons for the change are not announced, but it is
said that the approaching completion of the Panama
Canal has something to do with it, and shipping
circles here declare that the change of registry presages
the entry of the Kroonland and her sister ship the
Finland into the American coast trade between
Pacific and Atlantic ports, via the Panama Canal.
It is expected that a heavy subsidy will be given to
American steamships by the United States Govern-
ment carrying mails from the Atlantic to the Pacific
via Panama, and it is generally believed that the
owners of the Kroonland and the Finland have this
in mind."
THE PANAMA CANAL 227
Clearly the United States, having expended
70,000,000 directly, and a great deal indirectly, on
the Panama Canal, intends to put it to some profitable
use, both in war time and in peace time. Naval
supremacy in the Pacific in war time, industrial
supremacy in peace time those are the benefits
which she expects to derive.
CHAPTER XVI
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 con-
sidered, 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
228
THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC 229
through its industries, and that national greatness is
lost and won in destructive competition in the work-
shops 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 l, 000,000. The invention did not justify
230 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
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 Eaces, 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, instinc-
tively hostile to the superior industry and superior
trading skill of the Chinese, kept out Chinese
THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC
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 ? With-
out 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 deter-
mination 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
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
to think that the reason lies deeper than the fear of
cheaper labour. It springs rather from the con-
sciousness 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
THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC 233
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 secticfri 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
234 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
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 objection-
able colonists. But some measures of exclusion
have been adopted enforcing landing fees on Chinese ;
and, by treaty, limiting the number of Japanese
THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC 235
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 com-
petitors 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 com-
pletely 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
236 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
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
THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC 237
nations have shown their appreciation of the import-
ance 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 pro-
portion. Some effective comparisons are possible
from the actual experience of Asiatic and other
coloured labour. In the mining industry, for in-
stance, 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
238 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
economical. 1 The Broken Hill (silver) and Kal-
goorlie (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 agri-
culturist, 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.
1 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 depres-
sion 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."
THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC 239
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
240 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
is the effect of impatient White labour in encouraging,
of patient Asiatic labour in discouraging, the inven-
tion 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-barrrow 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, 1
of the British race colonists in the Pacific, the settle-
ments 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
1 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 monu-
ments, 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."
THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC
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 success-
ful 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 recogni-
tion 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 importa-
tion. Various kinds of machinery were next copied
and their importation stopped. China may be ex-
pected 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
16
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
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 Is. a day ; and
conclude therefore that the Asiatic power in the
industrial field is overwhelming. But an examina-
tion of actual working results rather than theoretical
conclusions from a limited range of facts will very
much modify that conclusion. Asiatic labour com-
petition, 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 work-
man 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 tempta-
tion 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
THE INDUSTRIAL POSITION IN THE PACIFIC 243
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.
244 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
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.
CHAPTER XVII
SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
SOUNDLY considered, any great strategical problem is
a matter of :
1. Naval and military strength ; rarely exercised
separately but usually in combination.
2. Disposition of fortified stations and of bases of
supplies.
3. The economic and political conditions of
countries concerned.
Such phrases as the " Blue-water School of
Strategy" are either misleading, inasmuch as they
give an incorrect impression of the ideas of the people
described as belonging to such a school, wrongly
representing them as considering naval strength, and
naval strength alone, in a problem of attack and
defence ; or else they rightly describe an altogether
incorrect conception of strategy. It will be found
on examination of any great typical struggle between
nations that all three matters I have mentioned have
usually entered into the final determination of the
issue ; that superior military or naval force has often
been countered by superior disposition of fortresses,
fitting stations, and supply bases : that sometimes
245
246 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
clear superiority both in armaments and disposition
of armaments has been countered by greater financial
and industrial resources and more resolute national
character.
On all questions of strategy the Napoleonic wars
will provide leading cases, for Napoleon brought to
his campaigns the full range of weapons military,
naval, political, economic ; and his early victories
were won as much by the audaciously new reading
he gave to the politics of war as to his skill in
military strategy and in tactics. It would be a
fascinating task to imagine a Napoleon setting his
mind to a consideration of the strategy of the Pacific
with all its vast problems. But since to give to
" strategy " its properly wide definition would be to
deal again in this chapter with many matters already
fully discussed, I propose to touch upon it here in a
much narrower sense, and suggest certain of the
more immediate strategical problems, particularly in
regard to the disposition of fortified stations and
bases of supplies.
A glance at the map will show that the British
Empire has at the present moment an enormous
strategical superiority over any other Power in the
Pacific. That Empire is established on both flanks,
in positions with strong and safe harbours for fleets,
and with great tracts of fertile country for recruiting
local military forces and providing garrisons. (For
the time being I put aside political limitations and
consider only military and naval possibilities un-
SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 247
hampered by any restrictions.) On the eastern flank
of the Pacific Ocean is the Columbian province of
Canada provided with several fine harbours and
allowing of the construction of an ideal naval base
behind the shelter of Vancouver Island. The coastal
waters and the coastal rivers alike make possible
great fisheries, and consequently are good nurseries
for seamen. The coastal territory has supplies of
coal, of timber, of oil. The hinterland is rich
pastoral, agricultural, and mineral country capable of
carrying an enormous population and, therefore, of
providing a great army.
Considered in relation to its neighbours in the
Pacific, Canada is strategically quite safe except as
regards attack from one quarter the United States.
A Russian attack upon Canada, for instance, would
be strategically hopeless (I presume some equality of
force), since a Russian Fleet would have to cross the
Pacific and meet the Canadian Fleet where the
Canadians chose, or else batter a fortified coast with
the Canadian Fleet sheltering in some port on a
flank waiting a chance to attack. The same remark
applies to an attack from Japan, from China, or from
a South American nation. As regards an attack
from the United States, the position, of course, is
different. But even in that case the strategical
position of Canada would be at least not inferior to
that of the enemy (apart from superiority of numbers),
since that enemy would be liable to diverting attacks
from Great Britain in the Atlantic and from Australia
248 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
and New Zealand in the Pacific (whose forces would,
however, have to subdue the Philippines and the
Hawaiian Islands before they could safely approach
the North American coast). An attack by the
United States on Canada is, however, not within
the bounds of present probability, and need not be
discussed.
The very great importance of Canada to the
British position in the Pacific cannot, however, be too
strongly impressed. Canada holds the right flank of
the Pacific Ocean, and that flank rests upon the main
British strength concentrated in the Atlantic. With
the loss of Canada British mastery in the Pacific
would be impossible. To make the strategical posi-
tion of Western Canada (naturally very strong) secure
there is needed
(a) A British Pacific Fleet strong enough to meet
any enemy in the ocean, and so stationed as to be
capable of concentrating quickly either at a base near
Vancouver on the outbreak of hostilities, or in the
rear of any Fleet attacking the coast.
(b) A greater population in Western Canada with
an army (not necessarily of Regulars) capable of de-
fending Canadian territory against a landing party.
On the west flank of the Pacific Great Britain is
established at Wei-hai-wei, Hong Kong, the Straits
Settlements, Borneo, New Guinea, Australia, New
Zealand, and various small islands. There are here
possibilities of enormous strength and several points
of grave danger.
SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 249
At the outset let us consider the continental
position of the British Empire on the west flank of the
Pacific. The occupation of India gives to the British
Power at once a great position and a great responsi-
bility. Occupation of India, presuming the loyalty
of the majority of the native inhabitants a presump-
tion which seems to become more and more reason-
able with the passage of time gives great material
resources and command of a vast population of good
fighting men. It is admitted, however, that these
native troops require a certain " stiffening " of White
troops before taking the field. To provide that
stiffening is the greatest single task of the British
Regular army. Strategically, the transfer from Great
Britain to India of a large number of soldiers to
leaven the native forces is not an ideal system. The
distance between the source of supply and the field
of operations is so great that in peace it is necessary
to have a larger force than would be necessary if
that distance were reduced, and in war the repairing
of wastage would be a matter of some difficulty.
Further, the British soldier, coming from a very
different climate, suffers a great deal from sickness
in India. A more economical and effective system,
if that were found to be politically possible, would
be to strengthen the White garrison of India in part
from Australia and New Zealand and South Africa
in case o^ war.
The defence of India has to be considered in the
light of
250 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
(a) An attack from Japan or China based on a
Pan- Asiatic movement.
(b) Internal sedition.
(c) An attack from Russia through Persia.
(d) An attack from Germany allied with Turkey
by way of the Persian Gulf.
The two former are the more immediate dangers.
But on the whole, India is a far greater source of
strength than of weakness. She makes the British
Empire a great military power on the mainland of
Asia, and she can contribute materially to the strength
of the Pacific naval forces.
Passing from India we find the British Empire in
possession of several very important strategical posi-
tions on or near the coast of Asia, Wei-hai-wei and
Hong Kong being the advance stations in the north,
and Singapore (the favoured meeting-place of the
Pacific squadron of the British Navy) being a well-
situated central point. A British Pacific Fleet
making Singapore its chief base would be in the
best position to dominate the western littoral of
the ocean. South of Singapore the large settlements
(Australia and New Zealand) are friendly. From
the north any possible enemy would be best watched,
best met, from a Singapore base. That base would
be central for aid from India and South Africa ; and
it would also be the best point of departure for a
Pacific Fleet finding it necessary to rendezvous on
the American flank of the ocean.
This is a convenient point at which to call attention
SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 251
to one grave strategical weakness of the British
Empire position in the Pacific the lack of a
fortified coaling station near to the centre of the
ocean. Between Hong Kong and Vancouver there
is no fortified coaling station. There are rumours,
as I write, of the want being met by the fortification
of Fanning Island, at present the landing-place of
the Pacific cable between Vancouver and Norfolk
Island. Fanning Island is not an ideal station either
by position or natural advantages. But it would be
better than nothing.
The strategical position of Australia and New
Zealand comes next for consideration. Looking to
the future, these British Dominions, which can be
grouped under the one title, Australasia, will probably
form the most important national element in the South
Pacific. Considered at present, Australia must be a
source of the gravest anxiety strategically, for it has
within its vast, and everywhere insufficiently populated,
area one great tract, the Northern Territory, which is
practically empty, and which contains to-day twice as
many Asiatics as Whites. Embracing 335,000,000
acres, the Northern Territory possesses several splen-
did rivers, in the inland portion a great artesian water
supply, and a wide diversity of land and of climate.
On the uplands is a warm, dry, exhilarating area, not
very rich in soil, but suitable for pastoral occupation,
and giving great promise of mineral wealth. On the
lowlands, with a climate which is sub-tropical to
tropical, but, on account of the wide spread of the
252 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
gum tree, is practically nowhere dangerously malarial,
every agricultural industry is possible, from dairy-
farming and maize-growing to the cultivation of
coffee, sugar, sago, hemp, and spices. Almost every
expert who has explored the Territory has been struck
with its possibilities. Mr Dash wood, the former
Government resident, considered the "area of land
suitable for tropical agriculture enormous." Mr
Sydney Kidman, the great cattle breeder, reported
on the land about Herbert River as "ideal cattle
country." A dozen other authorities acclaim the
pastoral possibilities of the uplands. The probability
of vast tin, copper and gold deposits is certified to by
every geological explorer.
The Northern Territory thus offers a tempting
prize for an Asiatic Power seeking new outlets for
its population. Yet, with all its advantages the
Territory remains empty. It is known that the
Government of Great Britain is profoundly anxious
for its settlement. It is an open gate through which
an Asiatic invader may occupy Australia. It is an
empty land which we do not " effectively occupy," and
therefore is, according to the theories of international
law, open to colonisation by some other Power.
Further, the Northern Territory is specially vulner-
able, because an enemy landing there could find
horses, oxen, pasturage, timber, some metals, a good
soil, plenty of water, any number of easily defensible
harbours in short, all the raw material of war.
And to prevent a landing there is nothing. The
SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 253
local White population is nil, practically ; the fortifi-
cations are nil; the chances of an Australian force
ever getting there to dislodge an enemy, nil.
An ingenious Australian romance (The Common-
wealth Crisis, by C. H. Kirness), recently published,
imagines a " colonising invasion " of Australia by
Japan. A certain Thomas Burt and his friend, while
on a hunting trip in the Northern Territory, observe
the landing of bodies of Japanese troops at Junction
Bay. They ride to the south-west to bring the news
to Port Darwin, the small White settlement in the
Territory. For some years preceding Japan had
contemplated a secret "peaceful invasion" of the
Northern Territory. The project was planned with
great care. First a huge military colony was
organised at Formosa, and the men trained in
agriculture. Later, the men were supplied with
wives. Three months were allowed to elapse, and
the men were transported secretly to the Northern
Territory. Quite 6000 "colonists" had been thus
landed before "White Australia" was able to take
any action. Japan, when concealment is no longer
possible, officially states through its Ambassador in
London that, quite without authority from the
Mikado, a private colonising organisation had settled
a body of Japanese in the Northern Territory. The
Mikado regretted this, and was willing that these
subjects should disavow their Japanese citizenship
and swear devotion to the British Flag. A deputation
from the Japanese colony in the Northern Territory
254 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
then arrives at Port Darwin to offer its allegiance,
and to ask that schools should be established in the
new settlement.
From that point the story develops to the down-
fall of " White Australia " so far as all the north of
the Continent is concerned. That romance was,
though in some of its details fantastic, in its main idea
possible. It was one of many efforts in warning.
Such warnings seem to be taking effect now, for the
Commonwealth Government is moving at last to
colonise the Northern Territory, and to build a
railway which will bring it into touch with the more
populous portions of the Continent. A scientific
expedition was sent recently to investigate the con-
ditions of the Territory as regards productiveness
and health. The preliminary report of that expedi-
tion (presented to the Australian Parliament October
1911) was generally favourable. It enlarged on the
great capacity of the Territory for production, and
was optimistic about the climatic conditions :
" Bearing in mind that the country was visited at
the time of year when the climate was most suitable
for Europeans, the general health was remarkably
good. The families of the second generation ex-
amined showed no signs of physical deterioration.
There are none of the tropical diseases, such as
malaria arid dysentery, endemic in the settlements ;
and, as long as the necessary hygienic precautions
are observed, there is no reason to anticipate their
appearance.
SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 255
" There are, at present, men who have spent from
three to four decades in the Territory, and every
one of them compares favourably, both as regards
physique and energy, with men of similar ages else-
where.
" The healthiest and strongest are those, both men
and women, who take regular open-air exercises both
in the relatively cool and in the hot season.
" Life in the back country, provided the ordinary
precautions necessary in tropical parts are taken, is
decidedly healthy. The summer months are un-
doubtedly trying, but the winter months, when at
night-time the temperature falls below 40 degrees F.,
afford recuperation from the excessive damp heat of
the summer. In addition, the open-air life is in itself
a great safeguard against enervation and physical
deterioration."
That bears out the views of those who are in the
best position to know the Northern Territory of
Australia. Clearly, there are no obstacles to its
White settlement except such as arise from the
apathy and carelessness of the governments concerned.
But with the strategical question of populating the
Northern Territory is bound up the other idea of
populating Australia itself. In 1904, the Govern-
ment of New South Wales, one of the Australian
states, alarmed by the fall of the birth-rate, appointed
a Royal Commission to inquire into the cause. One
thing made clear by the investigations of the Com-
mission was " that a very large section of the popula-
256 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
tion keeps down the birth-rate so far as it can, and
that the limit of birth-suppression is defined by the
limit of knowledge on the subject." That was
practically the main conclusion in the Commissioners'
report. It probably did not need a Commission of
Inquiry to tell the social observer of Australia so
much. That the decreasing birth-rate in the
Commonwealth was not primarily due to any physical
degeneracy of the people, had long been the convic-
tion of all who had had the opportunity and the
desire to make the most cursory inquiry into the
subject. Not lack of capacity, but lack of willingness
to undertake parental responsibility, was the cause of
the Australian movement towards sterility. Coming
to a conclusion as to " why " was thus an easy task in
investigating the dwindling birth-rate. It was quite
clear that the Australian cradle did not fill, mainly
because the Australian parent preferred to have a
very small family.
The evil it is an evil, for there could be no better,
no more welcome immigrants to any country than
those coming on the wings of the stork does not
affect Australia alone, but is observable in almost
every civilised country. It has successfully defied
one of the strongest of natural sentiments. Every
sane adult is by instinct desirous of being a parent.
But instinct seems to weaken with civilisation and
its accompanying artificiality of life. If, on an essen-
tially vital point, it is to become so weak as to be
ineffective, and is to be replaced by no ethical or
SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 257
other motive working towards the same end, then
civilisation will involve extinction. That is the
melancholy conclusion which some pessimists even
now come to, pointing to the fact that the White
races of the earth, as a whole, despite the still prolific
Slav and German, show a tendency to dwindle.
Alarm at such a conclusion may yet prove in itself
a remedy. Already there is a general agreement
that for the community's good it is well that there
should be a higher birth-rate, but, so far, the general
agreement lacks particular application. With a
further recognition of the fate to which artificially-
secured sterility points, there may be an acuter alarm,
which will convert the individual not only to good
belief, but to good practice. What is wanted is a
generally accepted conviction that childlessness is
either unfortunate or disgraceful, and that anything
but a moderately large family is a condition calling for
apology. In Australia that is particularly wanted.
There are there in a new country with plenty of room
for many millions yet none of the excuses which can
be held to justify " small families " in more thickly
populated lands. It is satisfactory to note that
since the Birth-rate Commission aroused the public
mind on the subject in Australia, there has been a
distinct betterment of the birth-rate ; and there has
been an end to the old objection to immigration.
"Empty Australia" is filling up somewhat more
rapidly now ; but the process is still far too slow,
from the point of view of strategical safety.
17
258 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
With Australia, including the Northern Territory,
populated and defended, the strategical position
of the British Empire on the Asiatic flank of the
Pacific Ocean could be organised on a sound basis.
An Imperial Fleet, contributed to by the Mother
Country, by Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,
India, and the Crown Colonies, having a rallying
point at Singapore, could hold the Indian Ocean
(which is to the Pacific what the Mediterranean is
to the Atlantic) as a " British lake," and this power-
ful naval force would straddle the centre of the
western littoral of the ocean, keeping secure the
British communities in the south from the Asiatic
communities in the north, and ready to respond to a
call from Canada. On the western, as on the eastern
flank, there is present all the "raw material" for
Fleets and armies great supplies of coal, oil, timber,
metals, fecund fishing grounds, and enormous areas
of agricultural and pastoral territory.
When the strategical position^of the United
States in the Pacific comes to be examined, it is
f6iirrd"~ton5e for the moment one full of anxiet^
The Power which may, five years hence, have un-j
disputed hegemony of the ocean, holds a difficult
position there to-day. The map will show that if
the United States had had no expansion ideas at all^
in the Pacific or elsewhere, national safety demanded
that she should stretch out her arm to take in the ;
Hawaiian Islands. This group, if held by an enemy,
would be as a sword pointed to the heart of the
SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 259
Pacific States of the Republic: but held by the\
United States it is a buckler against any enemy from \
south or west. A foe approaching the United States 1
Pacific coast would inevitably seek to occupy first
the Hawaiian Islands and use them as a base : and
just as surely would not dare to pass those islands
leaving there an American Fleet. With Honolulu
Harbour strongly fortified and sheltering a Fleet of
any real fighting strength, the Pacific coast of the
United States is safe from invasion by sea (invasion
by land from Canada hardly needs to be considered ;
nor from Mexico). At the present time Honolulu
is in the process of being fortified rather than is
fortified : and a powerful American Fleet awaits the
completion of the Panama Canal before it can enter
the Pacific without leaving the Atlantic coast of the
Republic unduly exposed.
The Philippine Islands, too, are a source of anxiety
rather than of strength at present. When the
Panama Canal has been completed and Honolulu
fortified, and the Philippines mark the terminal point
of an American Fleet patrol, their strategical weight
will count in the other scale, for they will then give
the American Power a strong vedette post in the
waters of a possible enemy. Any attack from the
Pacific on the United States would in prudence have
to be preceded by the reduction of the Philippines, or
at least their close investment. Yet the temporary
loss of the group would inflict no great disadvantage
on the American plan of campaign. Thus the enemy
260 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
could not afford to leave the Philippines alone, and yet
would gain no decisive advantage from the sacrifices
necessary to secure them. In the case of a war in
which the United States was acting on the offensive
against an Asiatic Power, the Philippines would be of
great value as an advanced base.
The ultimate strategical position of the United
States in the Pacific cannot be forecasted until there
is a clearer indication of how far she proposes to
carry a policy of overseas expansion. But in the
near future it can be seen that she will keep on the
high seas one great Fleet, its central rallying point
being probably Cuba, with the Galapagos Islands,
San Francisco, Honolulu and Manila as the Pacific
bases. At present the Galapagos belong to Ecuador,
and Ecuador does not seem disposed to " lease " them
to the United States. But that difficulty will prob-
ably be overcome, since the United States must
have an advance guard to protect the Panama Canal
\ on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic side. Viewed
from a purely defensive standpoint, such a strategical
position is sound and courageous. If offensive action
is contemplated, on the Asiatic mainland for example,
a military force far greater than that existing to-day
in the United States must be created.
1 Japan has consolidated a sound strategical position
by the annexation of Corea, Russian naval power
having ceased to exist in the Pacific. Japan now
holds the Sea of Japan as her own Narrow Water.
The possibility of a hostile China making a sea attack
SOME STRATEGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 261
can be viewed without dread, for naturally and
artificially the Japanese naval position is very strong.
Holding the Sea of Japan as securely as she does,
Japan may also consider that her land frontier on the
mainland is more accessible to her bases than to the
bases of any possible enemy.
Russia has been harshly criticised for the con-
ception of naval strategy which gave her one Fleet in
the Baltic, another in the Black Sea, and a third in
the Pacific. But she was forced by her geographical
position into a "straggle" policy. It is extremely
unlikely that she will now adopt the policy, recom-
mended to her in some quarters, of concentrating
naval strength in the Pacific : though, should the
Entente with Great Britain develop into an actual
triple alliance between Great Britain, France and
Russia, that concentration is just possible. It would
have an important effect on the strategical position
in the Pacific : but is too unlikely a contingency to
call for any discussion. The same may be said in
regard to any possibility of a great development of
power in the Pacific by Germany or France.
The interest of the strategical position in the
Pacific thus centres in the rivalry, or friendly emula-
tion, between the United States and the British
Empire. Without any very clear indications of
a conscious purpose, the British Empire has blun-
dered into a strategical position which is rich in
possibilities of strength and has but two glaring
weaknesses, the absence of a Mid-Pacific fortress
262 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
and the emptiness of the Northern Territory of
Australia. With a very clear idea of what she is
about, the United States has prepared for a thoroughly
scientific siege of the Pacific, but she has not the
same wealth of natural material as has the British
Empire.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RIVALS
THE essential superiority of a White Race over a
Coloured Race may fairly be accepted as a "first
principle " in any discussion of world politics. There
are numberless facts to be gathered from 2500 years
of history to justify that faith, and there is lacking as
yet any great body of evidence to support the other
idea, that modern conditions of warfare and of industry
at last have so changed the factors in human great-
ness that mere numbers and imitative faculty can
outweigh the superior intellectual capacity and
originating genius characteristic of the European
peoples. Nevertheless it must be admitted that the
conditions, in warfare and in industry, of life to-day
as compared with life in past centuries, have increased
the value of numbers and of a faculty of blind obedi-
ence, and have proportionately decreased the relative
value of individual character. An Asiatic army to-
day is relatively better fitted to cope with a European
army ; an Asiatic factory is relatively more efficient.
It is necessary, therefore, to call to aid all the
reassuring records of history if one would keep a
serene faith that the future of the Pacific, and with
263
264 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
it the future of the world, is not destined to be
dominated by the Asiatic rather than by the
European. Japan with her fertile people and sterile
soil has done so much since she discovered that the
test imposed on a people by Christian civilisation is
based on their powers of destruction, that there is
good reason for the alarm expressed by many
thinkers (with the German Emperor as their leader)
as to "the Yellow Peril." China, too, awaking now
after the slumber of centuries and grasping at the
full equipment of a modern nation, reinforces that
alarm. It is conceivable that White civilisation may
be for a while worsted and driven from some of its
strongholds by the arms which it has taught the
Coloured Races to use. " Asia for the Asiatics," may
be a battle-cry raised in the future not without avail.
But in time European superiority must again assert
itself.
There are many pessimists who foretell the doom
of the White Races coming from a sterility self-
imposed for the sake of better ease. They see in
every advance of comfort a cause of further weak-
ness, and they picture luxury as rapidly corroding the
supports of our society. But it is comforting to
recall that every age has had the same gloomy critics,
and the Golden Age has always been represented in
the past by the pessimists of the present. For myself,
I am -daring enough to think that the White Races
of to-day are neither enervated nor decadent: that
in physique, in good health and in sense of public
THE RIVALS 265
duty they are improving rather than deteriorating ;
and that the Europe of next century will be more
happy, more vigorous and more sane than the Europe
of to-day. There was a time for the joy of pessimists,
but it is a past time, that dismal past century when
the industrial epoch rushed on man all unawares,
when the clattering machine came to sweep away
handicrafts, and the new economic idea of human
beings as "hands" affected poisonously all social
relations. It was as though a cumbrous wain, well-
built for its slow and sedate rumbling, had suddenly
been hitched to a rushing steam engine. There were
disturbances, clatterings, groanings, and creakings.
The period of adjustment was a painful one. But
it is passing. Meliorism is the justifiable faith of
the future.
The future of the Pacific, I hold then, is with
the White Races. At the best, the Asiatic can hope
to hold his own continent in security. Japan had
the chance of securing a temporary dominance after
the war with Russia, and at one time was said to
have been on the verge of a struggle with the United
States, as an assertion of that dominance. But the
cloud passed over. With the opening of the Panama
Canal, now a matter only of months, the opportunity
of Japan will have finally passed. With the gradual
re-establishment of British naval power in the ocean,
a re-estaolishment which will come through the
agency of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, if
not through the Home Country, and which will be
266 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
" anti- Asiatic " in purpose, a further veto will be put
on any aggressive ambitions on the part of an
Asiatic Power. The statesmen of Japan, indeed,
seem to recognise that she has had her day of
greatest power, and must be content for the future
to be tolerated in her present position as one of the
" Powers " forming the great council of the foremost
nations. But in considering Japan, allowance must
always be made for the danger of the people getting
out of the hands of the oligarchy which rules them.
The Japanese people, fed fat on praise of their own
prowess, may one day force a mad course on states-
men asked to choose between civil and foreign war.
Such a war would be doomed to failure for financial
if for no other reasons. But it might leave a deep
stain of blood on the Pacific.
China a Federal Republic, and rid of the Manchus
if present appearances (1912) are not belied will
have no aggressive ambitions for some years to come.
She may insist, and rightly insist, on more honour-
able treatment from foreign nations. But it is not
likely that she will set Fleets ranging over the
Pacific in search of conquests. By the time that
China has come to a warlike mood if she does
ever come the White Races will be fully equipped
for any struggle. The greatest Asiatic peril, so far as
warlike forces are concerned, is of a Japanese- Chinese
alliance : and the chance of that is slight, for the two
peoples are not sympathetic. It will be noted that
the very first official paper of the nascent Chinese
THE RIVALS 267
Republic is a letter of complaint to the Japanese
Government.
If it is agreed that the Pacific will fall, as the
Mediterranean did, as the Atlantic did, to the rule of
the White Man, the next step is to consider, which
people ? There is, in addition to much evidence, the
temptation of race-pride to suggest that of all the
European peoples the Anglo-Celtic (controlling the
British Empire and the United States) is inherently
the best equipped for world dominance. But that is
not nearly so sure as is the superiority of the White
over the Coloured Races. The Latin peoples-
Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards have in their day
won to lofty greatness. The French in the main
Latin, but with a large element of Celtic and some
element of Teutonic blood were supreme in the world
for many generations, and are not exhausted to-day.
There is not an incident of Anglo-Saxon history ;
either of fighting against tremendous odds and
winning a victory which the stars in their courses
seemed to forbid ; or of making disaster glorious by
a Spartan death ; or of pushing out on some frail
plank into an unknown sea which cannot be
matched by some incident equally noble from the
records of the Latin peoples or the French people.
The Teutons are only now making their bid for
mastery : the Slavs may have a great future. The
future dominance of Europe may be for any one of
the European peoples.
But the position in the Pacific can be simplified for
268 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
the present by the elimination of all the European
Powers but two. Spain and Portugal have had their
day there, and have passed away. Neither France,
Germany, Austria nor Italy can venture any great
force from Europe. Nor is any one of them strongly
established in the Pacific. Great Britain would be
content with the Atlantic but that her overseas
Empire gives her duties and advantages in the new
ocean. The Pacific possessions of the British Empire
were unsought. But they will be held. The other
European Power in the Pacific is Russia, which has
been checked but not destroyed there. That the
supremacy of Europe at present held, so far as any
enterprises beyond its seas are concerned, by Great
Britain may pass to other hands is not impossible ;
and that would affect, of course, the position in the
Pacific. Speculation on that point, however, is
outside the scope of this book, which has attempted
to deal with the Pacific conditions of the present and
immediate future.
On the facts there must be a further elimination of
European Powers in the Pacific, since Russia has no
naval forces there and no design of creating such
forces. There is at present a natural bewilderment
in the Russian mind as a consequence of the recent
war with Japan. That struggle destroyed her power
in Europe as well as in Asia, and the European
balance must be restored first. During the next five
years which will be the critical years Russia will
not count in the Pacific except as the useful ally of
THE RIVALS 269
some powerful naval nation either of Japan, the
United States or Great Britain.
Great Britain is thus left as the sole European
Power capable of independent effort in the Pacific.
Clearly the rivalry for the dominance of the ocean
lies between her and the United States. To discuss
that rivalry is to discuss the real problem of the
Pacific. It may be done frankly, I trust, without
raising suggestions of unfriendliness. A frank dis-
cussion of the problem, carried out on both sides of
the Atlantic, would be of the greatest value to
civilisation. For the position seems to be that both
Powers are preparing to capture the Pacific; that
neither Power can hold it against the other ; and
that a peaceful settlement can only be founded on
complete mutual understanding.
It is true that if the United States decides "to
play a lone hand," she may win through if all the
circumstances are favourable, for she seems destined
to control the resources of all America. It is likely
that within this decade the United States Flag will
fly (either as that of the actually governing or the
suzerain Power) over all the territory south of the
Canadian border to the southern bank of the Panama
Canal. Intervention has been threatened once
already in Mexico. With any further disorder it
may be carried into effect. The United States
cannot aiford to allow the chance of a disorderly
force marching down to destroy 70,000,000 worth
of United States property. Central America has
270 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
been marked down for a process of peaceful absorp-
tion. The treaty with Honduras (a similar one
exists with Nicaragua) shows the method of this
absorption. It provides:
" The Government of Honduras undertakes to
make and negotiate a contract providing for the
refunding of its present internal and external debt
and the adjustment and settlement of unliquidated
claims for the placing of its finances upon a sound
and stable basis, and for the future development of
the natural and economic resources of that country.
The Governments of the United States and Honduras
will take due note of all the provisions of the said
contract when made, and will consult, in order that
all the benefits to Honduras and the security of the
loan may at the same time be assured.
" The loan, which shall be made pursuant to the
above undertaking, shall be secured upon the customs
of Honduras, and the Government of Honduras
agrees not to alter the import or export Customs
duties, or other charges affecting the entry, exit,
or transit of goods, during the existence of the
loan under the said contract, without consultation
and agreement with the Government of the United
States.
" A full and detailed statement of the operations
under this contract shall be submitted by the fiscal
agent of the loan to the Department of State of the
United States and to the Minister of Finance of the
Government of Honduras at the expiration of each
THE RIVALS 271
twelve months, and at such other times as may be
requested by either of the two Governments.
"The Government of Honduras, so long as the
loan exists, will appoint from a list of names to be
presented to it by the fiscal agent of the loan and
approved by the President of the United States of
America, a collector-general of Customs, who shall
administer the Customs in accordance with the
contract securing said loan, and will give this official
full protection in the exercise of his functions. The
Government of the United States will in turn afford
such protection as it may find necessary."
Under the terms of these loan conventions the
independence of Honduras and Nicaragua dwindles
to nothing. The purpose of the arrangements was
stated by Mr President Taft in his message to Con-
gress : " Now that the linking of the oceans by the
Isthmian Canal is nearing assured realisation, the con-
servation of stable conditions in the adjacent countries
becomes a still more pressing need, and all that the
United States has hitherto done in that direction is
amply justified, if there were no other consideration,
by the one fact that this country has acquired such
vast interest in that quarter as to demand every
effort on its part to make solid and durable the
tranquillity of the neighbouring countries."
"Solid and durable tranquillity" means in effect
United States control. From the control of Central
America to that of South America is a big step, but
not an impossible one ; and the United States already
272 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
claims some form of suzerainty over the Latin-
American peoples there. It insists upon giving them
protection against Europe, whether they wish it or
not, and under certain circumstances would exercise
a right of veto over their foreign policy. The
United States also is engaged in promoting through
the Pan-American Bureau a policy of American
continental unity. This Bureau was the outcome
of the Pan-American Conference convened by Mr
Blaine in 1890. The general object of the Bureau
"is not only to develop friendship, commerce, and
trade, but to promote close relations, better acquaint-
ance, and more intimate association along economic,
intellectual, educational and social lines, as well as
political and material lines, among the American
Republics." " The Bureau for commercial purposes,"
its Director, Mr Barrett, reports, " is in touch in both
North and South America, on the one hand with
manufacturers, merchants, exporters, and importers,
doing all it can to facilitate the exchange and building
up of trade among the American nations, and on the
other hand with University and College Presidents,
professors, and students, writers, newspaper men,
scientists, and travellers, providing them with a large
variety of information that will increase their interests
in the different American nations." The Bureau
publishes handbooks and reports on the various
countries containing information relating to their
commercial development and tariffs.
There will be held this year (1912) at Washington
THE RIVALS 273
a Pan- American Conference on trade, organised by
the Bureau, "to awaken the commercial organisa-
tions, representative business men, and the general
public of both North and South America to an
appreciation of the possibilities of Pan-American
commerce, and the necessity of preparing for the
opening of the Panama Canal." " The Conference,"
says the official announcement, " will have a novel
feature in that it will consider the exchange of trade
imports as well as exports and the opportunities
not only of the United States to extend the sale of
her products in Latin America, but of Latin America
to sell her products in the United States, for only
upon the basis of reciprocal exchange of trade can a
permanent large commerce and lasting good relations
be built up between the United States and her
twenty sister American Republics. Heretofore all
discussions and meetings have considered only the
export field, with a corresponding unfortunate effect
on public opinion in Latin America, and her attitude
towards the efforts of the United States to increase
her commerce with that important part of the world.
Another special feature will be a careful considera-
tion, from the standpoint of the business interests of
all the American countries interested in the Panama
Canal, of what should be done to get ready for
greater exchange of trade through that waterway,
and to gain practical advantages to their commerce
from the day it is opened."
The policy of Pan-America may one day come into
18
274 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
effect, and the United States Power command the
resources of all America except Canada. (That
Canada will ever willingly come under her suzerainty
seems now little likely.) But from Cape Horn to
the Gulf of St Lawrence is an Empire of mighty
resources, great enough to sate the ambition of any
Power, but yet not forbidding the ambition to make
it the base for further conquests.
Yet, withal, the United States cannot rely confi-
dently on an unchecked career of prosperity. She
may have her troubles. Indeed, she has her troubles.
No American of to-day professes to know a solution
of the negro problem. " There are two ways out of
the difficulty," said one American grimly; "to kill
all the negroes, and to deport all the negroes ; and
neither is humanly possible." To allow them to be
absorbed by intermarriage with the White population
is unthinkable, and would, in a generation or two,
drag the United States down to the level of a larger
Hayti. A settlement of the black question will one
day, sooner or later, absorb the American mind for
some time to the exclusion of all else. Neither the
acquisition of territories with great coloured popula-
tions, nor the extension of suzerainty over half-breed
countries will do anything to simplify that problem.
There is also a possible social difficulty to be faced
by the United States. The present differences
between rich and poor are too extreme to be safe.
Too many of the rich despise the poor on the ground
that to be poor is to be a failure : too many of the
THE RIVALS 275
poor hate the rich with a wolfish hatred as successful
bandits. The quick growth of material prosperity
has cloaked over this class feeling. When there
were good crumbs for everybody the too-great wealth
of the rich was not so obvious. But the time comes
when the United States is no longer a Tom Tiddler's
ground where everybody can pick up something :
and the rivalry between those who have too much
and those who have too little begins to show nakedly.
In short, the United States, justified as she is to
keep a superb confidence in her own resources, might
find a policy of hostile rivalry to the British Power
in the Pacific an impossible one to carry through,
for it would not be wise statesmanship on her part to
presume that her future history will be, at home and
abroad, an uninterrupted course of prosperity.
There is no need to presume that hostile rivalry.
On the other hand, there is no wisdom in following
blindly a policy of drift which may lead to that
rivalry. The question of the future of the Pacific
narrows down to this : Will two great Powers,
sprung from the same race, take advantage of a
common tongue to talk out frankly, honestly, their
aims and purpose so that they may arrive at a
common understanding ?
There are some obstacles to such an understanding.
The first is American diplomacy, which, whilst truth-
ful to the point of brusqueness, is strangely reluctant
to avow its real objects, for the reason, 1 think, that
it often acts without admitting even its own mind
276 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
into confidence. The boy who makes his way to
the unguarded apple orchard does not admit to
himself that he is after apples. He professes to like
the scenery in that direction. American diplomacy
acts in the same way. It would have been impossible,
for instance, to have obtained from the American
Government ten years ago a confidential declaration,
in a friendly way, of the Pacific policy which is now
announced. Yet it should have been quite plain to
the American mind after the seizure of the Philippines
and the fortification of Hawaii, if the American mind
would have consented to examine into itself. Now,
it is not possible for two great nations to preserve a
mutual friendship without a mutual confidence.
Another obstacle to a perfect British-American
understanding is that British diplomacy is always at
its worst in dealing with the United States. That
combination of firmness with politeness which is used
in European relations is abandoned for a policy of
gush when dealing with America. Claims for a
particular consideration founded on relationship are
made which are sometimes a little resented, some-
times a little ridiculed. British diplomats do not
"keep their dignity" well in negotiating with the
United States. They are so obsessed with the feeling
that to drift into bad terms with the great English-
speaking Republic would be calamitous, that they
give a suspicion sometimes of truckling. There
would be a better feeling if relationship were not so
much insisted upon and reliance were placed instead
THE RIVALS 277
on a mutual respect for power and on a community
of purpose in most quarters of the globe. Meekness
does not sit well on the British manner, and often the
American's view of " relationship talk " is that it is
intended as a prelude to inducing him into a bad
bargain.
It should always be the aim of the leaders of
American and British public opinion to encourage
friendship between the two nations. But it is not
wise to be for ever insisting that, because of their
blood relationship, a serious quarrel between them
is impossible. True, a struggle between Great
Britain and the United States would have all the
horrors of a civil war, but even civil wars happen ;
and it is human nature that relatives should some-
times let bickering, not intended at the outset to be
serious, drift into open rupture. The sentimental
talk founded, as it were, on the idea that the United
States and Great Britain are married and must hold
together " for better or for worse," is dangerous.
When Pacific questions come up for discussion in
the near future, there is likely, however, to be a
modification in the old British methods of diplomacy,
for the Dominions of Canada, Australia and New
Zealand must be allowed to take part in the dis-
cussions ; and Australia and New Zealand have a
certain impatient Imperialism on which I have
remarked before. Their attitude in foreign affairs
appears as almost truculent to European ideas of
diplomacy. Probably Canada will show the same
278 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
spirit, for it is the spirit of youth in nationhood, with
its superb self-confidence still lacking the sobering
effects of experience.
It is a mistaken idea, though an idea generally
held in some quarters, that the British Dominions in
the Pacific are more sympathetic with American
than with British ideas. The contrary is the case.
Where there are points of difference between the
Anglo- Celtic race in Great Britain and in the United
States, the British Dominions lean to their Mother
Country. Their progressive democracy is better
satisfied with the conditions under the shadow of a
Throne, which has nothing of tyranny and little of
privilege, than with those offering under a Republic
whose freedom is tempered a good deal with pluto-
cratic influences. " To be exactly opposite to every-
thing which is known as ' American ' that is the
ideal of Australian democracy," said a responsible
statesman of the Commonwealth. The statement
was put strongly so as to arrest attention ; but it
contained a germ of truth. In spite of the theoreti-
cal Republicanism of a majority of the Australian
people, their practical decisions would almost always
favour the British rather than the American political
system.
The fervid welcome recently given in the Pacific
to the Fleet of American battleships which circum-
navigated the world, gave rise to some misconcep-
tions. American press correspondents with the Fleet
generally formed the idea that Australia in particular
THE RIVALS 279
was ready to fall into the arms of the United States
at the first advance. But that welcome was in part
simply the expression of a warm feeling of hospitality
for visitors of a kindred race. For the rest, it was an
expression of gratitude for the reassurance which the
American Fleet gave that a White Race was deter-
mined to be a Power in the Pacific. Great Britain
had just renewed her treaty with Japan, which had
defeated Russia, and this treaty left the Japanese Fleet
as the guardian of the British interests in the ocean.
To the Australian mind such guardianship was worse
than useless. If it were ever a question between
accepting the guardianship of the United States
with all its implied obligations and modifying their
anti-Asiatic policy, Australia, Canada and New
Zealand would, without a doubt, accept the first
alternative. But they would very much prefer that
the British Power should be the guardian of their
safety, especially a British Power largely supplied and
controlled by themselves.
It is towards that development that events now
move. It has its danger in that there may be a
growing brusqueness in British negotiations in the
Pacific. The Dominions of Canada, Australia and
New Zealand (I include Canada because all the
indications are that she will now fall into line with
the other Pacific British nations), paying so much to
the piper, will want to call the tune : and whereas
British diplomacy with the United States is to-day
a shade too deferential, Australasian and Canadian
280 PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
diplomacy possibly will fall into the other error.
Experience, of course, will cure the impatience of
youth in time. But it is important that at the outset
there should be no occasions for bad feeling. A
friendly informal conference between Great Britain,
the United States, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand, ushering in the opening of the Panama
Canal, would provide an opportunity for beginning
the frank discussion which is needed.
The position in the Pacific confronting such a
conference would be this : that friendly co-operation
between the United States and Great Britain would
give to the Anglo-Saxon race the mastery of the
world's greatest ocean, laying for ever the fear of the
Yellow Peril, securing for the world that its greatest
readjustment of the balance of power shall be effected
in peace : but that rivalry between these two kindred
nations may cause the gravest evils, and possibly
irreparable disasters.
THE END
UNIT
an Francisco
T A T E S
NewOrle
Cable Rou\
Trade
Naval & Co
(Preset
INDEX
Acadia (see Nova Scotia).
Adriatic, the, 41.
Ainus, the, 35, 138.
Albuquerque takes Malacca, 96.
Alexander the Great, 21, 103.
Alliance between Great Britain and
Japan, 39, 42, \^ et seq.
Amber, the Arabian search for, 22.
America : a " New France " in,
165.
American bureau, the, 272, 273.
conferences, 272, 273.
diplomacy, 224, 275, 276.
-educated Chinese, 53, 54.
Empire, growth of, 69.
Imperial system, an, 12, 161, 164.
Imperialism and the Filipinos, 82.
national temper, the, 67.
naval bases, 224.
" relationship talk," 277.
War of Independence, the, 86.
Andes, the, 151.
Anglo-Celtic alliance, an, 14, 15.
race and the British Dominions,
278.
race best equipped for world
dominance, 267.
Anglo-Saxon, the Elizabethan, 69,
148.
Anson, Admiral, 91.
Apia Harbour, Samoa, 215.
Arabians search for amber, 22.
Arabs and the Baltic, 22.
Argentine Republic, the, 150, 160,
162.
army of, 197.
navy of, 183.
Armies of the Pacific :
Argentine, 197.
Australian, 191.
Bolivian, 197.
Brazilian, 197.
Armies of the Pacific :
British, 191.
Canadian, 191.
Chinese, 190.
Colombian, 198.
Ecuador, 198.
Indian, 191.
Japanese, 189.
Mexican, 197.
New Zealand, 191.
Paraguay, 198.
Russian, 186, 187.
South American, 198.
United States, 190.
Aryans, the, 21.
Asahi Shimbun, the, 46.
Asia, arrogance of, 40.
for the Asiatics, 241, 264.
Asiatic colonisation, White fear of,
231.
immigration, 234.
labour, 228.
labour, cheapness exaggerated,
237-
peril, the greatest, 266.
populations, natural checks, 58 ;
European influence on, 59.
trade competition, 235, 236, 237.
Asiatics as navvies and dock-
labourers, 239.
preventive medicine and, 59.
cannot compete with Europeans,
239-
Atlantic, the, and the White Man,
267.
German power in, 212.
Australasia, 100.
Australasia and the White Race,
101.
Australasian Empire, an, 126.
Australia, 3, II, 13, 21, 93, 94, 109,
248, 250, 265, 277.
281
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Australia, a "colonising invasion"
of, by Japan, 253.
and Imperial naval co-operation,
116.
annexed by Capt. Cook, 94-95,
101, 123.
anti-Asiatic policy of, 106, 279.
army of, 191.
Chinese poll-tax in, 234.
coloured labour in the mines, 238
(footnote).
Defence Act, the, 109.
early settlers, 102.
first Fleet sails for, 95.
food production possibilities of,
119.
impatient Imperialism of, 277.
Imperialism of, no.
in 1901 prohibits coloured immi-
gration, 202.
keeping the Asiatic out of, 106.
laws against Asiatic immigration,
234.
Military College of, 192, 193;
official conditions, 193 ; cadets,
193 ; gambling and cigarette-
smoking prohibited, 194.
nation-building material, 105.
Northern Territory of, 138, 238
(footnote), 251, 252, 253, 254,
262.
populating, 255.
potentially the greatest asset of
the British race, 118.
prayers for rain, 106.
prolific, 102.
strategical position of, 251.
universal training for military
service, 108.
unvisited by Asiatics in the early
days of the Pacific, 58.
William Dampier in, 104.
Australian aboriginal race, the,
137, 138.
birth-rate, 256, 257.
Bushman, the, 121 ; as material
for a great warrior nation, 122.
colonists aggressively I mperial, 95 .
democracy, ideal of, 278.
Education Test, 203, 234.
Fleet unit, the, u$et seq.
Pacific Fleet, the, 181.
sternly resolute, 106.
Australians, warlike spirit of, 108.
aggressive patriotism of, 117.
Aztecs, the, 1 56.
" Balance of power," 17.
Balboa of Castile, 2, 153.
Baltic, the, 22.
Banana tree, the, 145.
Barbary States, U.S.A., war with,
70, 72.
Barrett, Mr, 272.
Bible, the, 148.
Bingham, Hiram, at Honolulu, 77.
Elaine, Mr, 272.
"Blue-water School of Strategy,"
245.
Boccaccio's story of a Christian,
Bolivia, 151, 160.
army of, 197.
Bombay, rats in, 61.
Borneo, 248.
Boston, 77.
Botany Bay, 104.
Boxer outbreak of 1900, the, 50,
59-
Brazil, army of, 197.
Republic of, 160, 162.
Britain, military forces, 191.
Roman invasion of, 87.
British Admiralty and Imperial
naval co-operation, 112.
and Japanese, analogy between,
Columbia and Asiatic immigra-
tion, 45, 234.
Continent in the Pacific, the, 100
et seq.
diplomacy in Pacific, 276, 279 ;
modification of, in the future,
277.
Dominions, their loyalty to the
Mother Country, 277.
Empire, one grave strategical
weakness, 251.
foundation of, 76.
strategical position of, 258.
the possibilities of, 129.
White population of, 129.
Flag in the South Pacific, the
foreign policy, 17.
garrisons in India, 191.
INDEX
283
British Government recognise
Maoris as a nation, 125.
Imperial expansion, 17.
intentions on Tibet, 211.
-Japanese Alliance, renewal of,
208.
Trade Treaty, right of British
overseas Dominions re-
garding Japanese immi-
gration, 207.
Treaties: of 1902, 199; of
1905, 204, 209; of 1911,
199, 206, 207-208.
Treaty, the, 279.
provisions of, 199-201, 204-
206.
war against United States,
contingency abolished,
208.
maritime intercourse with Russia,
214.
naval power in the Pacific, re-
establishment of, 265.
Navy : effective tonnage, 185.
Pacific Fleet, a, 181.
Pacific naval strength, 14.
people, the, Empire-making of,
87.
people, the racial origin of,
87.
-Russian Alliance not impossible,
213.
trade with Latin America, 162,
163.
treaty with Holland, 96.
Britons, Romanised, 88.
"Brown Bess" musket, the, 197.
" Bush," the, in Australia, 121.
in New Zealand, 120.
Byzantine culture and the Southern
Slavs, 22.
Empire, the Greek Church and
the, 23.
Byzantium and the Normans, 22.
California, annexation of, 73.
Japanese in, 45.
Canada, 2, 11, 13, 259, 265, 277.
and the Japanese immigrants,
202.
and the Pacific, 165 et seq.
anti -Asiatic policy of, 279.
French in, 165, 167, 168.
Canada, importance of, to British
position in the Pacific, 248.
landing fees on Chinese, 234.
militia forces of, 191, 194.
naval plans, 183.
organisation of militia, 195.
originally a French colony, 165.
policy of Colonel Hughes, De-
fence Minister, 174.
political tendencies, 170.
proposed Reciprocity Treaty with
United States, 174.
race troubles in, 233.
religion of, 168.
rifle factory, 194.
strategical position of, 247.
the coastal waters of, 169.
the new spirit regarding Defence,
194.
universal military training and,
196.
water power of, 243.
Canadian Defence League, The,
195.
feudal system, 167.
Fleet unit, Sir Wilfrid Laurier on,
172.
General Election of 1911, the,
,171, 195-
militia, the, 171.
naval policy, 172.
Pacific provinces and Japanese
immigration, 202 (and foot-
note).
Provinces, federation of, 73 ; pro-
tests against, 73, 74.
railways and Chinese labour, 233.
Cannibalism, 140.
Canute, King, 213.
Carausius, 88.
Caribbean naval base for United
States, 179.
Sea, Spanish power destroyed, 82.
the United States and the, 67.
Cartier, Jacques, 166.
Castile, the King of, 2.
Catherine the Great, 189, 214.
Caxamalco, Pizarro at, 1 53.
Chagres, the, 219.
Champlain, 166.
Chang Chih-tung, 51, 52.
Chili, 2, 10, 150, 151.
army of, 197.
284
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Chili, navy of, 183.
Republic of, 160, 163.
China, 3, 25, 266.
a new, 56.
ancestor worship in, 55.
and the German Emperor, 10.
and the teeming millions of Asia,
47-
and the White Race, 56.
army of, 190.
Chang Chih-tung's suggestions
for reform, 51, 52.
Christian missionaries in, 50.
Confucianism in, 48, 49, 56 (foot-
note), 57.
deprived of Malthusian checks,
57, 65.
first European ambassadors to,
40.
infanticide in, 57.
Jesuit missionaries in, 50.
legendary history of, 48.
militancy in, 64.
Mohammedans in, 48.
nation-birth of, 8.
navy of, 178.
not a Power in world-politics
generally, 34.
persecution of missionaries, 50.
population of, 8, 63.
Republic of, 54 ; a united, 55.
Republicanism in, 54, 55 ; Mr
Kwei Chih on, 55 (footnote).
Revolution in, 8.
suggested alliance with France,
48.
Taoism in, 49.
territorial integrity of, 200, 201,
202, 204, 209, 210, 211.
the Manchu dynasty, 50, 55
(footnote).
the Ming dynasty, 50.
the Mongol dynasty, 49.
the power of, in the Pacific, 9.
the Reform movement in, 51
et seq.
Chinaman, the, arrogance of, 48.
courage of the, 47.
superior to Japanese, 47.
China's attitude regarding Pacific
issues, 65.
indemnity to Japan, 26.
Chinese ancestor worship, 55.
Chinese, artistry of the, 34.
as agriculturists, 238.
as miners, 237.
contempt of, by Japanese, 56.
distaste for adventure, 57.
Grand Khan, the, 49 ; exchanges
greetings with Pope of Rome,
50.
hatred of the Japanese, 56.
immigration forbidden in United
States, 235.
immigration, restrictions on, 64.
in the Malay Archipelago, 58.
in the United States, 53.
-Japanese alliance not likely, 56.
labour on Canadian railways,
233-
landing fees in Canada, 234.
national spirit of the, 51.
non-aggressive, 56.
parent races of, 49.
poll-tax in Australia, 234.
rights in the Malay Peninsula,
142.
Socialists, 49.
students visit Japan, 53.
war, the, 26.
Christian missionaries in China,
50.
Chuen Hsueh Fieri, the Bible of
Chinese moderate reformers,
52.
Clayton-Bulwer treaty, the, 81.
Colbert, the Minister of Louis XIV.,
167.
Colombia, army of, 198.
Colombo, Capt. Macaulay on, 97.
" Colossus of the North," the, 17, 25.
Columbia, 163.
Columbus, 104, 105.
Commonwealth Crisis, The, 253.
Commonwealth of Australia, birth-
rate of, 256, 257.
Confucianism in China, 48, 49, 56
(footnote), 57.
Constantinople, Convention of, 221.
Russia in, 23.
the Turk in possession of, 41.
Cook, Captain, 94, 101.
annexes Australia, 95, 123.
lands at Botany Bay, 104.
visits New Zealand, 123, 141.
Corea, 5, 6.
INDEX
285
Corea and the Tartar invaders of
Japan, 35.
annexed by Japan, 38, 42, 260.
independence of, 202.
Japan and, 64.
Japanese interests in, 205.
territorial integrity of, 25, 200,
202, 206.
Cortes, 2, 3, 156.
Cossacks, the, 187, 188.
the, and Siberia, 5.
Courteen, Sir William, 104.
Crimean War, the, 24.
Cross and Crescent, 23.
Cuba, 260.
conquered by Velasquez, 156.
fate of, 155.
Guantanamo Bay, 179.
naval base at, 222.
Spain's misgovernment of, 82.
Gushing, Mr Caleb, 81.
Cygnet, the, 104.
Dale, Sir Thomas, 166.
Dampier, William, visits Australia,
104.
Darius and the Greeks, 40.
Dashwood, Mr, 252.
Declaration of Neutrality of 1893,
American, 68.
De Monts, 166.
De Quiros, 104.
De Torres, 104.
Diaz, 2.
abdication of, 159.
and the Mexican revolutionaries,
158.
fall of, 158.
Dickinson, Mr, United States
Secretary for War, 172 (foot-
note).
Drake, Sir Francis, 69, 91.
"Dreadnought" types in 1912 and
1915, forecast of, 184.
Ecuador, 151, 161, 260.
army of, 198.
Edward, Dr Hall, 229.
Effective tonnage of the three
greatest Naval Powers in 1912
and 1915, 185.
Egyptians' device for avoiding
mosquitoes, 217.
Elizabeth, Queen, 24.
Elizabethan Englishman, the, 69,
148.
era, the, 90, 214.
England, an ingenious speculation
as to her climate on opening of
Panama Canal, 220.
Elizabethan, the spirit of, 76.
her sea-power, 89.
English Channel, the, 87.
Englishman, the Elizabethan, 69,
148.
Entente between Great Britain and
Russia, 199.
Europe prohibits Asiatic internecine
warfare, 59.
European ambassadors to China,
the first, 40.
"balance of power," a, 17.
hegemony, the, 40.
relations with China, 49.
scientists and Asiatics, 59.
trade and missions in China,
50.
Fanning Island, 251.
Fiji, 3-
Group acquired by Great Britain,
134.
Hindoo labourers in, 231.
Fijian, a typical gardener, 143.
Filipinos, the, 82.
Finns, the, 21.
Fisher, Mr, Prime Minister of
Australia, 133.
Fitz-Gerald, Mr James Edward,
126.
Fleet unit, the Australian, 113 et
seq.
Formosa, 4.
ceded by China to Japan, 38.
Fotheringham, Colonel, 196.
France, 3, 10, 199.
and China, suggested alliance,
48.
Napoleon and, 18.
trade relations with Japan, 38.
Fremantle, Dr Francis, 60.
French Canada of to-day, 167.
under theocratic despotism, 167.
French- Canadian priesthood, the,
168.
French Canadians, 165, 168.
286
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
French Canadians, their national
character, 168.
French project for Panama Canal,
216.
Revolution, the, 124.
French, the, 267.
Galapagos Islands, the, 222, 224,
260.
Gatun Lake, area of, 218, 219.
Gengis Khan, 22, 49.
German navy : effective tonnage,
185.
power in the Atlantic, 212.
Germans, the, in Kiao-Chau, 10.
Germany, 3, 10.
a possible ally of Japan, 199.
a possible ally of United States,
199, 212.
Gordon, General, 47.
Grant, President, 74.
Great Britain a Free Trade country,
206.
abandons " splendid isolation "
ideal, 27.
acquires the Fiji Group, 134.
and her Indian Empire, 86.
and Japan, alliance, 14, 28, 34,
39, 199-
Treaty of Commerce and Navi-
gation with Japan, 206, 207-
211.
and Russia, an understanding
between, 213, 214.
entente between, 199.
friendship between, 211.
and the Pacific, 269.
and United States, an instinct
towards friendliness, 199.
friendliness between, 215.
treaty with United States,
220.
annexes New Zealand, 125.
entry into the Pacific, 85.
her naval strength in the Pacific,
14.
Imperialist sentiment in, 203.
navy of, 180.
sensitive to opinions of her
Dominions, 203.
the rivalry of the United States,
269.
trade relations with Japan, 38.
Great Britain, where established on
west of Pacific, 248.
Great Lakes, the, and the United
States, 70.
Greek Church, the, 22, 188.
and the Byzantine Empire, 23.
republics, the, and the Persian
Empire, 41.
Greeks and Persians, 40.
Grijalba in Mexico, 156.
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 179.
Gulf Stream, the, 87, 219.
" Habitants," 167.
Hairy Ainus, the, 35.
Hamilton, Alexander, 71.
Hawaii and the Maoris, 139.
Arms Registration Ordinance,
79;
Spaniards in, 93.
the coolies and traders of, 145.
the key to the Pacific coast of
North America, 3.
Hawaiian garrison, the, 190.
Group, natives helpless material
for nation-making, 145.
Islands, the, 77, 258, 259.
annexation of, 78, 81, 83.
Japanese in the, 44, 45, 58.
Republic formed, 78.
population : the chief element,
79, 80, 81.
Hawaiians, the parent stock of the,
142, 145.
Health and Empire, cit, 59-62.
Hegemony of Pacific Ocean, 258.
Heine, cit, 24.
Henderson, Sir Reginald, 181.
Hercules, the Pillars of, I.
Herodotus, 217.
Holland, British treaty with, 96.
Holy Alliance, the, 72, 155.
Honduras, U.S.A., treaty with, 270-
271.
Hong Kong, 11, 85, 97, 248, 250.
harbour of, 98.
Honolulu, 12, 260.
a holiday scene at, 80.
Harbour, 259.
Hiram Bingham's first sermon at,
77-
naval base at, 78, 80.
Hughes, Colonel, 174, 195.
INDEX
287
Huidekoper, Mr, 171 (footnote), 172
(footnote).
Huns, the, 40.
Imperial Conference of 1911, the,
127 et seq.
Defence Conference of 1909, the,
in, 172, 181, 183 ; the British
Admiralty memorandum con-
cerning, 112.
Navy, an, 112, 130.
Imperialism of Australia, 1 10.
Imperialist sentiment in Great
Britain, 203.
Incas, the, 151, 152, 153.
" Independent Tribes of New Zea-
land," the, 125.
India, n.
an independent, 9.
British garrisons in, 191.
defence of, 249.
Great Britain's apprehensions
regarding, 25.
internecine warfare prohibited in,
59-
occupation of, 249.
Russia and, 25.
the British in, 9.
the Raj and, 9.
the Sepoy forces in, 191.
western sea-passage to, 92.
White garrison of, 249.
Indian Empire, the, Great Britain
and, 86.
frontier, the, 205.
Ocean, the, 85.
Industrial position in the Pacific,
235, 240.
"spheres of influence," 236, 240.
Infanticide in China, 57.
Internecine warfare prohibited by
Europe, 59.
Isthmian Canal, the, 271.
Ivan the Terrible, 5.
James I., 104.
Japan, 3, 4 et al
a dwindling Power, 8.
alliance with Great Britain, 39.
an offender against China's
national pride, 64.
and Christianity, 32, 33.
and Corea, 64.
Japan and Great Britain, alliance,
14, 199.
and Manchuria, 64.
and Russia, 25, 26.
and Shintoism, 32.
and the Christian faith, 37.
and the problem of the Pacific, 42.
and trade relations with White
civilisation, 37, 38.
army of, 189.
army and navy of, 6.
bases for industrial prosperity
in, 7.
character of her population, 43.
exclusiveness of, 37.
feudal, 36.
Germany a possible ally of, 199.
healing of local feuds in, 59.
in the Pacific, strategical position
of, 260.
industrial expansion of, 7.
labour movement in, 7.
" most - favoured - nation " rates,
206.
nation-making, 32.
"natural capital" of, 44.
natural resources of, 6.
navy of, 14, 177, 178.
poverty of, 5, 6.
rumoured alliance with Mexico,
159.
Sea of, 260.
Shintoism in, 36.
territories won in battle, 6.
the awakening of, 31.
the greatest warrior Power in the
Pacific, 32.
the "honoured ally" of Great
Britain, 33.
the Mikados of, 31, 36.
the rise of, 31.
the Tartar invaders of, 35.
Treaty of Commerce and Naviga-
tion with Great Britain, 206 ;
207-211.
war with China, 26.
war with Russia, 7, 25 et seq..
265, 268.
warlike confidence of, 6.
Japanese acquire Formosa, 38.
acquire the Pescadores, 38.
ancestry of, 35.
and British, analogy between, 35.
288
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Japanese annex Corea, 38, 42.
arrogance of the, 46.
artistry of the, 34.
as painters and potters, 33.
-Chinese alliance the greatest
Asiatic peril, 266.
contempt for Chinese, 56.
disappointment with the Anglo-
Japanese Alliance, 210-211.
emigrants, 45, 46.
Government proposes State adop-
tion of Christian religion, 32
(footnote).
hatred of, by Chinese, 56.
interests in Corea, 205.
Minister for Home Affairs : com-
munication to Japanese Press,
32-33 (footnote),
national feeling of the, 46.
naval estimates (current), 177.
settlements, 44.
tariffs, 241, 242.
the chief element of Hawaiian
population, 79, 80, 81.
their reputed genius for war, 28.
transformation of the race, 33.
Java, 93.
Java Major, 103.
Jebb, Mr Richard, 232.
Jesuit missionaries in China, 50.
"Jingoism" of British nations in
South Pacific, the, 95.
Kanakas, the, 136, 142, 143, 144,
145.
Kiao-Chou and the German "mailed
fist," 10.
Kidman, Mr Sydney, 252.
Kirk, David, 166.
Kirness, C. H., 253.
Kitchener, Field - Marshal Lord,
in.
Knox, Secretary, 159 (footnote),
212.
Kouropatkin, General, 29.
Kwei Chih, Mr, 55 (footnote).
Labour and anti-Asiatic movements,
232, 233.
movement in Japan, the, 7.
Lansdowne, Marquess of, 201.
Latin America, 147 et seg., 162,
273-
Latin America and the Monroe
doctrine, 162.
British export trade with, 162,
163.
navy of, 183.
race-mixture in, 147.
strength of, 160-161.
summary of position of, 163.
the military strength of, 196.
universal service in, 197.
Latin- American armies, the, 197.
Empire, a, 161.
Power, a, 1 50.
Republics, the, 72, 75.
United States, the Suzerain Power
of, 74.
Latin-Indian race, the, 147.
Latin peoples, the, 267.
Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 128, 183, 194.
defeat of, 1 70 et seq.
Laval, Monseigneur, 167.
Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 216.
Levant, the, 41.
Lithuania, Roman culture in, 22.
Lithuanians, the, 22.
Logic, Colonel, 196.
London Gazette, the, on Americano.
Louis XIV. of France, 167.
Louisiana, cession of, 72.
Macaulay, Captain, 97.
Macdonald, Sir C., 201.
Machiavelli, 57.
Magalhaes, 104.
Malacca, 95.
Malakiki Hill, the Gibraltar of
Honolulu, 79.
Malay Archipelago, the, 58.
Peninsula, the, 230.
Chinese rights in, 142.
States, the, 142.
Malays and Chinese, 230.
Malaysians, the, 139.
Malthusian checks, 57, 65.
Manchu dynasty, the, 50, 55 (foot-
note).
Manchuria, 5, 6, 20.
Japan and, 64.
Russian generals in, 29.
Manchus, the, 8, 9, 266.
Manila, 260.
Maori flag saluted by British war-
ship, 125.
INDEX
289
Maori, the, 122, 136, 138, 139.
race in '1769, population of, 141.
system of government, the, 139.
War, the, 140.
Maoris, cannibalism prevalent
among, 140.
cede their country to Queen
Victoria, 125.
chivalry of, 140.
in New Zealand, population of,
145.
results of civilisation, 141.
similarity to Japanese, 141.
the parent stock of the, 142.
Marco Polo, 49, 103.
Marsden, Rev. Samuel, 123.
Maximilian, 157.
Mediterranean, the, i.
and the White Man, 267.
Russia and, 18, 23.
Melanesia, 94.
Meliorism, 265.
Mencius, 52.
Merritt, Lieut.-Col. Wm. Hamilton,
195.
Mexicans, the aboriginal, 137.
the, and Diaz, 158.
Mexico, 2, 150, 259.
army of, 197.
Balboa in, 153.
Empire of, 157.
Grijalba lands at, 1 56.
Gulf of, and the United States,
70.
Republic of, 161, 163.
rumoured alliance with Japan, 1 59.
Spaniards in, 92.
under Spanish rule, 157.
United States and intervention,
159,269.
Velasquez in, 156-157.
yields independence to Cortes,
156.
Meyer, Secretary, U.S. Navy, 178,
179.
Mikados of Japan, 31, 36.
Military College of Australia, the,
192 ; official conditions of, 193.
strength of Latin America, the,
196.
training in Canada, 196.
Militia, Canadian, a conference on
organisation, 195.
Militia force of Canada, 194.
Ming dynasty, the, 50.
Miscegenation, 148, 149.
Mississippi, the, 165.
Mogul, the Great, 3.
Mohammedans and China, 48.
Mongol dynasty, the, 49.
invasion of Russia, 22.
Mongolia, Russia's designs on, 211.
Mongols, the, 21, 44.
Monroe doctrine, the, 155, 159 (foot-
note), 1 60, 171, 220.
in United States, 71, 72, 73, 75 ;
extended in scope, 73-74.
Monroe, President, 71 ; his formal
message, 72 et seq.
Morioris, the, 139.
Moscow, 22.
Mosquitoes, 217 ; Herodotus on,
217; massacre of, in Panama
Canal-building, 217 ; Papuan
natives and, 217; trouble of,
in cutting Suez Canal, 218.
Mukden, battle of, 29, 39, 40, 41,
42.
Murray, His Excellency Colonel,
144;
Muscovite Czars, the, 23.
Napoleon, 16, 17, 18, 40, 72, 157,
246.
and Russia, 24.
Napoleonic Wars, the, 155.
Naval forces of the Pacific, 176
et seq.
Navies of the Pacific :
Argentine Republic, 183.
Australia, 182.
Canada, 183.
Chili, 183.
China, 178.
Great Britain, 180.
Japan, 177.
Latin America, 183.
Russia, 176.
United States, 178.
Navy, an Imperial, 130.
Neutral market, a, 230.
markets, Asiatics in, 235, 236,
237-
in which Asiatics can compete,
244.
Negro problem, the, 274.
19
290
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
"New France," a, in America, 165.
the early founders of, 166.
New Guinea, 248.
annexed by Queensland, 134.
New South Wales, birth-rate of,
255.
Royal Commission on fall of
birth-rate, 255, 257.
New York, Naval Yard of, 13.
New York Sun, the, 212.
New Zealand, 3, 11, 13, 94, 248,
250, 265, 277.
a Company formed to colonise,
123 ; its prospectus, 124.
a steady flow of emigrants to,
125.
and the smaller Colonies, 120 et
seq.
anti-Asiatic policy of, 279.
army of, 191.
Captain Cook visits, 123, 141.
Christianity introduced, 123.
colonists aggressively Imperial,
95-
early settlers, 122.
Empire, a, 134.
exclusion of Asiatics, 234.
formally taken over by Great
Britain, 125.
impatient Imperialism of, 277.
Imperial patriotism of, 127.
Maoris in, 145.
naval agreement with, 132, 133
(footnote),
naval policy of, 133.
population of, 141.
strategical position of, 251.
the "Bush," 120.
the Treaty of Waitangi, 125, 126.
universal training for military
service, 130.
Nicaragua, U.S.A., treaty with, 270.
Norfolk Island, 251.
Normans, the, 22, 89, 90.
Norsemen pirates, the, 89.
North America, the Republic of,
150.
North Sea, the, 87.
Northern Territory of Australia,
the, 138, 238 (footnote), 251,
252, 253, 254, 262.
conditions as regards productive-
ness and health, 254.
Northern Territory of Australia,
decidedly healthy, 254.
life in, 254.
Novgorod, 213.
Ocean of the future, the, i et seq.
" Open-door" agreements, 236, 241.
Opium War of 1 840, the, 50.
Oregon, annexation of, 73.
Osaka Mainichi, the, on the Anglo-
Japanese Alliance, 210.
Ottoman invasion, the, 41.
suzerainty of Europe, Napoleon
and the, 40.
Oversea Dominions, population of,
128, 129.
Pacific armies, the chief, 198.
British Dominions, uneasiness
regarding British - Japanese
Treaty, 202, 204.
Fleet : Australian unit, 181.
of American battleships, the
welcome given to 278.
Russia urged to build a, 213.
Pacific, the, American influence in,
11-12.
and Great Britain, 269.
and the United States, 269.
armies of the, 186 et seq.
British Empire and the mastery
of, ii.
British influence in, n.
British possessions in, 13.
British trade interests in, 162.
China and, 8 et seq.
control of : an Anglo-Celtic union
advisable, 14.
Drake's log on entering, 91.
fortresses and trading stations, 3.
France and, 10.
future of, Japan's chance, 265.
future of, with White Races,
265.
Germany and, 10.
Great Britain and, 10.
hegemony of, 4, 46.
India and, 9, 10.
industrial position, governed by
excluding Asiatic labour, 235,
240.
industrial position in, 228 et seq.
Japan and, 5 et seq.
INDEX
291
Pacific, the, Japan the greatest
warrior Power in, 32.
naval and military forces in,
J 5-
navies of the, 176 et seq.
no Free Trade ideas in the, 235.
ocean of the future, i.
position of Japan in, 46.
rivals for, 263 et seq.
Russia in, 16 et seq., 268.
Russian influence in, 4.
South America and, 10.
Spain in, 91.
strategical position of Japan in,
260 ; of United States in, 260.
strategy of, 246.
Treaties in, 199.
United States and, 68.
Yellow and White Races and,
63-
Palmyra Island, 12 (footnote).
Pan-American Bureau, the, 272.
Conferences, 272, 273.
Panama Canal, the, 5, 12, 13, 42,
75, 160, 163, 176, 178, 179, 216
et seq., 218, 220, 243, 259, 260,
265, 280.
and United States, 269.
American commerce and, 225.
amount expended by United
States, 227.
amount of Pacific and Atlantic
water exchanged by, 220.
as a tariff weapon, 224.
early difficulties, 216.
free navigation of, 221.
intended by United States as
means of securing dominance
in Pacific, 223, 224.
military police for, 221.
naval base at Cuba, 222.
"neutralisation" of the, 220.
plague of mosquitoes, 217.
Secretary Meyer on, 179.
sovereign rights of the United
States, 222.
tolls, 225.
treaty regarding management,
220.
Panama, hills of, 219.
Isthmus, the, 81, 155.
by no means unhealthy, 218.
the United States and, 67.
Papua, natives of, and mosquitoes,
217.
Papua, New Guinea, 144.
Paraguay, army of, 198.
Republic of, 161.
Peace Societies, 109.
Peace of Shimonoseki, the, and its
consequences, 38.
Pearl Harbour, 78, 79.
Pekin, the expedition of 1900 to,
50.
Penang, 95.
Persia and the Greeks, 40.
Persian Gulf, the, 25.
Peru, 2, 10, 92, 150, 151 et seq.,
1 60.
occupied by Spaniards, 154.
Peruvians, the, 8, 137.
and the elimination of the fighting
instinct, n I.
Spanish description of, 152.
Pescadores, the, acquired by Japan,
38.
Philippine garrison, the, 190.
Philippines, the, 3, 4, 12, 104,
259.
Anson's attempt to subdue, 91.
the Spaniards at, 104.
United States acquire, 82.
Pizarro, Francisco, 153, 156.
"Places at table," 118.
"Places in the sun," 118.
Plague, the, 59 ; Dr Francis F re-
mantle on, 60 ; Prof. W. J.
Simpson on, 61.
Polk, President, 73.
Polo, Marco, 49, 103.
Polynesia, 94.
Pope of Rome exchanges greetings
with Chinese Grand Khan,
50.
Portugal : trade relations with
Japan, 38.
Poutrincourt, 166.
Power, Senator, 196.
Prayers for rain, 106.
Preventive medicine as aid to
population, 118.
Protection, a rigid system of, 226.
Quebec, 166.
captured by Admiral Kirk, 166.
restored to France, 167.
292
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
Quebec, the capital of " New
France," 166.
Queensland annexes New Guinea,
134-
Race-mixture, instinct against, 20.
Race troubles in Canada, 233.
Races, psychology of, 35.
Raffles, Sir Stamford, 96.
Rain, prayers for, 106.
Raw levies, uselessness of, 197.
Republicanism in China, 54, 55.
Mr Kwei Chih on, 55 (footnote).
Richelieu, 166.
Rocky Mountains, the, 169, 243.
Roebitck y \he, 104.
Roman Catholics in Canada, 168.
Roman invasion of Britain, 87, 88.
Romanised Britons, 88.
Rosanna, the, conveys pioneers to
New Zealand, 123.
Rurik, 22.
Russia, 3, 4.
and a Pacific Fleet, 213.
and Great Britain, entente be-
tween, 199.
and India, 18.
and Japan, 25, 26.
and Napoleon, 24.
and Siberia, 25.
and the Mediterranean, 18, 23.
and the Napoleonic invasion, 16,
17-
and the Pacific, 10.
and the Persian Gulf, 25.
army of, 186, 187.
British dread of, 18.
British maritime intercourse
with, 214.
Cross versus Crescent, 23.
early European civilisations. 21.
European jealousy of, 5.
expansion of, 19.
mistrust of European Powers,
24.
future position of, in the Pacific,
29.
Great Britain's alarm of, 24, 25.
Greeks and Romans in, 21.
in Constantinople, 23.
interior of, 21.
invasion of the Turks, 23.
Lord Salisbury on, 16.
Russia, national heroes of, 22.
naval strategy of, 261.
navy of, 1 76.
race-mixture in, 20.
religious faith, 22.
service to civilisation, 23.
the avenger of the White Races,
2 3-
war with Japan, 7, 19, 25 et seq.,
265.
Russian intentions on Mongolia,
211.
Russians, faith of the, 23.
Russo-Japanese War, the, 7, 19, 25
et seq., 265.
difficulties of Russians, 29.
St Francis Xavier, 37.
St Germain-en-Laye, Treaty of, 167.
St Helena, Napoleon in, 18.
St Lawrence, the, 165.
Saito, Baron, 46.
Salisbury, Lord, 16.
Sandwich Islands, 77.
San Francisco, 91, 260.
Satsuma, revolt of the, 38.
Sea of Japan, 260, 261.
Selkirks, the, 169, 243.
Semites, the, 21.
Sepoy forces in India, 191.
" Setch," the Cossack, 188, 189.
Shimonoseki, the Peace of, 38.
the Straits of, 38.
Shintoism, 32, 36.
Shoguns, the, 36.
Siberia, Russia and, 25.
the Cossacks and, 5.
Siberian Railway, the, 186.
Simeon, 22.
Simpson, Prof. W. J., on the Plague,
61.
Singapore, 11, 85, 95, 96, 250, 258.
harbour of, 97
Slavs, the, 22, 267.
Socialism in Japan, 7.
Socialists in China, 49.
Sorcerer, the, in the South Sea
Islands, 149.
South America, 10.
South American armies, 198.
South Pacific, the British Flag in,
'35-.
the native races, 135.
INDEX
293
South Sea Islands, 93, 149.
Spain : war with United States,
82.
"Spheres of influence," the, 85,
236, 240.
Spice Islands, the, 93.
Straits of Shimonoseki forced, 38.
Straits Settlements, the, 248.
Strategical considerations, 245 et
seq.
Suez Canal, free navigation of, 221.
the mosquito trouble, 218.
Sumarai, the, 32.
Sun-worship, 151.
Suva, 143.
Taft, President, 159 (footnote), 171
(footnote), 218, 225, 271.
Talon, Jean Baptiste, 167.
Taoism, 49.
Tartar and Mongol tribes, the, 49.
Tartary, 3, 22.
Tasmania, 137.
Teutons, the, 267.
Texas, annexation of, 73.
Thakombau, King, 134.
Theodosius, Emperor, 49.
Tibet, British intentions on, 211.
Tokio Nichi-Nichi, the, 211.
Tracy, Marquis de, 167.
Trade reciprocity, 164, 174.
Trans-Andine railways, the, 10.
Treaties in the Pacific, 199.
Treaties with Japan, British (1902),
199; (1905), 204-209; (1911),
199, 206, 207-211.
Treaty of Commerce and Naviga-
tion between Great Britain
and Japan, 206, 207-211.
of St Germain-en-Laye, 167.
Triple Alliance, the, 199.
Triple Entente, the, 213.
Truvor, 22.
Turkey, Lord Salisbury on, 16.
Turks, the, 23, 40.
at Constantinople, 41.
Russia and, 19.
United Stages, the, 2, 3, 12, 13.
a social difficulty, 274.
absorption of Mexican territory
by, 158.
acquisition of Hawaii, 78, 81, 83.
United States, the, aggressively
Imperial, 68.
and Cuba, 82.
and Germany, possibilities of an
" understanding " between, 2 1 2.
and Great Britain, an instinct
towards friendliness, 199,
215.
and the Atlantic, 67.
and the Negroes, 233.
and the Philippines, 82.
and trade relations with Japan,
37-
army of, 190.
British diplomacy and, 276,
277, 279.
considering intervention in
Mexico, 159.
control waterway from Atlantic to
Pacific, 82.
decide to construct Panama
Canal, 216.
Declaration of Neutrality, 70.
established in the Caribbean Sea,
67 ; on the Isthmus of Panama,
67.
establishing naval base at Cuba,
222.
foreign policy, 75.
Germany a possible ally of, 199.
imperialism in, 66.
in the Pacific, strategical position
of, 260.
lynchings in, 20.
marvellous growth of, 70, 72.
miscegenation in, 20.
naval strength of, in the Pacific,
14.
navy, 1 78 ; effective tonnage,
185 ; Secretary Meyer's report
on, 178.
neutral markets, 83.
organisation of industrial machin-
ery, 243.
Pacific possessions, 84.
policy, Imperialist tendency of,
77-
rivals of Great Britain, 269.
rules for exclusion of Chinese,
235-
strategical position of, 258.
the greatest factor in the Problem
of the Pacific, 68.
294
PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC
United States, the greatest White
nation of the world, 1 50.
the " Monroe doctrine " in, 71, 72,
73 75-
the Suzerain Power of the Latin-
American Republics, 74.
war with Spain, 82.
when Panama Canal opened, the
greatest Power of the Pacific,
. 243-
Universal military training proposed
in Canada, 196.
"Universal service" in Latin
America, 197.
Ural Mountains, the, 20.
Uruguay, 161, 163.
Vancouver, 251.
Veddas, the, 138.
Velasquez, conqueror of Cuba, 156.
Venezuela controversy, the, 74.
Republic of, 161.
Victoria, Queen, 24, 125.
Vienna and the Ottoman invasion,
41.
Waitangi, the Treaty of, 125, 126.
Wakefield, Mr Edward Gibbon,
124.
Wallace on the black Australian,
137-
War, the necessity of, 6.
Ward, Sir Joseph, 127 et seq.
Washington's farewell address, 71.
Wei-hai-wei, 248, 250.
Wesleyan mission to New Zealand,
132.
"White Australia," 107, 254.
laws, the, 20.
policy, basis of, 232.
White garrison of India, the,
249.
labour, impatient, 240.
Man and the Pacific, 63.
Race, the, 2, 4, 107.
conquests of, 41.
superiority of, 263, 267.
Races, America and the, 12.
birth-rate, 257.
neither enervated nor decadent,
264.
the future of the Pacific with
the, 265.
Russia consolidated by the Nor-
mans, 22.
Mongol invasion of, 22.
Worker, The, on Asiatic colonisa-
tion, 240 (footnote).
Xavier, St Francis, 37.
" X-Ray Martyr," the, 229.
Yellow Man, danger of overrunning
the Pacific, 63.
"Yellow Peril," the, 264, 280.
Yellow Race, the, 2, 4.
defeats the White Race in war,
39-
Yellow Races, the United States
and the, 13.
Yturbidi, Emperor Augustin de,
157-
Yuan Shih-Kai, 54.
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