America’s Danger.

Evening Star, Issue 6807, 22 January 1886, Page 4

America’s Danger.

[From ‘ Bkaostrkf.t’s Journal ’ or Dkokmrkr 12.] ( Coiichl'lijl.) The intrinsic worth of such a possession to the country which has the sagacity to perceive and the means to employ its resources is great beyond present measurement. England might well improve the opportunity to grasp so valuable a prize, even were she not in a manner thrust out by an unfriendly and exclusive policy from regions to which she has hitherto mainly looked for her imports and breadstuff's and cotton. Being thus unwisely repelled from one source of supply, it may well be expected that she will use her energies promptly in a more inviting direction. Yet it is not the direct value of Egypt as a dependency which gives it its chief importance in the foreign policy of Great Britain. The significant feature, the keynote of British dealing with Egyptian affairs, is the fact that through Egypt lies the road to India—the surest, safest, and most permanent road by which, the Suez Canal being also virtually in her possession, her Indian Empire can be reached and maintained. Long ago one of the most brilliant of English authors gave a forecast of the situation which now seems on the point of being realised, in his prophecy of the day when "the Englishman, loaning far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the seats of the faithful.” Every step in the present course of European affairs testifies to the accuracy of that prediction, and it can scarcely be doubted that this generation will witness its complete fulfilment. But the imperial policy of Great Britain reaches still further than this. So broad is its scope that it contemplates not only reliable means of access to India, but the extension of. British trade beyond that country. Between India and China the shortest and most convenient route is through the kingdom of Burrnah, and England has resolved that Burrnah shall not constitute a barrier to her Chinese trade. It may be doubted whether the British mind, alert as it usually is in regard to all

matters affecting the commercial interests of tho nation, would so soon have been awakened to the importance of Burmah as a link in the commercial chain, but for the recent utterances on this subject by Mr Colquhoun, the well-known traveller and journalist, and notably an address delivered by him before the Loudon Chamber of Commerce, iu which he pointed out the demands of tho situation and urged tho adoption of decisive measures. Whether in deference to his opinion or not, his advice was speedily followed. The grounds on which war with Burmah was declared were no doubt genuine and sufficient, and it is true that King Thcebaw and his system of government were on general principles an offence to civilisation. But the underlying purpose which the British army in Burmah is marching to accomplish is, nevertheless, the clearing of a path by which England may reach as nearly as possible a monopoly of the Chinese trade. The stubborn conservatism with which China has long resisted both political and commercial overtures from other nations is fast giving way. Modern institutions and practices are being admitted. The foundation of a railway system has been laid which admits of indefinite expansion, and this work, it Is apparent, will be dollo with British capital under the superintendence of British engineers. Indeed, even now an English syndicate headed by the great house of Barings on the one hand, and a German syndicate headed by Herr Krupp on the other, are in active competition for the control of railway construction in China, each seeking the much-coveted concession which it is believed the Chinese Government is ready to grant. It has been our habit to regard the people of China and the Eastern nations generally as poor, semi barbarous, and incapable of offering a market for the products of a great manufacturing community like that of England. If they have ever merited this opinion they arc fast outgrowing it. And in the very fact that they arc emerging from what we have chosen to regard as a state of imperfect civilisation to one of progress and enlightenment lies the secret of their new importance. They arc prepared to employ and consume in multiform ways the capital and commodities of Europe. Their wants, which arc many and increasing, have yet to be provided for, while those of our own population are not only less in volume by reason of our inferior numbers, but it is evident that they have in many directions been oversuppliod. We have reached, so to speak, the point of saturation, while China and other Asiatic communities, if the comparison may bo permitted, arc lying like a vast sponge, ready to absorb the energies, the products, and the accumulating wealth of Europe. The exchange of commodities with a population of 400,000,000 is a commercial opportunity of which England, the greatest trading nation on the globe, will not fail to make profitable use. Nor avill she find the gates of China shut against her in retaliation for the wholesale massacre of Chinamen within her borders. It is the policy of Great Britain to protect the races whose labor is, or may become, useful in building up her commerce; while it seems to have been reserved for our own country to set the example of a relentless persecution of an unoffending and industrious people. The alarm with which China regards the advance of Russia on her northern and western frontier and of France on her southern border tends to draw her into friendly relations with England, by whom she is threatened with no such inroads. But the whole aspect of Eastern affairs justifies the belief that England and Russia will ultimately arrive at a peaceful, if not a cordial, understanding, and that their solution of the problem will give to each what it chiefly desires, at the price of conceding what is but of nominal value. Above all things else, England seeks the security of its Indian Empire and its Chinese trade, and the control of Egypt as incidental to those. For the sake of thus consolidating its empire and expanding its trade it may well consent that Russia shall absorb the decaying remnant of the Ottoman power and extend its dominion to the Persian Gulf. With this ambition gratified, it is probable that Russia will not molest the fortifications of Herat, but will relinquish whatever designs she may have entertained upon Indian territory. The time seems not far distant when Asia will be wholly under the dominion of three races—the Muscovite, the Mongolian, and the Anglo-Saxon—each possessing a vast portion of its area, and necessarily respectful of its powerful neighbors. Such an alliance, comprising nearly two-thirds of the population of the globe, would dwarf any political arrangement the world has yet seen. The partition of Asia would establish a balance of power whose huge proportions would impart a new significance to the term, mid whose weight would be of itself a guarantee of permanence. Of the fact that European capital and European statesmanship arc both tending toward enlarged dominion in the Eastern Hemisphere, Russia and England are the most prominent examples. But they are by no means alone in that regard. Other continental nations, according to their military resources or financial strength, are seeking to gain new footholds in Africa and Asia. France in Tonquin, Anam and Madagascar, Belgium on the Congo, Italy on the Red Sea, and even Spain in the islands of Oceanica, are each striving to plant the seeds of wider national expansion or tightening their grasp on acquisitions already made. Under the stimulus of this prevailing spirit of enterprise, it may almost be said that another New World is rising within the boundaries of the Old. This formidable rival, if it does not take from us the title, bids fair to rob us of the benefits which of right should be ours. Hitherto they have flowed upon us in a copious stream, and would still bo securely enjoyed if the laws of nature and tho forces of trade were not perverted by erroneous legislation. It is a false, though a popular idea, that the East is a land of exhausted resources. On the contrary, it has vast and fertile regions waiting to bo regenerated by tho forces of civilisation. The field has as yet in many parts been barely touched, while in others the results already attained show that no limit can be set to the possibilities of future growth. It is now near y three years since the writer made the prediction, then regarded as a most uncautious one, though based on personal observation, that India would speedily become a dangerous competitor with the United States in the production of wheat, How strikingly that prediction has been verified the statistics of the grain trade of 1885 abundantly prove. Tho wheat market of Chicago has testified to its accuracy by accumulated stocks and depressed quotations. The fact has been realised, and should always be borne in mind by those who examine this question, that to destroy the profits of the American wheat-grower it is not necessary that India should laisc a crop which will meet the whole demand of Europe. It has but to furnish such a proportion of the amount as will prevent an advance in the juice to a point which will repay the cost of production by our farmers. This it has now done, and will continue to do. And it can scarcely be doubted that the present and future capabilities of India as a wheat-growing country will be emulated by Egypt in the production of both wheat and cotton, How speedily the effect of increased cotton production in Egypt will be felt in this country we have unfortunately the most ready means of judging in the parallel case already before us. The cotton crop of that region may not rise at one bound to the dimensions of our owm ; but what the result will be should the Egyptian cotton-grower throw upon the common market within a few years even 1,000,000 bales more than he now' contributes of his cheaply-produced cotton, the American cotton-planter may well infer from the influence on tho price of wheat which the relatively small annual exportation of 80,000,000 of bushels from India has already exerted in tho common market of Europe. He may find himself compelled, like his wheat-growing neighbor in the north-west, to sell Ids entire crop at the cost of production, or even below that figure. All that has been accomplished in either India or Egypt up to the present time has been done, it should lie borne in mind, chiefly by rude native methods and implements. Especially is this true of Egypt; yet even under these imperfect conditions, a id with a cultivated area of less than (5,000,000 acres, Egypt has been found capable of exporting (j0,000,000d0l worth of products in a single year. It is estimated that

the country has this year produced, notwithstanding its disordered state, 800,000 bales of cotton of 6001b each. The writer saw at an exhibition in Cairo a few months since—conducted under English auspices and being the first ever held—l,soo samples of cotton from different parts of Egypt, extending as far as the region of Kordofan. That the industry under existing circumstances should show such activity is a strong token (if its nascent capabilities. With the area of production increased fivefold by reclamation of lauds, with European money and skill applied to its tillage, and with the vast population of India within ten days’ sail to be drawn upon for the needed labor, the most moderate estimate of the probable results and of their influence upon American industries must startle the reflecting observer. If our present policy is not speedily reformed, we may justly fear that the paralysis which has fallen upon our grain trade by the rise of India in the’ scale of production will be brought upon our cotton-growing interest, with even more disastrous results, by the competition of Hgypt-. Nor is it only in our wheat and cotton industries that we are threatened with loss by a rivalry to which our own folly has given rise. The foreign demand for American fresh meat has been for some years the source of a profitable trade, and here also competition lias sprung up, and a British colony again stands in our path. Five years ago a commerce of this kind with Australasia was scarcely dreamed of ; but so rapidly has it grown that great fleets of vessels are now employed in conveying the frozen beef and mutton of Australia to the English markets, and it is probable that little short of one million carcasses will be thus shipped during the present year, A trade in the same commodity has been established between England and the Argentine Republic, a country of vast extent and scarcely less favored than our own in variety of climate or fertility of soil. Hardly a decade since it was a purchaser of our agricultural products. No longer a customer, it has become under the stimulus of European capital an active competitor. It may be a question whether American interests arc most seriously menaced by the direct competition of the multiplying army of foreign producers, or by the diversion of European capital from investment here to more profitable, because free and untrammelled, use in Egypt, India, and China. That it is finding such employment in constantly increasing volume is matter of daily observation. The United .States has been heretofore an inviting field for foreign investment, and in the last fifty years has absorbed an enormous share of the surplus wealth of Europe. Under normal conditions it would continue to attract the capital of the world by such inducements of cheap and productive land, variety of climate, and freedom from political or social impediments as no other country can present. But in spite of this fortunate combination, it has at length become manifest that the industries of America have been overdeveloped, and that the reservoir which has been so liberally fed will hold no more. The railways show it in reduced earnings and uncertain dividends, manufactures in diminished profits, and agriculture in depreciated prices. The relief which might be found for this congested state of our industries in direct and unrestricted trade with 250,000,000 of people across the ocean is forbidden by the policy we have chosen to adopt, winch, instead of welcoming, disdainfully rejects such aid. Turned away from us by this denial of reciprocal relations, the money of Europe seeks other opportunities of investment, and is finding them in abundance, And the loss to which we have thus subjected ourselves is a double one, for the capital which should still be nourishing our industries and quickening our growth is not only withdrawn, but is set at work elsewhere in active opposition to our interests. Every dollar thus transferred is twice subtracted. In ceasing to contribute it begins at once to compete. The vast population of Asia, Africa, and Australia, toward whom the current of European capital and enterprise is thus strongly tending, arc not, as we have been wont to assume, people of few wants, incapable of supporting a large and profitable commerce. On the contrary, their purchasing power is in many instances shown to be greater than our own. The amount which the people of the United States buy of Great Britain averages 2dol 50c per capita. In Australia the average for many years has ranged from 35d0l to 40dol; in the Straits Settlements and Hong Kong it is 45d0l to 70dol; in Cape Colony and Natal, SOdol. Taking the British colonies as a whole, the range is from lOdol to 50dol per capita, exclusive of India. That country stands much lower, lower even than the United States, but it has steadily advanced for the last twenty-five years, and a small figure per capita is not to be lightly regarded when it applies to a population of two hundredand fifty millions. Asa purchaser of British commodities India has already risen to the first rank in the total amount of its import of those goods, and Australia, another British dependency, is rapidly pushing it way to the second position, now held by this country. The statistics given are those of Mr Colquhoun, and the comment which he makes is a just and significant one, namely, that the trade of Great Britain follows her' flag. Nor is it only in the Eastern Hemisphere that she has established trade relations on the basis of mutual advantages. In South America also she has found profitable customers. The average purchases of her commodities in Uruguay are 18dol per capita ; in China, 4.50d01; in the Argentine Republic,9dol. And as an cxampleof the fact that where commercial intercourse is unrestrained capital finds safe and profitable investment, the announcement has recently been made that 59,000,000d0l is to be expended by Englishmen in railways and harbor improvements in the Argentine Republic. It is also worthy of note that in the same quarter a wheat-exporting capability is beginning to be manifested, which adds to the volume of competition the American farmer is hereafter to meet; a competition which had its birth in the unfettered trade relations enjoyed by other countries, and which he might have escaped, and could even now hopefully encounter, were no artificial burden laid upon his shoulders. The question of vital interest to America is this; By whom are the vast and growing wants of the European nations in future be supplied? It is well to consider the probable extent of those requirements, in order that we rightly estimate the gravity of the situation. It may be reasonably predicted that in the next twenty years Great Britain alone will be compelled to purchase 100,000,000 tons of wheat and 120,000,000 bales of cotton. Enormous as these aggregates may seem, the figures arc justified by her present rate of demand and a moderate allowance for the growth of her population and expansion of her industries. The value of products of the soil which England and continental Europe will be compelled to import in the ensuing quarter of a century may be safely computed at 40,000,000,000d01, To no country on the globe would recourse more naturally be had than to our own for the greater part of these products were the laws of nature and the advantages of situation alone to determine the choice. Our lands are fertile and cheap. Our variety of soil and climatic conditions protects us from the liability of a general failure of our harvests. But no rich endowment of nature, no fortunate geographical position, can prevail against the law of selfinterest which governs all human transactions, We shall have no cause to wonder or complain if Europe, under the dictates of that impulse, chooses to trade with 800.000. of people in the East, who will eagerly take European commodities in exchange for their products, rather than with 55.000. in the West, who refuse to deal on a basis of reciprocity. England with all her wealth cannot afford, and assuredly is no longer compelled, to obtain a large share of her supplies from a nation which, like the United States, buys of her people less than one-half as much as it sells to them. And as her trade follows her flag, so her capital will take the direction of her trade in every form of investment, in the building of railroads and canals, in tire reclamation of lands, and in the development of great territories as virgin to modern industrial methods as Dakota or Montana. With other nations of Europe the same tendency prevails. The confidence which encourages such employment of capital is not lacking. Warmed by the new spirit prevalent in

European affairs, it has grown and taken firmer root; and its fruits are visible in broader and bolder enterprises, in increased faith in the permanency of values and the maintenance of national and individual honor. Alike in finance and commerce, in public and private transactions, this sense of security is manifest. Even the recent Egyptian" loan, despite the enormous blirden of debt resting on that country and the political chaos into which it was plunged, was taken with such eagerness that the subscriptions covered tenfold the amount required. So keen was the competition for it, in fact, that great care Was required in its apportionment to avoid the creation of jealousy between the leading financial centres, while at the same time American stocks were being held at a low figure, yet without tempting the capital which sought of its own accord what appears to have been regarded as a more eligible investment. Encouraged by evidences of increased stability, and strong in their reliance upon the future, England and her continental neighbors are turning with one accord to the limitless resources which modem facilities of intercourse have brought within their grasp, and the extent of which they have but lately begun to realise. And thus while we have been vaingloriously assuring oath other of our commercial independence of Europe, regarding it as bound by its necessities in any event tb contribute to our enrichment, Europe has been daily drawing toward a position in which it will be, in a sense most injurious to our financial and industrial interests, independent of the United States. This is America’s great and imminent danger. The policy of exclusion, the doctrine that a foreign customer, the supplying of whose wants would be a source of incalculable wealth, should be repelled instead of invited, has already shown its blighting effect upon our commercial prospects. By our tariff laws we shut our gates against mankind. We lay an unequal burden on the American farmer by artificially increasing the cost of his clothing, his tools, his household utensils, of every article, in short, which his land does not produce; while that which he raises he is compelled to sell in competition with the low-priced labor of the Old World. In some important respects, it is to be feared, the mischief which has been accomplished no longer admits of repair. No revision of the laws by which American trade is bound can restore American supremacy in the grain markets of the world. The sceptre of that dominion has passed from our hands. The American farmer no longer holds, as he once did, the position of dictator in the European market. It is rather the six eent ryot of India who now takes precedence at that board, and who is able, if not to supply all the wheat that country requires, at least so to load the market with his cheap product as to depress the price below what to the American is a living figure. For the cotton industry of our country there may yet be hope, if wiser counsels than those of the past shall prevail. But a persistent denial of equitable trade relations will inevitably bring the same result in this as in our cereal exports, which have dropped to loss than half their former volume. If our laws still make war upon our trade, the time is not far off when the cotton planter of our Southern States will be thrust from his high place, and the despised Egyptian fellah will reign in his stead. Even the cattle-breeder of our Western ranges may find a successful rival in the Australian bushman, whose cargoes of frozen meat are daily arriving in the ports of Liverpool and London. Thus the world’s markets for food and textile products, which by right we ought well nigh to monopolise, are slipping from us one by one. No wellwisher of his country can see without concern this needless sacrifice of the magnificent opportunities of wealth and growth which Providence has placed at its command. But while this folly has already wrought lasting injury, a timely retracing of our steps may avert some of its worse results. A part, at least, of the splendid heritage which we have flung away may yet be saved. And so long as this is true, no voice should be silent, no influence should be withheld, which can aid in awakening and enlightening the public mind, in establishing sound views of national policy, and in conforming our legislation to those provisions of Nature which we have made many futile efforts to repeal, but which, ignore or defy them as we will, must ultimately control our destiny. John W. Bookwalter. New York, December 7.