UNDEVELOPED EMPIRE

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 April 1933, Page 10

UNDEVELOPED EMPIRE

CAUSE FOR ANXIETY. I ’ Sir Philip Gibbs, reviewing in the London “Sunday Times,” “The Open Door,” by Otto Corbach, translated 1 from the German by Alan Harris, says;— In this book, which must certainly ’ be read by every student of world problems, Otto Corbach, a German, > turns a searchlight upon a cause of > future conflict among the human > tribes in which our own race will be , very deeply involved unless we alter our ideas in time. Can our Dominions . continue to shut their gates against the pressure of peoples overcrowded within their own frontiers and des- ! perate for escape from economic distress? The British Empire covers a quarter of the globe, and yet, apart from the ' British Isles, it contains hardly twenty million white inhabitants, most of them living in countlies whose pro- . digious natural resources have ’ scarcely been tapped, and whose vast [ uninhabited open spaces could accommodate hundreds of millions of European settlers. In Australia there are only six and a-half million people. Many millions more could find a way of life there and still leave room for other millions. At the present time the gates are so [ tightly shut that not even a boy from i the Mother Country is allowed into that vast No Man's Land —not even if I lie has his passage paid. Is that policy going to be tolerated much longer by races hungry for the empty spaces? , Canada has room for new legions of ; pioneers from countries where human )( labour is looking vainly for jobs. They [ are not allowed to enter. How long is t the door to be shut? T'here is New . Zealand with its perfect climate, its immense opportunities for colonisa- . tion. There is Africa, vast ter- ■ ritories where white men could live and make a living. But what about. Hie races who are not white—the yellow men, restless, , impoverished, eager to gel on the move, watching with slant eyes the economic downfall of the West, something weakening, it seems, in the spirit, ami vitality of the white peoples? The Decline of ( lie West is the chance i cf tile colouied world, getting nidus-1 trialised, getting machine guns and j high explosives (sold cheap by Euro- 1 ipean tiimsi, building warships, flying’ | aeroplanes. A*, present Japan is in conflict with China. 'What "’ill Imppen one day when China makes alliance with Japan ami learns the same lessens and adopfs the same discipline? A A\ ORLU .I’ROBLEM. Otto Corbach pleads in this book for the policy ol I he Open Door as the one. safeguard against a new chapter of world contlict ending, he thinks, if it happens, in the. (iownfall of Western civilisation. If the Western peoples have lost, their old energy ami pioneering spirit, sapped by the comforts of imlustrial life nnd by doles easing tho hardship of unemployment, then they will not be able to defend their heritage against more primitive | peoples. ] He maintains that the opening up , of territories still undeveloped in the , British Dominions and the LatinAmerican Republics has ceased to be

a British or Pan-American question, but is a world problem in which all countries are concerned, and which they have a right to discuss because the interests and destiny of all mankind are involved. It transcends the authority of national prestige or the policy of a Dominion Government playing into the hands of some trade unionists with their dog-in-the-manger mentality of keeping out immigrants in order to keep up wages. Nothing short of a universal movement against territorial barriers, restrictions on immigration, and other obstacles to intercourse all over the world can bring about the necessary conditions for a solution of this gigantic problem. If there were none of these modern “Chinese walls” to block the natural course of trade, the regulation of emigration on a world scale would present no great difficulties. The countries of Europe possess many millions of idle hands, the steamship lines a vast amount of surplus accommodation, the oversea countries vast tracts of fertile land lying fallow; in every industrial country, machinery is running empty which by employing a. mere fraction of the armies of unemployed could easily supply the needs of many millions of settlers on virgin soil. Man-power is the source of all industrial wealth.

j OPEN THE DOORS. It seems certain that some part of > cur European distress at the present ‘ time is due to the complete check of ’ emigration since the war, preventing any way of escape for unemployed r labour. The quota system in the r United States, rigidly applied,-was a ’ severe blow to Italians, Poles, and - other Central Europeans From Canada I and Australia there has actually been ' a flow back to the Mother Country ; instead of an outward exodus. And ’ yet, owing to the speeding up of > machine-made industry it seems that - even with better times coming a vast ■ amount of human labour cannot be ! absorbed into the economic life of many countries like Germany, Italy, ! and Great Britain. , A return to pioneering conditions in : which new' generations of youth will : be willing to live simple and hardy lives, content with the means of sub- ; sistence, seems to me the only solution of that paiticular problem, and II agree with this German author, that i the Dominions would do well to adopt ■the policy cl the Open Door at least ! Lor emigrants of good European stock, ’though 1 do not believe that they can bo. rersuaded to extend this hospitality to Asiatics. H. would be unfair to the author to suggest that this argument is the only subject with which be deals. It is the llu st., w inch runs tlirough all Ins I'iiyes, l.iil (here is much else in them —a. most penetrating analysis of the vital forces at work in many races of the world to-day. He reveals astonishing knowledge of facts and conditions in almost every country East and West, lie seems equally familiar with the piesent situation in Japan, China, Russia, and I lie United States, as in the British Empire and Europe. He handles his facts in a masterly way, and the book is extremely il-l laminating as a vivid parorama of this astounding wot Id of ours, ini which history is moving very quickly towards new and tremendous adventures. It makes one a little uneasy, but, one dare not disregard it, and it should be read by all students of world problems. It is enormously interesting.