HANDS ACROSS THE SEA.

Northland Age, Volume VIII, Issue 25, 9 February 1912, Page 2

HANDS ACROSS THE SEA.

A POWERFUL STUDY OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF AN ANGLOAMERICAN AGREEMENT. By Norman Angell, author o t "The Great Illusion,'’ in “Everybody’s Weekly.** Editor’s Note.—During the recent debate in the House of Commons which was marked by Sir Edward Grey’s great arbitration speech, Mr. Keir Hardie remarked : ‘•'The seed planted by Norman Angell is beginning to bear fruit.’' This remark was made in reference to the inlluence of Mr. Angell’s book, “The Great Illusion,** concerning which M. Henri Turot, the French wiiter, has said : i “It is destined to have on the economlcd of international relationship an influence &s profound as that wrought by Darwin’s 'Origin of Species’ on our conceptions of biology.’’ In this article—written at my suggestion— Mr. Angell gives his view as to the real significance of the projected Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty. We all seem to be agreed that the • Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty j will not enable us to reduce our armaments—for everybody knows that I they are not directed against Ameri i ca. Nor would it prevent any war : I for everyone knows that, treaty or I no treaty, we should never again ; fight America. Its effect, as an example ? But it ts no new thing in political history for two great powers to tigree not to fight—that, indeed, is the necessary precedent to most alliances ; and if the Anglo-American agreement became an alliance —which is what so many seem to expect—the example would simply mean that other great powers would group themselves into alliances in order to meet the new one—a Russo-German alliance, for instance. And to judge from certain criticisms which are at the present time being made on the Continent roncerning the projected agreement with America, such result is quite j within the bounds of possibility. In what, then, does the importance of the agreement reside ? Simply in j the political ideas which it proves to have taken place silently in the minds of the two great peoples during the j last few years. It is that change! which alone has made it possible, | and which, if the change be pennan l ent, as we may fairly hope it will bet, will finally transform the face of the world.

What is this change ? It goes to the very root of all our notions of statecraft, and involves recasting the premisses of international politics. We know what these premisses are : rivalry between nations is one of the great laws of life; indeed, we are to!' 1 <hat it is one of the forms of the struggle for life ; in this sphere of struggle, as in all others, the weakest must go.to the wall. For a nation to be strong and prosperous it must, we are assured, be militarily powerful, not only to protect, itself against the aggression of others, but to Impose itself in order to have its “place in the sun’’ and an advantageous economic situation in the world. War, as we have so often been told of late, is “a part of policy’’—a nation must resist, fight, or go under. All the great authorities, English, American, German—Admiral Mahan, Clausewitz, Von der Goltz, Professor Spencer Wilkinson, Baron von Sten gel, Steinnutz —to mention only a few that spring to one’s mind—have expressed this doctrine for us in •very form and phrase. Well, it is a little over a year since that the present writer had the temerity to challenge absolutely from beginning to end this whole philosophy. He attempted to show that in the modern world such a conception was >ased upon an imperfect realisation of the facts, and that our minds are tricked by an old terminology which has become obsolete. The thesis was summarised in its financial expression as follows “The military seizure or destruction of the wealth or trade of one nation by another has become a practical economic impossibility, since; owing to the delicate interim iMotml credit system, the financial collapse or damage'of the conquered nation would n cessarily involve the conqueror ; that even the attempt to place a comuered ptode at a commercial and industrial disadvantage or to interfere injuriously with their trade is 1 ound to react injuriously on the conqueror ; . ‘ that the only feasible policy is to leave the population of a conquered territory in the un listurbed possession of their wealth and trade, j This involves the economic futility < of foil it ary power. The rrreat na ♦ i n-j have no commercial ad an tages not possessed by the srn *ll ; industry is ns prosperous in Switzerland as in Aufstria, in Belgium as in Ormnnv, ip Scandinavia as in Russia. Swiss and Belgian merchants are driving English fronv lhe Canadian markets ; Norway has relatively to population a much greater mercantile marine thin Great Britain. Belgium Three .per Gents, stund at 06, and German at 82; Norwegian Three and a h If at 102, and Russian at 81. While th me facts were in part revealed hy the history w British Colonial enter- , prise, it is the effect of instantaneous communication, largely the rfe- j ation of the last thirty years, j which hus given them an over wiklming political force in the modern world and renders the re vision of our obi axioms essential.” j Need it be said that the orthodox scoffed. One critic compared the writer to the Datient in the lunatic

atyium wno explained to the visiting committee that in reality it was the rest of the world that was mad and that he alone was sane, but that they were in a majority, why, there he was I But? one or two did not scoff. Counh von Metternich, the German Ambassador in London, made this thesis the text of a diplomatic pronouncement which may be said to have marked the beginning of a new era in Anglo-German relations. Sir Edward Grey did not scoff ; he followed in the footsteps of the German Ambassador, and endorsed the thesis with this significant reservation : “True as the statement in that book may be, it does not become an operative force in the minds and conduct of nations until they are convinced of its truth and it has become a commonplace to them.” Now,, we know by what has since happened, that Sir Edward Grey has evidently come to the conclusion that as between the English and the American these truths have become a commonplace, and, consequently, an operative factor in their relationship. In his epoch making speech in the House of Commons, he pointed out that ’“the minds of men are working upon this, and if you look back into history you hud there do come times when public opinion has risen to heights which a generation previously would have been thought impossible. If the orthodox doctrine which I have quoted, the idea that nations are necessarily rivals, that the weak must go to the wall, etc., were true, how comes it that we have been able to make this arrangement with Amer-i ica ? For the United States Is no mean rival—a people of ninety millions in process already of absorbing Canada, already beginning to dominate Mexico, already in possession of the Panama Canal, a practical suzerain power in Cuba, to-morrow the master of the whole Antilles, stretching across the Pacific via Hawaii to the Philippines, and thus to the coasts of Asia—perhaps the most expansive power in the universe today. Do we, then, abdicate ? Are we consenting to be “gobbled up" ? If so, how do we regard these projected agreements with serenity and even with such satisfaction ? We do so, because we are beginning to realise at last that the old philosophy is w T rong, and that there will he no “gobbling." We do not “own" Canada. America does not, and never will, “own" Canada. It is ! owned by the people who live in it 1 and develop it. It is impossible for one civilised community to own another. Consequently, when we talk a’ out the “loss" of Canada to the United States, we are using language which in reality has no meaning. What is Canada ? It is a com munity of some eight million highlycivilised people, by their labour crea ting certain things—wheat, beef, lumber, wood-pulp, etc.—which, if we want, we have to pay for at their exact market value. If an American wants them, he has to pay for them at their market value. Not one day’s labour will one Canadian give us because Britain “owns" Canada. And not one day’s labour will a Canadian ever give an American because in the future America may “own ’ Canada. We might, it is true, 'lose' Canada as a Colony, but the loss would probably not alter an essential fart in our relationship with her. Even though she became, in some forth or another, a State in close alliance with America, or even a part of the American Union, our real relationship to her would be exactly what it is now— we should trade with her, we should lend her money, we should send our children to her, we should remain good friends with her, we should co-operate with her. According to the orthodox theory, the day that America conquered Canada, either peacefully or militarily, she would in some way possess something which she does not now possess. The whole thing is crassly misleading Could the United States confiscate anything ? But as Wall Street valued its solvency, not one cent’s worth of property would the American Government dare to touch. America would keep us out by tariffs ? But Canada as a Colony has kept us out by tariffs. The tari f question is not a national one at a U. Canadian manufacturers want high tariffs, Canadian farmers want low ; and if Canada became a State in the American Union it might be the starting point of a more resolute low tariff Campaign than America! has yet known, resulting for the benefit of British traders in the diminution of tariff to a market of nearly one hundred millions America might attempt to keep British citizens out of Canada ? But there are American States to-day spending thousands of dollars trying to iitduco British citizens to go to them ! In any case—and this perhaps is the most important point of the Whole matter—whatever Canada does in the future she will rlo of her own free consent. If she is to drift into closer relationship with the United States, not a single British bayonet would be raised to prevent it. We have realised that these civili.ed com munities cannot be subject to mili tary force. Never shall we attemp to control the destiny of Canada, oi Australia or New’ Zealand, or anj other of our great colonies by mak ing war upon them. The most sue cessful conquerors and colonisers ir the world have learned this : Th« best way to own territory is to exer cise none of the functions of owner ship. It must go its own way. But if military force is thus futile in the case of colonies, so is it futile if we would only realise it, in the case nf other inueuenduiE communities

r which we do not happen to call colb onies. When the real lesson of the 1 Anglo-American agreement is learned, r Germany will realise that if England > is obliged to surrender the use of force towards a community of eight k millions, it is still more hopeless for - Germany to use it against a com--3 munity of forty millions. •It is not a lesson that perhaps can B be learned in a day ; it means upi setting too many deeply-rooted prejudices and reforming too radically 1 a misleading phraseology. But its - general realisation is much nearer, i perhaps, than some of us think. If the two most expensive and acute t peoples in the world admit its truth, , the others will not be slow to follow. 1