Commerce and War.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 934, 24 January 1890, Page 9

Commerce and War.

(Frederick Greenwood, in the ‘ New Review.’) How much of England’s power in Europe used to be attributed to ‘ British gold ’ is a. familiar story ; and, though not so much is heard about it now-a-days, the Government of this Empire is as deeply envied as ever for the material resources at its command, as well as for the better contentment of its people. Both advantages are traced to ‘ colonial expansion.’ and abundance of trade. If a larger share in those advantages was pined for abroad in times past, tbe need of it has become yet more pressing. On the one hand, the cost of warpreparations—much of it pure waste, from the necessity of constant change and renewal —and the awfully enhanced devastation of Avar (which is all waste) set up a far greater drain of money and labour. On the other, there is an ever-increasing fund of popular discontent in most of the Continental nations, though there seems to be very little murmuring at the military impost itself. The ' schoolmaster is abroad’ on more errands than one.* The multiplication of books, pamphlets, newspapers, and the readers of them ; the facilities of intercourse provided by railways and byaggregation in towns; a closer view of the luxuries of life and some little taste of its meaner comforts, have deepened and extended the feeling of discontent which is known and dreaded under the name of Socialism. How much it has spread, how much it is feared by such Governments as the German, the Russian, the Austrian, is hardly known in this country ; for the extension and the dread are both concealed as much as may be. But nothing occasions more concern to the great military Governments of Europe, not even the risks of the Armageddon which all are looking to as so very possible. Hence the craving for ‘ colonial expansion,’ for extension here and there down to the sea, which has recently seized upon the Continental Governments. Mere territorial ambition has something to do with it, of course; and also, of course, the desire of military ascendency. Thus, a great colonial commerce is at »he same time the best excuse for creating a great navy and its surest source of maintenance when formed. But even the conquests of Russia in Central Asia have been largely carried on for commercial reasons from the first—the wealth and trade of India being the prime original object. While as to these other nations—Germany, for instance — the need of colonial and commercial expansion is far more pressing. It is needed to retain under the flag of the Eatherland the swarm of emigrants, who, from poverty or hatred of conscription, stream off to other countries and are lost in them. It is needed to support those prodigious armaments, and at the same time to counteract the subtle poison of Anarchist Socialism by filling the workshops and raising the scale of comfort amongst the poor. Here are strong and very special reasons tor the craving aforesaid, as it operates on Governments —apart from the strivings of individual enterprise; and we must expect it to extend. All the more must we do so because the Continental nations have risen to a far higher plane of industrial advantage than they occupied when we looked down on them from our lofty heights of Commerce in the middle of this century. To this place they have been helped by our own principles of trade, together with a too insolent confidence that we could give odds to those uncommercial foreigners. The unhampered exportation of minerals and machinery to low-wage countries not without skill has done much to abolish one of the grand conditions of our trade supremacy; while another, predominance in arms, has also suffered a decline which only a very disordered sort of patriotism will deny. And if we forget that our commercial prosperity was largely founded on war, they remember it who believe that they are now able to help themselves to similar benefits. But how are they likely to do it? That is the important question—the important question for us, I mean. There are not so many new markets to create as there used to be, and, so far as they are concerned, the beginnings of a struggle which is sure to increase in intensity may be well seen in Africa. They are illustrated by the almost ludicrous maps of that continent published abroad, from which it appears that hardly a square mile of territory is left for the black man to call his own. This immense stretch of country is Portugese; that vast portion British; this huge cantle, German; this Belgian; these others, which include the rest of the continent, are French, Spanish, Italian : the whole space marked out in appropriate colours. What jealousies and contentions have already broken out on the east coast and on the west I need not dwell up<m ; nor upon the fact, which may be denied but is certainly true, that those contentions have been marked by menace that would be meaningless but for the muster of bayonets behind it. But settle the particular rivalries in peace, mark off this ‘sphere of influence’ from that range of commercial enterprise in perfect amity, ami i.e. n i emember that

new lines of frontie'r have been established between all the European nations concerned. British, German, Portuguese, and Belgian teiHtories border on each other in those distant places, while rivalry will of course go on, occasion for misunderstandings multiply, and opportunity for combination and intrigue continue. Till lately, we have enjoyed the enormous advantage of entire freed >m from frontier difficulties in Europe, and all but complete immunity elsewhere. That fortunate state of things has changed, and in the natural course of affairs will change yet more. The extension of Commerce, the needs it has created or alone can satisfy, have added_ to the frontier lines of all the greater nations, in Europe, carrying them to distant places which must necessarily be under the control of officials remote from the supervision of the central authority. For that reason alone the competitions of commerce have, increased the chances of war instead of diminishing them, and for no people so much as for ourselves. And there is something else to be remembered. The colonies and Commercd we have won stand as an invitation to our well-armed and still arming eompetifcnrs to take what is readymade, since nothing so good can be created in a world where all the best ground is occupied already'. Whosoever forgets that puts out of account a momentous consideration,. though it may not promise to come into immediate effect.

Bo it is that I, for one, regard .‘ foreign affairs ’ (as our business beyond sea is called) as more important than any matter of domestic concern. Business it is, and it underlies every other. At bottom it is a. question of bread ; and it has to be considered in presence of a population which (thanks to the extension of trade) is accustomed to good work, high wages, and the enjoyment of many, little luxuries which use has turned to necessities ; a population, too, so unacquainted with the privations which other peoples suffer from the ravage of war that it is hard to say how the taste of them would be taken. One thing is certain, at any rate, and to impress it on all who read this review is the matter in hand. Commerce has falsified the predictions of its prophets. So far from abolishing war, it has added greatly to the dangers of its occurrence. It invites to war, though the invitation is. no longer alluring to Englishmen. And we—we who have all we want in the midst of other nations very sensible of need—shall find sooner or later that successful war is the only protection of commerce, or such ample machinery of war that attack is forbidden.