Читать книгу The Anglo-Saxon Century and the Unification of the English-Speaking People - John R. Dos Passos - Страница 9

The Russian and Spanish races will furnish two absorbing problems of this century to Europe and the United States.

Let us take up the Russian question first.

There are to-day three great rivals in the commercial world,—the United States, England and Germany. We might add France in some branches of trade, and Japan in others. The commercial ambition of the United States will be, and that of England and Germany is, world-wide. What the natural rivalry between these powers will result in I need not undertake to predict. The laws of trade, however, are unerring, and the cheapest and best seller will eventually secure the customer. As the manufactories of England, Germany, and France close their doors before the keen business genius and competition of the Yankees, immigration to the United States will increase: a hegira of foreign labourers and mechanics will set in, which will greatly thin out, if not depopulate, the old countries of Europe of their best manufacturing ability. This result is inevitable under any conditions; but it must be regarded as separate and apart from the considerations to which allusion is hereafter made. The relations of Russia to this commercial question and to the general status of European affairs, are unique and of the deepest importance. Russia to-day is {11} in the process of governmental and national development. She is not yet, in any complete sense, an integral, sympathetic, national whole, as are the United States, England, and Germany. Her government is still experimental. She is not yet a firm, stable, political unity, but is working with tremendous activity to build up and operate a plan of internal policy. At the same time she is developing a broad, well defined, ambitious, but not unnatural external career. She is now, as ever, grasping for contiguous territories. The one policy is largely dependent for success upon the other. If she overcomes the fires of revolution that burn within her people; if she can, in spite of the diffusion of education and the principles of liberty, maintain the particular species of arbitrary government which now exists; if she succeeds in continuing a despotism, and can present an unbroken front to the civilised powers of the world, maintaining peace and order within, while she asserts and sustains her policy without,—in that event the external policy of Russia may become the second, if not the first, great and absorbing question of the century. If Russia does not succeed with her people; if discontent and revolution ensue; if the present dynasty is overthrown; if a new and different, government is installed in that country, or it is split up into different governments, her power as an international factor will naturally be so weakened and reduced that she may be compelled to agree to any territorial partition or adjustment which may be eventually fixed upon by the other powers, {12} if they act together. In shaping their commercial policies, however, it will not be prudent for the United States, England, Germany, and France to rely upon the weakness of Russia's internal government, although its overthrow is an event by no means unlikely, engaged as she is in building and sustaining a political fabric contrary to modern tendencies and modern thought, and inimical to those nations which possess them. But the powers mentioned above must assume that her internal policy will succeed, and the probabilities of such success, at least for some years to come, make it important for them to act conjointly and promptly in matters pertaining to China, South-eastern Europe and Asia. No matter how they may diverge in other questions, upon the subject of China their true interests demand joint action. Under no circumstances, at least for many years, will Russia be a general commercial rival to these four powers. She has no ambition, for instance, in the direction of Africa, now covered by England, Germany, and France; nor has she any present intention of exploiting the fields of South America or Mexico. The sphere of her external policy embraces South-eastern Europe, Asia, and China, and in these fields she has always met and been checked by Great Britain. It is an absolute, indisputable fact of history, that but for the predominating influence and power of England, Russia would to-day be the complete master of China, Turkey, Persia, and other parts of Asia—in fact, of all Asia. England, alone, might still continue to check Russia's {13} designs on these countries, but in so doing she would be acting not only for Germany, but for the United States, hence the Eastern policy of England must be radically changed, or she must act co-operatively with the United States, France, and Germany, or with one or two of these powers. She cannot for ever continue in the unavowed invidious role of defender of Europe against this gigantic, ever-advancing, all-absorbing antagonist. But eternal gratitude is due to her from the United States and the other powers of Europe for what she has already done in this direction.

Unless some general check, such as is suggested in these pages, be applied, the dream of Peter the Great would seem to be in a fair way of fulfilment. That dream was, first, the acquisition of all Asia; second, the conquest of all Europe—the latter by the instrumentality of its own dissensions, and the playing off of the rival interests, as Austria against France, afterwards France against Germany—a state of things which has an approach to realisation at the present moment. The royal dreamer did not embrace America within the scope of his vision,—a very important and ever-growing factor in the general problem, whether for good or evil.[1]

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In the new diplomatic advent, the United States, Germany, England, and Russia, and, perhaps, France, must be the principal factors. What shall their policy be? Undoubtedly England, the United States, and Germany would never consent to allow Russia to carry out her present ambition to become the owner of China and the other Eastern possessions, which every one knows she covets, and covets quite naturally, because her contiguity to these territories makes it of vital importance for her to obtain a predominating control there, when they pass from the weak hands in which they now rest. Moreover, the strong, despotic government {15} of Russia is suited to Chinese education and intelligence, perhaps much more so than that which any European power could establish there. But behold the proportions and strength of the Russian Empire with China and the Chinese under her control! Does any European power look with equanimity upon such a picture? Naturally, Russia will hesitate long before she will consent to relinquish her cherished dream of eventually controlling these possessions.

It has been manifest for years that China could not take care of herself, and what little diplomacy {16} exists in modern times has been exercised in guarding the present and future integrity of that country from the grasp of rival foreign powers. Until the late war (if the anomalous events which recently transpired in China can be correctly called a war) these diplomatic questions had really involved only England and Russia. At present, the situation is as follows: China and the East must be opened to meet the increasing commercial growth of the United States, England, Germany, and France. There are not enough customers to go round; the domain of commercial activity is too narrow; competition is becoming so close and hot, especially {17} when the United States invades those grounds heretofore exclusively occupied by England, Germany, and France, that new territories must be found, and fresh fields of trade exposed. The doors of China must be thrown wide open to the manufacturers of all these countries, on terms of equality. The policy of Russia is to delay the consummation of this event. She may at some future time be in a situation where she can occupy the disputed field against all comers. She is near the ground, and is becoming more powerful every day, in proportion as her internal policy is fixed, and her laws, religion, and government are made satisfactory to her subjects.

If all these things turn out favourably for Russia, and she can secure the co-operation of China, it is not unlikely or improbable that she will one day say to the other powers, "Hands off!" and be prepared to enforce her words.

Under these circumstances, it is the unquestionable policy of England, the United States, Germany, and France, at least so far as China is concerned, to have their relations with Russia settled at once. If Russia can maintain the status quo until events are ripe for her to act aggressively, it is her plain policy to do so. On the other hand, England, the United States, France, and Germany can gain nothing by the delay, but everything by quick, present, concerted action. The division of China once made, Russian ambition and diplomacy are for ever checked. Of course there is the Franco-Russian alliance. I pay no attention to it. It is a {18} farce—a diplomatic paradox; so suicidal to France's real interest that it is liable to drop to pieces at any change in the French Ministry.

Another phase of the subject, i.e., the internal condition of China.

In the aspect in which I am considering the subject, I do not think I am wrong in saying that China bears the same relation to the civilised world as the continent of America did to Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There are, of course, great differences—China has more people—she has a more developed internal trade, her citizens have more intelligence and certain inventive and business qualities, and there are other very material features too obvious to mention, which distinguish the Chinese from the American aborigines, but in the sense in which I am speaking, the comparison is correct. China has made no distinct advance for centuries, in a civilising direction, in the sciences and arts, in commercial and manufacturing pursuits, to say nothing of political, religious, and moral improvements, schools and eleemosynary establishments. She has stood dead-still, if she has not actually taken a step backward. As a nation, China is oblivious to anything progressive. In fact, so low is she in the scale of modern civilisation, that the United States, whose commendable policy has been to invite immigrants to her shores, has deliberately shut her doors to China, and has unceremoniously refused to receive the latter's subjects either as citizens or as travellers. In ordinary circumstances, the estimation {19} of independent thinkers, this policy of exclusion would be intolerable, but its justification has been sustained upon the ground that the Chinese are not regarded as fit associates for American citizens, and no persons are wanted in this country who do not meet this requirement. In a word, China is out of harmony in her relations to the civilised powers. With but few exceptions her policy has been to close her doors to the outside world, to shut herself up in a shell upon the approach of strangers. China, in respect to modern development, must be opened by the corkscrew of progress. She does not respond with effervescence to the approaches of civilisation. The massacre of an ambassador of a great power, the altogether unjustifiable slaughter of helpless missionaries, invited and induced to reside there by treaty, and the turbulent confusion which reigns inside of her borders, form complete evidence of the utter incapacity of the nation for respectable, stable government. She is old, childish, helpless, and if her territories are to be opened and developed, if her people are to be educated, enlightened and made prosperous, it must be by the strong hands of the civilised powers. Of course, touching and effective arguments may be made against the right of nations forcibly and bodily to take possession of Chinese soil, and intelligent and cultivated Chinese statesmen and gifted scholars like Wu Ting-Fang, the late Chinese Ambassador to the United States, may make pathetic appeals against such a movement, based upon the superior moral and legal right of the {20} Chinese to their own soil and government. But we must look the question fairly in the face, undisturbed and unaffected by arguments which, ordinarily, would have preponderating weight. The Indians who occupied the soil of North America, the Britons who occupied the soil of England, had the same arguments. Nothing is finer than the pictured eloquence of the Indian chiefs as they spiritedly protested against the invasion of their soil and the dispersion and extinguishment of their tribal governments. But before the march of progress and the underlying necessities of civilisation, these cries of sentiment and sympathy will not long be heard. The invincible spirit of progress must go on. Like quicksilver, it will noiselessly run into every portion of the globe where voids created by political weakness and barbarism exist. Sympathy cannot be allowed for ever to block human advancement. In the contest between the higher and the lower order of things, it is impossible to adjust the details to our liking. There is always an intermediate period of partial injustice and confusion before the solution is reached. China can prove no exception to this view. Railroads will eventually appear in the highways of China in place of the ancient and worn-out methods of transportation which now prevail; manufacturing and mining pursuits will be established, her fields will be opened, cultivated, and enriched by modern methods and implements of agriculture. It will be in vain for the Chinese to undertake to support their religion and methods of thought and life by appeals {21} to Confucius and other teachers. These must give way under the influence of modern progress. Why? Because they have produced no fruit. A tree that bears nothing is valueless. China's ethics, laws, religion, and philosophy are barren. Primitively and simply beautiful they may be, but they are without practical value except as historical monuments marking the advance of nations. Her present condition attests the value of her institutions: "By their fruits ye shall know them."

In face of all these facts, it is hard to realise that the allied powers should precipitately have left China. Yet the reason is plain. England and the United States each had a war upon its hands. The Chinese difficulty happened at a most inopportune time, and when the United States inaugurated and persisted in a movement of abandonment of China, England was reluctantly forced to give up her convictions and to join in the retrograde march. Had England been entirely free to act, no doubt she would have forced a different settlement. The McKinley administration exhibited a natural weakness in its policy. It had to fight shy of the imperialistic cry, which had been dinned in its ears ad nauseam with respect to the Philippine possessions; it feared another broadside from opposition newspapers, which was imminent if it pursued a strong policy in China, and hence one was hit upon of apparent magnanimity towards the Chinese, but which was at once superficial, weak, and misleading, and withal the worst measure for China which could be imagined. The allied powers {22} entered China without a studied or concerted plan, and they left it without a clear solution or settlement of the questions involved. Their going in was as their coming out—hasty, ill-conceived, and impolitic. The commencement and the conclusion were both befogged. No sooner were the allied troops removed than internal dissensions appeared, and the weakness, wretchedness, and incompetence of the Chinese government was soon more plainly revealed than ever. By abandoning China, the United States played directly into the hands of Russia. England and Germany must have seen this, but they could not combat a plan of action which seemed on its face so magnanimous to a fallen people, especially with France co-operating with Russia.

The whole business must be gone over again. The weakness of China will soon be revealed in plots and revolutions all over the Empire; indignities will be again perpetrated upon foreigners, and armed intervention will follow.

I cannot leave this question without a separate word about France. The real position of France should be isolation—waiting, watching, improving. The figure which she presents to-day as an ally of Russia is false and unnatural. Let me speak of France with candour and without reserve. Her national progress is stopped, and an internal decay has set in, which will sooner or later seriously affect her influence as a first-class power. The reasons which impel me to reach this painful conclusion are the following: The effort to establish {23} a republican government in France, while not a failure, is far from being a success. No student who has conscientiously studied the history of the past one hundred years can truthfully say that she has made real progress in government. The attempt to sustain a republic in France has been almost grotesque. The great, central, pivotal point of any serious government is stability, which she has never even approached. Ministries are blown over like card houses, by the mere ebullition of political passion, and not as the result of a principle. The people are genuinely surprised if a ministry lasts six months. In the effort to establish a republic, two great fundamental mistakes—among others—are made. First, the French congress and government are held and administered in Paris, the very centre of boiling passions and the hotbed and school of every conflicting "ism" that arises to confound the good sense and prudence of mankind. The seat of government in a republic must be located away from the cosmopolitan influences of large cities. It must be held in a place where calmness—and quiet prevail, and where the officials of the government, and the legislators, are removed from the intimidating noises and the unhealthy influences of metropolitan journalism.

In the second place, the Cabinet should not participate in the proceedings of the legislative bodies.

A cabinet is chosen to aid the president. As the cabinet members are his family council they ought {24} to be in sympathy with his political views, and with his plans, as executive, and their tenure should be consistent with his pleasure. To place them in a position similar to the Ministry of England, in which nation the House of Commons represents the immediate sentiments of the English people; to take one important feature of a constitutional monarchy as it exists in England, and place it in the body of a republic like that created in France, is anomalous and incongruous; utterly out of sympathy and in discord with the real purposes of a republic.

In a republic, a cabinet represents the president, not the people. The noise, froth, and confusion which characterise every overthrow of a French ministry in the Chamber of Deputies is not the vox populi; the change is the result of coalitions, sentiment, or passion; it is a momentary variation in the temper of the legislators, often brought about by events so trivial that one is almost ashamed of legislative bodies. These topsy-turvy movements are not aimed at the executive, but are demonstrations against the cabinet, whose constant overthrow shows the instability of the administration and brings it into contempt. The frequent downfall of a cabinet weakens the confidence of the people in their government, although in fact it may be purely superficial.

I cannot pursue the subject in detail. I leave much unsaid that is important, but there are one or two more thoughts which press upon me with force, and which still further illustrate the above {25} views. France seems to be lacking the few great men who could turn her course into better roads of national policy and prosperity. She has no real leaders. Nor is the nation united in its sympathies with a republican government. That form has no great, genuine lovers in France. They love their country, but not the political mantle which envelops it. Her leading men doubt whether it is the best form for the government of her people, or whether she should not be a monarchy. Democracies thrive upon the love and enthusiasm of the people. If these feelings are not present among the masses, the government is not likely to be healthy. A fair proportion of Frenchmen are socialists. What this means in France, no one has intelligently defined or explained. So far as we can judge from a study of the mass of stuff presented, called argument, it means a general breaking up of society. Another class of Frenchmen favour a monarchy; but perhaps the largest class is composed of true republicans. These differences are vital and fundamental. They go to the form and substance of government, not to its policy, as in America, where every party cry, radical or conservative, is attuned to the music of a republican federation, and which is the sine qua non to all political conclusions. How can a nation progress until its people have chosen, or are competent to choose, a stable form of government, and are satisfied with certain organic political principles?

Nothing illustrates the vacillation of France and her utter want of stability more than her {26} alliance with Russia. The extent and nature of this alliance is now known to be of a comprehensive character—offensive and defensive. After France was released from the last obligation of the Prussian war by the payment of the money indemnity, it became the fixed, resolute, and unswerving purpose of her people to regain Alsace and Lorraine from the Germans. Her recuperative power was wonderful. In a few years she was in the full vigour of a new national life. The defeat which the nation had suffered rankled in the bosoms of her people, and for years they thought of nothing but revenge against Germany. The truth is that the result of the Franco-Prussian war casts no reflection upon the moral or physical courage of the French. The fault was that of Napoleon III: the nation was taken unawares, and before she was ready, Germany had her brave people by the throat. The victorious Germans took good care to strengthen their hold on territories wrested from France, by forming the Triple Alliance. In the meantime, the former provinces of France have become in a great measure Germanised. The longings of the people of Alsace and Lorraine to again become part of France grow weaker every day, as do the feelings of the French people to possess them. Separation and time are both acting to diminish the chances of their recovery. On the one side the inhabitants of the territories are becoming acclimated to their new national life; and on the other, the French people have become less intense in their original determination to recover {27} them. A new generation of people has grown up which did not participate in the original struggle, and which lack the enthusiasm of the original actors. Whether French diplomacy could have avoided or thwarted this result, or whether the situation has come from natural or uncontrollable conditions; upon either assumption, the cold, disagreeable fact stares the French people in the face, and they should look at the situation boldly and philosophically—the recovery of these provinces is now a remote possibility.

For years after the Prussian war, France was without an external policy. She knew not where to turn—to the right or left. She glanced with longing, scanning eyes over Europe, and could not select a friend, associate, or ally. She would make no overtures to her historic and falsely assumed national enemy—England; and Germany, Austria, and Italy were tightly closed against her. Russia presented the only open door to her, and after a long courtship she entered into a political matrimony with that great power. A union more unnatural, more lacking in harmony, more ill-advised, could not be imagined. It was a great step for Russia. She could use France admirably in the event of European trouble. French money, and a French army and navy, would make a powerful addition to her own military and naval resources. But what can France possibly gain from such an alliance? Has anyone sufficient ingenuity to plan a campaign by Russia against any power of Europe which would produce an eventual benefit to France? {28} Make up any combination you please and the result would be sure loss to France. Her true policy was to rest where she was—isolated and independent,—quietly abiding the time when the Triple Alliance would be dissolved, or other European complications might enable her to resume control over her lost territories, if ever that were possible. If not, her policy was peace—peace with the world. The alliance with Russia, in advance of conditions which actually demanded or justified it, in form at least, arraigns all Europe against her, and it does her no possible good. The alliance with Russia is meaningless and fruitless. If it has any effect, it is hurtful. The two nations are as far apart as the poles. Point out the incident and page of history where a similar union has been beneficial. It shows a decline in France's external policy, in her prudence and good judgment. It reflects the influences of a weak and declining internal condition. France has forgotten Bonaparte's solemn, almost pathetic appeal to his nation—"Make friends with England." The cultivation of an enmity for England is France's curse. There should be a complete revulsion of national feeling in favour of England—the centre and the source of civilisation. A true friendship with her could not fail to benefit France.

The overwhelming pride of the French, however, hides from them her real internal and external condition. Her only national policy should be peace with all the powers of the world. She should strive to become a purely commercial nation, {29} augmenting the attractions of French life to draw into her bosom the travellers and wealth of the world, and seek, by energy and skill, to retain undiminished her commercial strength against the powerful advances of the Americans.

France refuses to see or admit that since she has lost Alsace and Lorraine much of her national prestige has gone, and while still powerful in many ways, she is destined to second and support, not to lead. Doubtless her people dearly love their country, but they are indifferent to her institutions. They love La belle France, but have no sympathy with her political government. As their great writer, De Tocqueville, says in another connection, they worship the statue, but forget what it signifies. The French are brave and adventurous,—under the inspiration of a great military or naval hero, they will go to the extreme bounds of the earth in search of glory,—but they will not immigrate or travel to found new colonies or foreign homes. If a band of adventurous Frenchmen were to start to-morrow on such a voyage, would it be earnestly coupled with the desire to propagate the gospel of French republicanism? Half of the army and the navy do not believe in republicanism: They would be a sorry set of teachers to propagate the principles of democracy among the natives of a new country. Expansion and imperialism died with the great Napoleon. To-day France is substantially sustained and held together by a species of militarism. The great army moves like a machine to the wishes of each temporary administration. {30} It eats up the vitals of the people and compels them, at the same time, to enthusiastically support it. The moment France gives birth to a great soldier or sailor, he will capture the army and navy and change the form of government into a monarchy or despotism. Deep love or respect for existing administrations does not prevail. Instead of the civil authority of sheriffs, constables, bailiffs, and policemen, the military power is looked to as the real channel for enforcing the decrees of government. The entire conception and development of the army is contrary to true republican principles.

In conclusion, France linked with Russia means nothing for her. She might, with such an alliance, inflict serious damage on England or Germany separately; but it would avail her naught. She should speedily retire from the coalition. Remaining isolated and independent, she can uphold her present prestige, and through the mistakes of other nations she may add to her territorial area, providing she maintains a stable government.

The thoughts, wishes, and energies of her statesmen should be turned to the serious problem of making her people free, prosperous, and happy; as a beginning towards which, let them turn their attention to the eradication of the crying sin of France, the seed that is ripening for her destruction—that evil which Matthew Arnold calls "the worship of the goddess Aselgeia" otherwise "Lubricity."

A final word. Remember, ye Anglo-Saxons, {31} that despite her present condition, France is still, by reason of her large internal resources and enormous wealth, her trained army and modernly equipped navy, a great power in the world, and casting her sword into the scale of events with one or more nations, she can become an instrument of great good or evil. Friendship with her should be cultivated, and her people should be made to see that co-operation with you in your honourable efforts to help mankind is the true line of her policy.