Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

obtained by the mother country from the extension of empire? There is, first of all, a wider field for the settlement and employment of the people of the country. Every old country from the beginnings of history has felt the need of finding room for an expanding population.

At the present time Germany feels a pressing need for the expansion of her overseas dominion in view of the growth of population. The territorial expansion of the British empire, on the other hand, has been so rapid and extensive that we have reached the point of satiety.

But although we have apparently provided an unlimited field for the emigration of our surplus population, we have taken no pains to put the surplus labourers into that field; we have left them to overcrowd our own cities, or to seek new homes in foreign states, as their ignorance or inclination directed. "From 1853 to 1898 the total emigration of persons of British or Irish origin was 8,549,569 persons, of whom, 5,690,712 went to the United States." Conversely, the people of other nationalities are welcomed to our colonies, and recently, for example, the immigration into Canada of foreigners (including those from the United States) has far exceeded that from the United Kingdom. It is also said that the emigrants to Canada from Europe have, for the most part, a lower standard of comfort than the British, and as a consequence they are much more quickly in a position to be able to equip land and to become the real owners of land out of their savings.

The question of emigration and immigration is, no doubt, complex and full of difficulty. In the past England gained much from alien immigrants, and it is possible that the empire may gain under modern conditions in the same way; but it is hardly probable that haphazard emigration from the United Kingdom and haphazard immigration into the rest of the empire will produce the maximum of benefit either to the home country or the empire. For fifty years after Adam Smith wrote the emigration of the skilled workman to a foreign state was criminal, both on the part of the artisan himself and of the provocative agent. Already, it is true, we have been forced by glaring evils to begin the elements of organisation in the classification of immigrants and the exclusion of certain classes. But we are far from any idea of the systematic organisation of what may be termed intermigration between the different parts of the empire. To all intents and purposes, what we are pleased to call the British empire is equally open to the surplus (white) population of all other countries.

Secondly, as with the living capital, the most valuable part of the capital of the nation (even if the value is reckoned strictly in terms of money), so with the dead capital. Like the wind it goes whither it lists. It is true that large masses of British capital have been invested within the limits of the empire, but also masses of capital have been sent elsewhere. Here, again, no doubt, the question is complex; under certain conditions there are advantages in the per- . manent investment of British capital in foreign

countries; but, other things being equal (or what is the same thing, the special conditions being absent), in general the employment of capital within a country is more advantageous to its people than if it is employed out of the country. The advantage of the employment is not to be measured merely by the profit; we must look to its continuous use and continuous reproduction. And so far what is true of a country is true of an extended empire. Railways, for example, made by British capital in the United States may yield greater profit than similar railways in Canada or South Africa, but the advantage to the empire is very different.

Thirdly, as regards foreign trade, following Adam Smith, all foreign trade means to some extent the employment of capital out of the country, and so far is less advantageous than home trade. But, under certain conditions there are advantages that more than compensate this export of capital; and in old countries that have long been wealthy, there is generally a surplus of capital that cannot be employed in home trade. On Adam Smith's principles, trade within the empire, other things being equal, is more advantageous to the empire than external trade. Even in the case of friendly disintegration he assumed that provision would be made for free trade between the different states. Under present conditions, however, the trade of the United Kingdom with foreign countries is about three times the magnitude of its trade with the British possessions; and although the trade of the possessions with foreign states is on

the whole much less than with the United Kingdom, this distribution in our favour can be accounted for, only to a small extent, by the nominal imperial connection.

Apart from the recent grant by the colonies of preferences to British exports for the most part in the shape of a super-tax on foreign goods, the home country has no special advantage over foreign nations in trading with British possessions.

Accordingly, we are forced to the conclusion that as regards national, as distinguished from a share in cosmopolitan, advantages, whether we look to military and naval power, or to the employment of our labour and capital, we have "not an empire but the project of an empire."

Accordingly, the most pressing political question of the day is whether the time has not arrived when, especially from the point of view of defence, the potentialities of empire must be turned into actualities. To the world at large the wide extension of the pax Britannica is no doubt an immense boon, but, if opportunity offered, in the present as in the past, the nations of the world would share in the partition of the British possessions as readily as in the partition of China. If our empire is to be preserved under modern conditions, the power of the sea must be upheld, not merely by the United Kingdom but by the United Empire. That is the first essential requisite; and if this is attained the way is prepared for a closer union for other political and social requirements.

CHAPTER XVI

CONCLUSION

§ 1. British Command of the Sea needs Colonial Co-operation.

THE growth of the naval power of foreign statesespecially of those which in military power are already immensely superior to the United Kingdomwill make it impossible, in the course of a very few years, for this country alone to secure the maintenance of the empire by the supreme command of the sea. The British command of the sea can only be retained with the effective aid of the colonies. The need for effective colonial aid for the maintenance of naval power is urgent and pressing; it cannot be met by promises which will require a long period for their fulfilment; nor merely by the adoption of means designed to advance the general prosperity of the constituent parts of the empire. In times of commercial crisis it is of no avail for a bank to have excellent permanent investments if it cannot meet immediate requirements; and in case of war no ultimate reserves of wealth and numbers will suffice to build and man ships, and to train and equip armies in time for active service.

« AnteriorContinuar »