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content himself that his ritual has proved itself in the Western world, and even flatter himself that it is the best he has to offer the native. His long personal use should enable him to guarantee its efficacy. Now what the white man wants first of all is land. This he sets about obtaining legally. He proffers the native beads or a knife in exchange for his title. When the native chief accepts, as he is likely to do, by this act which marks an exercise of.his own free will and judgment, he has contracted away the lands of his tribe. No one has been injured; since the act was voluntary, the agreement extended to both parties, and compensation in full was rendered. The parties, therefore, being legally bound, must be held to the performance of their obligations under the law of contracts.

Having gained control of the soil, which may mean railroad and mining concessions in China, gold mines in South Africa, or sugar plantations in Hawaii, and having thus in his hands the possibilities of pecuniary gain, the white man's next problem is to find means of developing this potential wealth. Again the conventions of the Western world are required to prove their efficacy. Either dignity of labor or freedom of contract can be made to fit the case. On the one hand there is work in railroad building, mining, herding cattle, or what not, that requires the doing. On the other hand there are hordes of able-bodied natives who are not productively employed. Proper consideration for the dignity of toil, therefore, leaves the white man no alternative but to devise a system for securing the labor of the savage. A head tax may be levied which must be paid in money. Or a tax may be placed on the native which he can discharge in work. More easily, again using the magic wand of contract, the savage may be gotten in debt; and surely he must be held responsible for obligations voluntarily assumed. The result is the permanent establishment of the wages system.

The nature and consequences of such overlordship can be easily appreciated. Economically the native is regarded as a convenient instrument for causing success to attend the white man's venture. The noneconomic effects are also interesting and far-reaching. The coming of the white man not only makes a wage-slave of the native, but demoralizes him socially and spiritually. Tribal life is broken up when sufficient lands for hunting or communal agriculture are no longer available. With it comes the end of the power of chiefs and priests, the latter still further undermined by the assiduous efforts of Christian missionaries to convince the "heathen" of the wickedness of their leaders. Moreover, the native's observation of the white man's mode of life, with its impunity from tribal taboos and disregard of tribal sanctions, destroys their validity for him. Finally

the whole primitive system of control under which he has lived suffers shipwreck.1*

All this but makes the native a more pliant instrument, since he cannot reconstruct a new system of values to fit the new situation. He does not understand the white man's object, or see to what place this foreign system assigns him. His mental attitude is quite external to the real nature of the system which is closing in about him. Therefore he has not the recourse against it possessed by the wageworkers of Western countries, who, whatever their weakness, still sense the drift of events that is involving them. This inferior position is made permanent and definite by the fact that most of the native races which Western civilization has encountered can not be assimilated. It is not the purpose of Europeans, even were it possible, to educate primitive races to a point where they could reap the profit of the development which their countries are undergoing.

But the results of such a policy, naturally enough, are not limited to the countries affected. To assure the pecuniary success which is the object of colonial expansion, trade is necessary. If a colony is cut off from communication with the Western world, rapid pecuniary gains cannot be made. The settlers must supply their own needs, thus establishing a self-sufficient economic system. But it is only as a part of a much larger industrial entity that the potential resources of the colony may be most advantageously utilized. A disposition of the surplus abroad gives vast differential gains. The promoters, therefore, will strive to make the colony a part of the existing industrial system. In course of time the industrial aristocracy will live under a social system and possess a civilization like that of the Western world. The natives, too, will live under such a system, but as a permanent proletariat. Thus the West with its culture is reaching out to grasp lands held by primitive peoples, and to reduce its complex and different scheme of life to its own system of values.

But the process must inevitably react upon the structure of Western society. The spirit of colonial life must influence the mother-country. Colonial pecuniary interests must find their part in Western politics. The easier life of the tropics must have its telling effect on character, and hence affect the morale of the home. people. The sense of empire, too, exercises a peculiar psychological

"Compare the plaint of the natives in Rhodesia, as voiced by Sir Richard Martin, in his official report. "The natives practically said, 'Our country is gone and our cattle; we have nothing to live for. Our women are deserting us; the white man does as he likes with them. We are the slaves of the white man; we are nobody and have no rights or laws of any kind.”— Hobson, Imperialism; A Study, 281, note.

influence which cannot be analyzed. It, also, threatens the home wage-worker with competition of cheap foreign labor. Such are the results of the competition of Western and primitive culture, when the contest is fought on the territory of the latter, and the weapons are all of Western fashioning.

34. The Export of Speculative Capital and War15

BY ALVIN S. JOHNSON

Let us look somewhat closely upon the structure of capital as an economic force. We shall find that it embraces two elements differing widely in character. The one, which we may denominate capital proper, is characterized by cautious calculation, but a preference for sure, if small, gains to dazzling winnings. The other, which we may call speculative enterprise, is characterized by a readiness to take risks, a thirst for brilliant gains.

Capital thrives best in a settled order of society, where the risks of loss are at a minimum. It accepts favors from government, to be sure, but politics is no part of its game; peace and freedom from disturbing innovations are its great desiderata. Speculative enterprise, on the other hand, thrives best in the midst of disorder. Its favorite field of operations is the fringe of change, economic or political. It delights in the realm where laws ought to be, but have not yet made their appearance. To control the course of legal evolution, to retard or divert it, are its favorite devices for prolonging the period of rich gains. Politics, therefore, is an essential part of the game of speculative enterprise.

At the outset of the modern era, speculative enterprise quite overshadowed capital proper. Colonial trade, government contracts, domestic monopolies were the chief sources of middle-class fortunes. But with the progress of industry, slow, plodding capital has been able steadily to encroach upon the field of enterprise. In our own society the promoter of railway, and public utilities, the exploiter of public lands, the trust organizer, are as prominent relatively as in any modern nation. Qantitatively, however, their interests are greatly inferior to those of the trader, manufacturer, banker, small investor, and the farmer, to whom a 10 per cent return is a golden dream and a 20 per cent one a temptation of the Evil One.

In a new country of vast natural resources there is sufficient scope for both speculative enterprise and capital proper. The United States has been such a country. There was easy money enough for

15 Adapted from "The War-By an Economist," in the Unpopular Review, II, 420-428. Copyright (1914).

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all men of shrewdness and resolution possessed of the necessary initial stake-public forests to be leveled, railways to be built or wrecked, trusts to be organized, cities to be provided with public utilities. But, in view of our changing attitude, this easy money. appears to be in danger of being locked up. Already we are beginning to hear murmurs that, in view of the popular hostility to wealth, it will be necessary for American capital to look for foreign investments. Not foreign investments in England, France, and Germany, where government is efficient and capital proper prevails, but foreign investments in the undeveloped countries, in a Land of the Morning, "east of Suez."

The progress of modern industrial society, with its parallel development of the art of government, tends to the exclusion of speculative capital, and its concentration in the tropical and subtropical belts. In the older societies this process has been in operation for a considerable time. For generations British citizens have been taught to look to Asia, Africa, and America for sudden wealth. Although Germany had a slower start, the efficiency of government has recommended new countries to those looking for brilliant gains. In a generation much of our speculative capital will be employed in colonial exploitation.

Capital, it is often said, knows no such thing as patriotism. This may be true of the cautious, colorless capital of industry and finance. But an intense patriotism is avowed by J. J. Hill, by the DuPonts, by the Guggenheims. Most intense of all is the patriotism of the capitalist whose interest lies in the twilight zone of the barbaric belt. Purer expressions of concern for America's future than those now issuing from the lips of concessionaries in Mexico you never hear. We are all moved by the grandiose African dream of Cecil Rhodes: "all red"-i.e., British-a British heart within every black skin from the Cape to Cairo. The case is typical of the capitalist speculator abroad. By interest the concessionary capitalist is a patriot. He needs his country in his business. But this is no impeachment of his patriotism. His type is reckless and therefore idealistic. His private interests become submerged in his imperialistic ambitions. Patriotism has always burned more brightly in border provinces than in the heart of the national territory. It is natural, then, that patriotism should be still more intense in those extensions of the national domain represented by permanent investments abroad.

Now patriotism compounded with financial interests usually produces detestation for the corresponding alien compound. Speculators in South America and the Orient meet their rivals from other nations and hate them heartily. Those speculators are the nerve

ends of modern industrial nationalism, and they are specialized to the work of carrying sensations of hate. For the present we have few nerves of this kind. They have conveyed to us only a vague impression of the uneasiness felt by England and France over the German advance in the colonial field. And German speculators, thwarted in their designs by the English and French, have contributed to the popular feeling that Germany must fight for what she gets.

The capitalist speculator, even at home, enjoys a power over the popular imagination and a political influence quite incommensurate with the extent of his interests. When the scat of his operations is a foreign territory, whence flow back reports of his great achievements-achievements that cost us nothing, and that bring home fortunes to be taxed and spent among us-his social and political influence attains even more exaggerated proportions. And this is the more significant since his relations with government are concentrated upon the most sensitive of government organs, the foreign office.

When diplomatic questions concerning the non-industrial belt arise, and most diplomatic questions concern this belt, the voice of the concessionaries is heard at the council of state. The voice is the most convincing because of the patriotism that colors its expression of interest. More important, the ordinary conduct of exploitative business in an undeveloped state keeps the concessionary in constant relation with the consular and diplomatic officers established there. In a sense such officers are the concessionary's agents, yet their communications to the home office are the material out of which diplomatic situations are created.

It is accordingly idle to suppose that exploitative capital in foreign investments weighs in foreign policy only as an equal amount of capital at home. In view of the conditions mentioned, a small investment may prove a great menace to the peace of nations. For years Germany, Russia, England, and France have been brought to the belief that something very vital turns upon the control of the Land of the Morning. Indeed, the whole civilized world has been seduced into accepting this belief. Yes, something very vital for exploitative capital. Out of such delusions spring wars.

It is the interest of exploitative capital that makes the Morning Land, Mexico, China, and Africa rotten stones in the arch of civilization. But for exploitative capital, these regions might remain backward, socially and politically: this would not greatly concern any industrial nation, except so far as it responded to a missionary impulse. The backward states, however, afford possibilities of sudden wealth; and, since this is the case, they must attract exploiters, who

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