China is potentially the greatest Power on the western littoral of the Pacific. Her enormous territory has vast agricultural and mineral resources. Great rivers give easy access to some of the best of her lands. A huge population has gifts of patient labour and craftsmanship that make the Chinaman a feared competitor by every White worker in the world. In courage he is not inferior to the Japanese, as General Gordon found. In intelligence, in fidelity and in that common sense which teaches "honesty to be the best policy," the Chinaman is far superior to the Japanese.
The Chinaman has been outstripped up to the present by the Japanese in the acquirement of the arts of Western civilisation, not because of his inferior mind, but because of his deeper disdain. He has stood aside from the race for world supremacy on modern lines, not as one who is too exhausted for effort, but as one who is too experienced to try. China has in the past experimented with many of the vaunted ideas and methods of the new civilisation, from gunpowder to a peerage chosen bycompetitive examination, and long ago came to the conclusion that all was vanity and vexation of spirit.
The Chinaman is not humble; not content to take an inferior place in the world. He has all the arrogance of Asia. The name of "Heavenly Kingdom" given to the land by its inhabitants, the grandiose titles assumed by its rulers, the degrading ceremonies which used to be exacted from foreigners visiting China as confessions of their inferiority to the Celestial race, show an extravagant pride of birth. In the thirteenth century, when Confucian China, alike with Christian Europe, had to fear the growing power of the fanatical Mohammedans, a treaty of alliance was suggested between France and China: and the negotiations were broken off because of the claim of China that France should submit to her as a vassal, by way of preliminary. The Chinaman's idea of his own importance has not abated since then. His attitude towards the "foreign devils" is still one of utter contempt. But at present that contempt has not the backing of naval and military strength, and so in practice counts for nothing.
China cherishes the oldest of living civilisations. Her legendary history dates back to 2404B.C., her actual history to 875B.C., when a high state of mental culture had been reached, and a very advanced material civilisation also; though some caution is necessary in accepting the statements that at that time China made use of gunpowder, of the mariner'scompass, and of printing type. But certainly weaving, pottery, metal-working, and pictorial art flourished. The noble height to which philosophy had reached centuries before the Christian Era is shown by the records of Confucianism and Taoism. Political science had been also cultivated, and there were then Chinese Socialists to claim that "everyone should sow and reap his own harvest."
There seem to have been at least two great parent races of the present population of the Chinese Empire—a race dwelling in the valleys and turning its thoughts to peace and the arts, and a race dwelling on the Steppes and seeking joy in war. It was the Tartar and Mongol tribes of the Steppes which sent wave after wave of attack westward towards Europe, under chiefs the greatest of whom was Gengis Khan. But it was the race of the valleys, the typical Chinese, stolid, patient, laborious, who established ultimate supremacy in the nation, gradually absorbing the more unruly elements and producing modern China with its contempt for military glory. But the Mongols by their wars left a deep impression on the Middle Ages, founding kingdoms which were tributary to China, in Persia, Turkestan and as far west as the Russian Volga.
The earliest record of European relations with China was in the seventh century, when the Emperor Theodosius sent an embassy to the Chinese Emperor. In the thirteenth century Marco Polo visited the Court of the Grand Khan at Pekin, and for a whilefairly constant communication between Europe and China seems to have been maintained, the route followed being by caravan across Asia. Christian missionaries settled in China, and in 1248 there is a record of the Pope and the Grand Khan exchanging greetings.
When towards the end of the fourteenth century the Ming dynasty supplanted the Mongol dynasty, communication with Europe was broken off for more than a century. But in 1581 Jesuit missionaries again entered China, and the Manchu dynasty of the seventeenth century at first protected the Christian faith and seemed somewhat to favour Western ideas. But in the next century the Christian missions were persecuted and almost extirpated, to be revived in 1846. Since that date "the mailed fist" of Europe has exacted from the Chinese a forced tolerance of European trade and missions.
But Chinese prejudice against foreign intrusion was given no reason for abatement by the conduct of the European Powers, as shown, for example, in the Opium War of 1840. That prejudice, smouldering for long, broke out in the savage fanaticism of the Boxer outbreak of 1900, which led to a joint punitive expedition by the European Powers, in conjunction with Japan. China had the mortification then of being scourged not only by the "white devils" but also by an upstart Yellow Man, who was her near and her despised neighbour. All China that knew of the expedition to Pekin of 1900 and understood itssignificance, seems to have resolved then on some change of national policy involving the acceptance of European methods, in warfare at least. Responding to the stimulus of Japan's flaunting of her success in acquiring the ways of the European, China began to consider whether there was not after all something useful to be learned from the Western barbarians. The older Asiatic country has a deep contempt for the younger: but proof of Japan's superior position in the world's estimation had become too convincing to be disregarded. China saw Japan treated with respect, herself with contumely. She found herself humiliated in war and in diplomacy by the upstart relative. The reason was plain, the conclusion equally plain. China began to arm and lay the foundations of a modern naval and military system. The national spirit began to show, too, in industry. Chinese capital claimed its right and its duty to develop the resources of China.
Early in the twentieth century "modern ideas" had so far established themselves in China that Grand Councillor Chang Chih-tung was able, without the step being equivalent to suicide, to memorialise the Throne with these suggestions for reform:—
1. That the Government supply funds for free education.
2. That the Army and Navy be reorganised without delay.
3. That able and competent officials be secured for Government services.
4. That Princes of the blood be sent abroad to study.
5. That arsenals for manufacturing arms, ammunition, and other weapons of war, and docks and shipbuilding yards for constructing warships, be established without delay.
6. That only Chinese capital be invested in railway and mining enterprises.
7. That a date be given for the granting of a Constitution.
Chang Chih-tung may be taken as the representative of the new school of Chinese thought. His bookChuen Hsueh Pien(China's Only Hope) is the Bible of the moderate reformers. He states in that book:—
"In order to render China powerful, and at the same time preserve our own institutions, it is absolutely necessary that we should utilise Western knowledge. But unless Chinese learning is made the basis of education, and a Chinese direction given to thought, the strong will become anarchists, and the weak slaves. Thus the latter end will be worse than the former.... Travel abroad for one year is more profitable than study at home for five years. It has been well said that seeing is a hundred times better than hearing. One year's study in a foreign institution is better than three years in a Chinese. Mencius remarks that a man can learn foreign things best abroad; but much more benefit can be derived from travel by older and experienced men than bythe young, and high mandarins can learn more than petty officials.... Cannot China follow theviam mediam, and learn a lesson from Japan? As the case stands to-day, study by travel can be better done in that country than in Europe, for the following reasons.... If it were deemed advisable, some students could afterwards be sent to Europe for a fuller course."
After the Russian-Japanese War Chinese students went to Japan in thousands, and these students laid the foundation of the Republican school of reformers which is the greatest of the forces striving for mastery in China to-day. The flow of students to Japan was soon checked by the then Chinese Government, for the reason that Republican sentiments seemed to be absorbed in the atmosphere of Japan, despite the absolutism of the Government there. In the United States and in Europe the Chinese scholar was able, however, to absorb Western knowledge without acquiring Republican opinions! There is some suggestion of a grim jest on the part of the Chinese in holding to this view. It recalls Boccaccio's story of the Christian who despaired of the conversion of his Jewish friend when he knew that he contemplated a visit to Rome. The Chinese seemed to argue that a safe precaution against acquiring Republican views is to live in a Republican country. Chinese confidence in the educational advantages offered by the United States has been justified by results. American-educated Chinese are prominentin every phase of the Reform movement in China, except Republican agitation. The first Reform Foreign Minister in China, the first great native Chinese railway builder, the first Chinese women doctors, the greatest native Chinese banker, are examples of American training.
It would be outside the scope of this work to attempt to deal in any way exhaustively with the present position in China. What the ultimate outcome will be, it is impossible to forecast. At present a Republic is in process of formation, after the baby Emperor through the Dowager Empress had promulgated an edict stating:
"We, the Emperor, have respectfully received the following Edict from her Majesty the Dowager:
"In consequence of the uprising of the Republican Army, to which the people in the Provinces have responded, the Empire seethed liked a boiling cauldron, and the people were plunged in misery. Yuan Shih-kai, therefore, commanded the despatch of Commissioners to confer with the Republicans with a view to a National Assembly deciding the form of government. Months elapsed without any settlement being reached. It is now evident that the majority of the people favour a Republic, and, from the preference of the people's hearts, the will of Heaven is discernible. How could we oppose the desires of millions for the glory of one family? Therefore, the Dowager Empress and the Emperor hereby vest the sovereignty in the people. LetYuan Shih-kai organise with full powers a provisional Republican Government, and let him confer with the Republicans on the methods of establishing a union which shall assure the peace of the Empire, and of forming a great Republic, uniting Manchus, Chinese, Mongols, Mohammedans, and Tibetans."
But all men whom I have met who have had chances of studying Chinese conditions at first hand, agree that the Chinese national character is not favourable to the permanent acceptance of Republican ideas. If there is one thing which seems fixed in the Chinese character it is ancestor-worship, and that is essentially incompatible with Republicanism.[3]But whatseems absolutely certain is that a new China is coming to birth. Slowly the great mass is being leavened with a new spirit.
Now a new China, armed with modern weapons, would be a terrible engine of war. A new China organised to take the field in modern industry would be a formidable rival in neutral markets to any existing nation. The power of such a new China put at the disposal of Japan could at least secure all Asia for the Asiatics and hold the dominant position in the Northern Pacific. Possibly it could establish a world supremacy, unless such a Yellow union forced White Races to disregard smaller issues and unite against a common foe. Fortunately a Chinese-Japanese alliance is not at present in the least likely. The Chinese hatred of the Japanese is of long standing and resolute, though it is sometimes dissembled. The Japanese have an ill-concealed contempt for the Chinese. Conflict is more likely than alliance between the two kindred races.
Further, the Chinese will probably move far more slowly on any path of aggression than did the Japanese, for they are intensely pacific. For many
generations they have been taught to regard the soldier as contemptible, the recluse scholar as admirable. Ideas of overseas Empire on their part are tempered by the fanatic wish of every Chinaman that his bones should rest in his native land. It will only be in response to enormous pressure that China will undertake a policy of adventure.
That pressure is now being engendered from within and without. From without it is being engendered by insolent robberies of territory and other outrages on the part of foreign Powers. More particularly of late has the modern arrogance of Japan impressed upon the old-fashioned arrogance of China the fact that the grave scholar, skilled in all the lore of Confucius, is a worthless atom beside a drilled coolie who can shoot straight. From within the pressure is being engendered by the great growth of population. For some time past infanticide has been common in China as a Malthusian check. Now European missionaries seek to discourage that. European medicine further sets itself to teach the Yellow Man to cope with plague, smallpox, and cholera, while European engineering abates the terrors of flood and of crop failure.
Machiavelli would have found prompting for some grim aphorism in this curious eagerness of Europe to teach the teeming millions of Asia to rid themselves of checks on their greater growth, and thus to increase the pressure of the Asiatic surplus seeking an outlet at the expense of Europe. It is in respect tothe urgent demand for room for an overcrowding population that there exists alike to China and Japan the strongest stimulus to warlike action in the Pacific. China in particular wants colonies, even if they be only such colonies as provide opportunities for her coolies to amass enough wealth to return in old age to China. From the fertile basin of China there have been overflow waves of humanity ever since there has been any record of history. Before the era of White settlement in the Pacific the Chinese population had pushed down the coast of Asia and penetrated through a great part of the Malay Archipelago, an expansion not without its difficulties, for the fierce Malay objected to the patient Chinaman and often the Chinaman remained to fertilise but not to colonise the alien soil. By some Providential chance neither the Chinaman nor the Japanese ever reached to Australia in the early days of the Pacific, though there are records of Japanese fishermen getting as far as the Hawaiian Group, a much more hazardous journey. If the Asiatics had reached Australia the great island would doubtless have become the southern province of Asia, for its native population could have offered no resistance to the feeblest invader.
In the past, however, the great natural checks kept the Asiatic populations within some limits. Internal wars, famines, pestilences, infanticide—all claimed their toll. Nature exercised on man the checks which exist throughout the whole animal kingdom,and which in some regions of biology are so stern that it is said that only one adult survives of 5,000,000 spawn of a kind of oyster. Now European influence is steadily directed in Asia to removing all obstacles to the growth of population. When the Asiatics wish to fight among themselves Europe is inclined to interfere (as at the time of the Boxer outbreak in China), on the ground that a state of disorder cannot be tolerated. In India internecine warfare is strictly prohibited by the paramount Power. In Japan all local feuds have been healed by pressure from Europe and America, and the fighting power of the people concentrated for external warfare.
Not alone by checking internal warfare does Europe insist on encouraging the growth of the Asiatic myriads. European science suggests railways, which make famine less terrible; flood prevention works which save millions of lives. European moralists make war on such customs as the suicide of young widows and the exposure for death of female children. But, far more efficacious than all, European scientists come forward to teach to the Asiatics aseptic surgery, inoculation, and the rest of the wisdom of preventive and curative medicine. Sometimes Nature is stronger than science. The Plague, for instance, still claims its millions. But even the Plague diminishes before modern medical science.
In hisHealth and Empire(1911), Dr FrancisFremantle tells of the campaign against plague in India. He writes:
"The death-rate from plague in 1904 in the Lahore and Amritsar districts in which I worked was 25 per 1000. Over 1,000,000 Indians died of plague in 1904, over 1,000,000 in 1905; in 1906, 332,000, and it was thought the end was in sight. But 640,000 died in the first four months of 1907; in 1908, 321,000 died; in 1909 only 175,000, but in 1910 again very nearly 500,000, and this year more than ever. The United Provinces had barely been reached by the epidemic in 1904; now with a population equal to that of the United Kingdom, they have been losing 20,000 every week; and the Punjab 34,000 in one week, 39,000, 47,000, 54,000, 60,000 and so on—over 430,000 in the first four months of this year in a population of 25,000,000. Imagine Great Britain and Ireland losing the same proportion—over 1,000,000 from plague in half a year. And India as a whole has in fifteen years lost over 7,000,000 from plague. Why wonder at her unrest?
"What, then, can the Government do? Extermination of rats is impossible; disinfection on a large scale is impracticable; evacuation of villages cannot be done voluntarily on any universal scale; the Government will not apply compulsion, and such evacuation is quite useless without a rigid cordon of police or military that will prevent communication between one infected village and others not yet infected. A cordon, it has been proved over andover again, cannot be maintained; the native who wishes to pass it has only to present some official with a cautious rupee. Extermination of rats in an Asiatic country has often failed; but here is without a shadow of doubt the key to the problem. The methods formerly adopted had been to give a capitation grant for every rat brought to the appointed place, and before long it was found, for instance in Bombay, that an extensive trade had grown up in the breeding of rats, whereby, at a few annas apiece from the Government, many families were able to sustain a comfortable existence.... But since sentence on the rat-flea has been pronounced for the murder of 7,000,000 persons and over, the best method for his extermination will not be far off.
"It is often debated whether even half-measures are worth being continued. Professor W. J. Simpson, in his exhaustive monograph on the plague, and in 1907 in hisCroonian Lectures, has shown how in history epidemics of plague have come and gone in different countries with long intervals between them, often of one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty years. In the eighteenth century, for instance, India seems to have been almost free of the plague, but early in the seventeenth century it suffered severely. The present epidemic is assuming, as far as we can trust previous records, unprecedented proportions; probably after a few years it will die out again.
"An occasional cynic may argue that, since wehave saved so many thousands of lives annually from famine and wars, it may be just as well to let the plague take their place. To such a pessimistic and inhuman conclusion it is impossible for one moment to submit. It may be that for economic reasons some parts of the Indian Empire would be happier if their population were less dense; but it does not follow that we should allow Death to stalk uninterrupted, unopposed, and apparently without limit, throughout the country. Economics apart, we may yet be absolutely convinced, whether as doctors or as statesmen, that it is our mission, our duty, to protect the populations included under British rule to the best of our ability against every scourge as it may arise; and therefore it is urgent that such measures as we have be pushed forward with the utmost vigour."
That tells (in a more convincing way, because of the impatience of the doctor, accustomed to European conditions, at the slow result of work in India) how resolute is the White Man's campaign against the Yellow Man's death-rate in one part of Asia. Such a campaign in time must succeed in destroying the disease against which it is directed and thus adding further to the fecundity of Asia.
Nor is the fight against diseases confined to those parts of Asia under direct White rule. The cult of White medicine spreads everywhere, carried by Japanese as well as by European doctors and missionaries. Its effects already show in the enormous increaseof Asiatic population, proved wherever definite figures are available. That growth adds year by year to the danger that the Yellow Man will overrun the Pacific and force the White Man to a second place in the ocean's affairs, perhaps not even leaving him that.
An older and sterner school of thought would have condemned as fatuous the White Races' humanitarian nurture of the Yellow Races. But the gentler thought of to-day will probably agree with Dr Fremantle that the White Man cannot "allow Death to stalk uninterrupted, unopposed" even through the territory of our racial rivals. But we must give serious thought to the position which is thus created, especially in view of the "levelling" racial tendency of modern weapons of warfare. China has a population to-day, according to Chinese estimates, of 433,000,000; according to an American diplomatist's conclusions, of not much more than half that total. But it is, without a doubt, growing as it never grew before; and modern reform ideas will continue to make it grow and render the menace of its overflow more imminent.
At present the trend of thought in China is pacific. But it is not possible to be sure that there will not be a change in that regard with the ferment of new ideas. The discussion to-day of a Republic in China, of womanhood suffrage in China, of democratic socialism in China, suggests that the vast Empire, which has been for so long the example of conservativeimmobility most favoured by rhetoricians anxious to illustrate a political argument, may plunge into unexpected adventures. China has in the past provided great invaders of the world's peace. She may in the near future turn again to the thoughts of military adventure. The chance of this would be increased if in the settlement of her constitutional troubles a long resort to arms were necessary. Then the victorious army, whether monarchical or Republican, might aspire to win for a new China recognition abroad.
It is a fortunate fact that supposing a revival of militancy in China, a revival which is possible but not probable, the first brunt of the trouble would probably fall upon Japan. At the present moment Japan is the most serious offender against China's national pride. As the conqueror of Corea and the occupier of Manchuria, she trespasses most of all foreign Powers on the territories and the rights of China. After Japan, Russia would have to expect a demand for a reckoning; Great Britain would come third and might come into collision with an aggressive China, either because of the existence of such settlements as Hong Kong or because of the Thibetan boundary. A China in search of enemies, however, would find no lack of good pretexts for quarrelling. There are, for instance, the offensive and humiliating restrictions on Chinese immigration of the United States, of Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
I find it necessary, however, to conclude that sofar as the near future is concerned, China will not take a great warrior part in the determining of Pacific issues. She may be able to enforce a more wholesome respect for her territorial integrity: she may push away some intruders: she may even insist on a less injurious and contemptuous attitude towards her nationals abroad. But she will not, I think, seek greatness by a policy of aggression. There is no analogy between her conditions and those of Japan at the time of the Japanese acceptance of European arts and crafts. Japan at the time was a bitterly quarrelsome country: she turned from civil to foreign war. China has been essentially pacific for some centuries. Japan was faced at the outset of her national career with the fact that she had to expand her territory or else she could not hope to exist as a great Power. China has within her own borders all that is necessary for national greatness.
If at a later date the Chinese, either from a too-thorough study of the lore of European civilisation, or from the pressure of a population deprived of all Malthusian checks and thus finding an outlet absolutely necessary, should decide to put armies and navies to work for the obtaining of new territory, the peril will be great to the White Man. Such a Chinese movement could secure Asia for the Asiatics, and might not stop at that point. But that danger is not of this decade, though it may have to be faced later by the White Power which wins the supremacy of the Pacific.
Following the map of the North-Western Pacific littoral, the eye encounters, on leaving the coast of China, the Philippine Islands, proof of the ambition of the United States to hold a place in the Pacific.
It is a common fallacy to ascribe to the United States a Quakerish temperament in foreign affairs. Certain catch-words of American local politics have been given a fictitious value, both at home and abroad. "Republican Simplicity," "The Rights of Man," "European Tyranny," "Imperial Aggression," "The Vortex of Militarism"—from these and similar texts some United State publicists are wont to preach of the tyranny of European kings and emperors; of their greed to swallow up weak neighbours; and of the evils of the military and naval systems maintained to gratify such greed. By much grandiose assertion, or by that quiet implication which is more complete proof of a convinced mind than the most grandiose of assertion, the American nation has been pictured in happy contrast to others, pursuing a simple and peaceful life; with no desire for more territory; no wish tointerfere with the affairs of others; in the world, but not of the world.
Astonishment that such professions should carry any weight at all in the face of the great mass of facts showing that the American national temper is exactly the reverse of Quakerish, is modified in the political student by the fact that it is the rule for nations as well as individuals to be judged in the popular estimation by phrases rather than by facts. Ignoring the phrases of politicians and considering only the facts, it will be found that the American people have Imperial ambitions worthy of their ancestry and inseparable from the responsibility towards civilisation which their national greatness involves.
It was in the middle of the eighteenth century that the United States began national housekeeping within a small territory on the seaboard of the Atlantic. By the nineteenth century that area had extended over a section of the continent of America as large almost as Europe. By the twentieth century this Power, still represented as incurably "peaceful and stay-at-home" by its leaders, was established in the Caribbean Sea, on the Isthmus of Panama, in the North and South Pacific, along the coast of Asia, and had set up firmly the principle that whatever affair of the world demanded international attention, from a loan to China, to the fate of an Atlantic port of Morocco, the United States had "interests" which must be considered, andadvice which must be regarded. The only circumstance that genuinely suggests a Quaker spirit in United States foreign diplomacy is her quaint directness of language. More effete peoples may wrap every stage of a negotiation up to an ultimatum in honeyed phrases of respect. America "tutoyers" all courts and is mercilessly blunt in claim and warning.
It would be very strange if the United States were otherwise than Imperial in spirit. Nations, like individuals, are affected by biological laws; a young, strong nation is as naturally aggressive and ambitious as a young, strong boy. Contentment with things as they are, a disposition to make anxious sacrifices to the gods who grant peace, are the signs of old age. If a boy is quite good his parents have a reasonable right to suspect some constitutional weakness. A new nation which really resembled what a great many of the American people think the United States to be, would show as a morbid anomaly. No; the course of the world's future history will never be correctly forecasted except on the assumption that the United States is an aggressively Imperial nation, having an influence at least equal to that of any European Power in the settlement of international issues; and determined to use that influence and to extend its scope year by year. In the Problem of the Pacific particularly, the United States must be counted, not merely as a great factor but the greatest factor.
If the American citizen of to-day is considered as though he were a British citizen of some generations back, with a healthy young appetite for conquest still uncloyed, some idea near to the truth will have been reached. But since the deference exacted by public opinion nowadays compels some degree of pretence and does not permit us to parade our souls naked, it is improbable that the United States citizen of this century will adopt the frank freebooting attitude of the Elizabethan Englishman when he was laying the foundations of his Empire by methods inspired somewhat by piracy as well as by patriotism. The American will have to make some concession to the times and seek always a moral sanction for the extension of his boundaries. Such a search, however, is rarely made in vain when it is backed by a resolved purpose. It was sufficient for Francis Drake to know that a settlement was Spanish and rich. The attack followed. The United States needs to know that a possession is foreign, is desirable, and is grossly ill-governed before she will move to a remonstrance in the sacred name of Liberty. Since good government is an ideal which seldom comes at all close to realisation, and the reputation of no form of administration can survive the ordeal of resolute foreign criticism, the practical difference is slight. The American Empire will grow with the benediction always of a high moral purpose; but it will grow.
It is interesting to recall the fact that at its very birth the United States was invested by a writer ofprophetic insight with the purple of Empire. Said theLondon Gazetteof 1765:—"Little doubt can be entertained that America will in time be the greatest and most prosperous Empire that perhaps the world has ever seen." But the early founders of the new nation, then as now, deceived themselves and others with the view that a pacific little Republic, not a mighty Empire, was their aim. The Imperial instinct showed, however, in the fact that the baby nation had in its youngest days set up a formidable navy. It was ostensibly "for the local defence of its shores," but naval power and overseas Empire are inseparably linked.
The austere Republic began to grow in territory and influence at a rate putting to shame the early feats of the Roman power. By 1893 the United States had made it clear that she would not allow her independence to be fettered in the slightest degree by any claims of gratitude from France: and her Declaration of Neutrality in the European War then raging was a clear statement of claim to be considered as a Power. The war with the Barbary States in 1802 to suppress piracy was a claim to police rights on the high seas, police rights which custom gives only to a paramount sea Power. By the next year Spain and France had been more or less politely relieved of all responsibilities in North America, and the United States stretched from ocean to ocean, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.
It is upon the early eloquence of her founders as tothe duty of the United States to confine her attention strictly to America, that the common misconception of America's place in foreign policy has been built up. That talk, however, was in the first instance dictated largely by prudence. Alexander Hamilton, who controlled the foreign policy of the infant Republic at the outset, was particularly anxious that she should find her feet before attempting any deeds of enterprise. In particular, he was anxious that the United States should not, through considerations of sentiment, be drawn into the position of a mere appanage of France. He set the foundations of what was known afterwards as the "Monroe doctrine," with the one thought that, at the time, a policy of non-interference with European affairs was a necessary condition of free growth for the young nation. The same idea governed Washington's farewell address in 1796 with its warning against "foreign entanglements."
Afterwards the "Monroe doctrine"—deriving its name from a message by President Monroe in 1823—was given the meaning that the United States would not tolerate any interference with the affairs of the American continent by Europe. Finally the "Monroe doctrine," which had begun with an affirmation of America's non-participation in European affairs, and had developed into a declaration against European interference with American affairs, took its present form, which is, in effect, that over all America the United States has a paramount interest which must not be questioned, and that as regards the rest of theworld she claims an equal voice with other Powers. Yet, though that is the actual position, there is still an idea in some minds that the Monroe doctrine is an instrument of humbleness by which the United States claims the immunity of America from foreign interference and guarantees foreign countries from American interference.
It will be of value to recall, in illustration of the rapid growth of an aggressive national pride in the United States, the circumstances which led up to Mr. President Monroe's formal message in 1823. The dawn of the nineteenth century found the young American nation, after about a quarter of a century's existence, fairly on her feet; able to vindicate her rights abroad by a war against the Barbary pirates: given by the cession of Louisiana from France, a magnificent accession of territory. The Empire of Spain was crumbling to pieces, and between 1803 and 1825 the Latin-American Republics in South and Central America were being established on the ruins of that Empire. Spain, her attention engaged in European wars, was able to do little or nothing to assert herself against the rebellious colonies. But in 1815, Napoleon having been vanquished, the Holy Alliance in Europe attempted to reassert the old power of the European monarchies. The terror of Napoleon's army had forced the kings of the earth into a union which forgot national differences and was anxious only to preserve the Divine Right of Kings. The formation of this Holy Alliance wasviewed with suspicion and dislike in the United States, and when in 1823 the Alliance raised the question of joint action by European monarchies to restore Spanish rule in South America, the United States responded with Monroe's famous message forbidding any European interference on the continent of America. Such European colonies as already existed would be tolerated, and that was all. The message stated:
"The American continents by the free and independent conditions which they have assumed are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation by any European Power."We could not view any interposition for purpose of oppressing them or controlling in any other manner their destiny by any European Power in any other way than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States."
"The American continents by the free and independent conditions which they have assumed are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation by any European Power.
"We could not view any interposition for purpose of oppressing them or controlling in any other manner their destiny by any European Power in any other way than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States."
That "Monroe doctrine" was destined to be extended greatly in scope. In 1845 Mr. President Polk declared that no future European colony should be planted on any part of the North American continent, and laid it down as the duty of the United States "to annex American territory lest it be annexed by European countries." True to that faith, he was responsible for the annexation of Texas, Oregon and California. The United States claim to overlordship of North America was still more remarkably extended in 1867, when a protest was entered against the Federation of the Canadian Provinces. The protest was not insisted upon then,though in 1870 Mr. President Grant revived the spirit of the protest with his forecast of "the end of European political connection with this continent." The Venezuela controversy between Great Britain and the United States in 1895 was responsible for another extension of the Monroe doctrine. It was then claimed that "foreign colonies ought to cease in this hemisphere." Insistence on that would, however, have led to a war in which Great Britain probably would have had the assistance of other European Powers affected; and the Monroe doctrine receded a little.
Exactly how this chief article of the United States foreign policy stands to-day one cannot say. Certainly the Monroe doctrine does not mean, as it was once supposed to mean, that the United States in return for foreign abstention from interference in American affairs pledges herself to keep apart from all extra-American affairs. In world politics she claims and exercises the privileges to which her vast resources and her high state of civilisation are the warrants. In regard to American affairs the Monroe doctrine clearly forbids any further European colonisation in North or South America, and constitutes the United States as the Suzerain Power of all the Latin-American Republics (whether they are willing or not). What else it will be found to mean will depend on the circumstances of the moment and the feelings of the newspaper proprietors who exercise so great an influence onthe American man-in-the-street, the governing factor in shaping his country's foreign policy. In European countries, however democratic, the man-in-the-street has rarely any immediate authority over Foreign Affairs. In Great Britain, for example, the questions of the relations of the Government with other countries are not canvassed before the voters. The close oligarchy of the Cabinet (acting often with the Opposition Front Bench) comes to decisions of peace and war, of treaty andentente, and, after decision, allows Parliament and the electorate to acquiesce. But in the United States foreign policy is actually dictated by the voters; and that means, in effect, by the newspapers. On occasion the Monroe doctrine has already been interpreted into a notice to quit to all European Powers holding settlements on the American continent. It may in the near future revive that claim to paramount and exclusive authority, and it may cover a declaration of direct suzerainty over Mexico, and over the smaller republics intervening between the United States border and the Panama Canal. In most Latin-American republics disorder is the rule rather than the exception; and it may become at any moment the honest opinion of the man-in-the-street of the United States that the Panama Canal is too important to civilisation to be left to the chances of interference from less stable governments than his own.
These conclusions are inevitable to anyone making any study of American history and the Americancharacter. They are not hostile criticisms. They are rather appreciations. A great nation with a belief in its destiny must be "Imperialist" in spirit, because it has a natural desire to spread the blessings of its rule. The people of the United States believe as strongly in themselves as did the ancient Hebrews, and all must have a genuine respect for that fierce spirit of elect nationality which made the Hebrews found a great nation on a goat-patch. In Elizabethan England the same spirit flourished and was responsible for the founding of the British Empire. (It survives still in the British Isles, though somewhat spasmodically.) There is no ground at all either for wonder or for complaint in the fact that Imperialism has been born to vigorous life in the United States, where the people of "God's own country" are firm in these two articles of faith: that any interference in the affairs of the United States is unjust, unnecessary, tyrannical and impious; that any United States interference with another nation is a necessary and salutary effort on behalf of civilisation. Let no man of British blood complain. But let no one in making calculations of world policy be deceived into any other conclusion than that the United States is the great Imperial force of this century, and also the one Power that has enough of the splendid illusions of youth to indulge in crusading wars, for which Europe nowadays is too old and cautious.
In the countries of Europe other than Great Britain that which I have stated is coming to begenerally recognised, and if at any time a combination could be proposed with any hope of success "to put America in her place," the combination would be formed and the Old World would grapple with the New to try conclusions. Without Great Britain, however, such an alliance would have at present no chance of success, and British adherence is not within the realm of practical thought to-day.
The Imperialist tendency of United States policy is shown with particular clarity in the history of the Pacific Ocean. Very early in her life the vigorous young nation saw the Fates beckoning her across the Pacific. The downfall of the Spanish power in North America left the United States heir to a great stretch of rich coast line, including the noble province of California. Russia was ousted from the north-west coast of the Continent by a wise purchase. Before then, American whalers sailing out of Boston had begun to exploit the Southern Pacific. Their whaling trips brought back knowledge of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Group, and, following exactly the methods of British colonisation, American missionaries were the pioneers of American nationalisation. As far back as 1820 Hiram Bingham preached his first sermon at Honolulu from the text, "Fear not, for, behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy." A handsome church now marks the gratitude of his native converts. With equal justice Bingham's American compatriots might have set up a great statue to him as the first warden of the Marches ofthe Pacific for the United States. For from that day the annexation of Hawaii was inevitable. The process took the familiar course. First the United States Republic exercised a benevolent suzerainty over the Hawaiian kingdom. Then the blessing of free institutions was bestowed on the natives by the foundation of an Hawaiian Republic. The next step was definite annexation. Following that, came steps for the formation of a great naval base at Honolulu.
When I visited the Hawaiian Group in the spring of 1909 the work of fortifying Honolulu was being pushed on with great vigour, and the American military and civil authorities boasted of their intention to make it the Gibraltar of the Pacific. The city of Honolulu has at present a very small harbour, a little bay to which access is given by an opening in the coral reefs which surround the island. This port would hardly afford shelter to a squadron of cruisers. But to the left as one enters is Pearl Harbour, a magnificent stretch of land-locked water sufficient to float a great Fleet. But Pearl Harbour basin in its natural state is too well protected, there being no means of access except for very small boats. American energy is now remedying that, and a deep-water channel is being cut from Honolulu Harbour to Pearl Harbour to take vessels of the largest draught at all tides. When that channel is completed, Pearl Harbour will be at once commodious and easily protected. The single narrowentrance will be dominated by the guns of Malakiki Hill, a great eminence, somewhat like Gibraltar in shape, to the right of the town, which commands the sea-front east and west: and within Pearl Harbour the American Pacific Fleet will find a safe haven. It will be absolutely impregnable from the sea. Hostile ships approaching Honolulu would have to steer straight for Malakiki and then defile amid the coral reefs past its guns before the entrance to Pearl Harbour would open before them.
But land defence has also to be taken into account. The chief male element of the Hawaiian population is not American, not native Hawaiian. It is Japanese. The Mikado's subjects represent now the largest fighting element in the population, outnumbering even the natives. These Japanese, imported as coolies for the sugar-fields, are mostly men of military training. Further influx of them has now been stopped, not under an Immigration Restriction Act, but by private treaty with Japan; and, as a measure of precaution, an Arms Registration Ordinance provides that no citizen shall have in his possession firearms unless he is licensed by the Government. But this precaution would be in vain if Japan ever seriously thought of using her 50,000 soldier-citizens in the Hawaiian Group against the United States; for the whole of the fishing industry is in the hands of the Japanese, and their sampans could land arms at various places on the islands with ease. Such a contingency has been foreseen in thelaying out of Honolulu as a naval base, and the land fortifications are designed with the same thoroughness as those designed to beat off a sea attack.
A glance at the map will show that the Power which holds Hawaii with a powerful Fleet can dominate the whole of the Northern Pacific, threatening every point east and west. The American position there is weakened by only one circumstance, the great Japanese population. This, though it may not be recruited with further drafts of males from its native source, will always be a very considerable, if not the most considerable, element of the Hawaiian population, for most of the coolies are married, and the Japanese abroad as well as at home fills the cradle industriously.
I remember on the morning of April 1, 1909, coming into Honolulu city from the Moana Hotel on the sea-beach, I found the tram rushed by Japanese at all the stopping places. Two cruisers of their navy had entered the harbour—cruisers which were once upon a time the RussianVariagandKoreitz. All Japan in Honolulu was making holiday. A fleet of sampans (the Japanese fishing-vessel) surrounded the ships, which commemorated so signally a great and successful war. The water front was lined with Japanese, the women and children mostly in their national costume. One Japanese father came on to the tram with seven boys, the eldest of whom did not seem more than ten years of age. Asked,he said that they were all his own children. There will never be a lack of a big Japanese population in Hawaii.
The definite acquisition of Hawaii may be fairly dated from 1851. Before then there had been a significant proof of America's gaze turning westward by the appointment in 1844 of Mr Caleb Cushing as the United States Ambassador to the Court of China. A little later (1854) the American Power found the Japanese policy of exclusiveness intolerable, and United States warships broke a way into Japanese ports. It had also been decided by then that the task, originally undertaken by a French Company, of cutting a waterway across the Panama Isthmus should be the responsibility of the United States. British susceptibilities on the point were soothed by the Clayton-Bulwer treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of the canal, a treaty which was subsequently abrogated in response to the increasing deference which the growing power of the American Republic could exact. That abrogation created the present position which gives the United States sole control of that canal, and the right to fortify its entrances.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, therefore, the United States, a Power which some people still insist on regarding as an essentially domestic character interested only in purely American affairs, had established herself in a commanding strategical position in the North Pacific, had constituted herselfthe arbiter of Japanese national manners, and had obtained the control of the future waterway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The second half of the same century was destined to see an even more remarkable Imperial expansion. The misgovernment of Cuba by Spain became intolerable to American public opinion, and in 1898 war was declared with the avowed purpose of conferring the blessings of freedom on the people of Cuba. If one accepted the nonsensical view that the United States is a Power lifted above ordinary human nature by some mysterious racial alchemy, it would be difficult to understand why a war to free Cuba should also have been waged in another ocean to acquire the Philippines. But, looking at the matter in a sane light, it was natural that, being engaged in a war with Spain, the United States should strike at Spain wherever a blow was possible and should destroy the Spanish power in the Pacific Ocean as well as in the Caribbean Sea. Besides, the opportunity offered of stretching the arm of America right across the Pacific to the very coast of Asia. The Filipinos did not relish the substitution for the weak rule of Spain of the strong rule of the United States, and American Imperialism had the experience of having to force, by stern warfare on the liberated, acceptance of its rôle of liberator. Perhaps the experience taught it some sympathy with older players at the game of Empire-making: certainly it did not abate its ardour in the good work.
So much for the past history of the United States in the Pacific. A forecast of her influence on the future of the ocean is clearly indicated by the past. The United States spread from the east of the North American continent to the west, because there is no method known to prevent the extension of a highly civilised, a young, an ardent nation at the expense of backward, effete and tired peoples. It was impossible that either the Red Indian tribes or the picturesque old settlements of the Californian Spanish should stand in the way of the American Republic stretching from ocean to ocean. Once the United States was established on the Pacific coast, it was equally inevitable that the arm of her power should stretch across the ocean. The acquisition of the Hawaiian Group was necessary for the sound defence of the coast. The American trading ships which sought the coast of Asia and found barbaric barriers against commerce being battered down by European venturers, had to do as the other White Men did. The flag thus had to follow in the wake of the trade. It was all natural, necessary and ultimately beneficial to civilisation. Equally inevitable will be the future expansion of the United States in the Pacific. The overwhelming strength of her industrial organisation will give her a first call on the neutral markets of the ocean—i.e.those markets to which she has the same right of access as her trade rivals. As the tendency shows for the area of those neutral markets to narrow through coming under the domination of variousPowers, the United States will seek to extend her domination too. The protection of what she has will enforce the need of acquiring other strategical points. So her Pacific possessions will grow, almost unconsciously, just as the British Empire grew.
Off the coast of China at a point where, in a strategical map the "spheres of influence" of Japan and the United States and Germany would impinge, is the island of Hong Kong, the Far East station of the British Empire. Further south, in the Malay Peninsula, is Singapore, standing guard over the entrance to the Indian Ocean. On these two coaling stations British naval power in the North Pacific is based. The abandonment of either of them is unthinkable to-day, yet neither was taken possession of until the nineteenth century—Singapore in 1819, Hong Kong in 1841. In the South Pacific there was shown an even stronger hesitation in acquiring territory.
Why Great Britain entered so reluctantly into the Pacific as a colonising Power may probably be explained by the fact that at the time the ocean came to be exploited British earth hunger had been satiated. The unsuccessful war which attempted to hold the American colonies to the Mother Country, had made her doubtful whether overseas dominions were altogether a blessing and whether the advantage tobe gained from them outweighed the responsibilities which their holding entailed. It seemed to be the natural conclusion from the American War of Independence, that once a colony or a group of colonies arrived at the stage of growth which allowed it to be of some use to the Mother Country, the inevitable next development was for it to throw off the bonds of kinship and enter upon a career of independence at the price of an expensive and humiliating war to its parent. Thus, whilst British sailors were to the front in the exploration of the Pacific, British statesmen showed a great reluctance to take any advantage of their discoveries; and it was a series of accidents rather than any settled purpose which planted the Anglo-Saxon race so firmly in this ocean. India, it must be noted, a century ago was a country having very little direct concern with the Pacific. The holding of the Indian Empire did not depend on any position in the Pacific. That situation has since changed, and Great Britain would be forced to an interest in the Pacific by her Indian Empire if she had no other possessions in the ocean.
In an earlier chapter on Japan, something has been written concerning the reasons which would argue for the absence of an Imperial impulse in the Japanese islands and its presence in the British islands. The inquiry then suggested as to the instincts of expansion and dominion which were primarily responsible for the growth of the British Empire is full of fascination for the historian. Ifit comes to be considered carefully, the Empire-making of the British people was throughout the result of a racial impulse working instinctively, spasmodically, though unerringly, towards an unseen goal, rather than of a designed and purposeful statesmanship.
The racial origin of the British people dictated peremptorily a policy of oversea adventure, and that adventure led inevitably to colonisation. In the beginning Britain was a part of Gaul, a temperate and fertile peninsula which by right of latitude should have had the temperature of Labrador, but which, because of the Gulf Stream, enjoyed a climate singularly mild and promotive of fecundity. When the separation from the mainland came because of the North Sea cutting the English Channel, the Gallic tribes left in Britain began to acquire, as the fruits of their gracious environment and their insular position, an exclusive patriotism and a comparative immunity from invasion. These made the Briton at once very proud of his country and not very fitted to defend its shores.
With the Roman invasion there came to the future British race a benefit from both those causes. The comparative ease of the conquest by the Roman Power, holding as it did the mastery of the seas, freed the ensuing settlement by the conquerors from a good deal of the bitterness which would have followed a desperate resistance. The Romans were generous winners and good colonists. Once theirpower was established firmly, they treated a subject race with kindly consideration. Soon, too, the local pride of the Britons affected their victors. The Roman garrison came to take an interest in their new home, an interest which was aided by the singular beauty and fertility of the country. It was not long before Carausius, a Roman general in Britain, had set himself up as independent of Italy, and with the aid of sea-power he maintained his position for some years. The Romans and the Britons, too, freely intermarried, and at the time when the failing power of the Empire compelled the withdrawal of the Roman garrison, the south of Britain was as much Romanised as, say, northern Africa or Spain.
Thus from the very dawn of known history natural position and climate marked out Britain as the vat for the brewing of a strenuous blood. The sea served her "in the office of a wall or of a moat defensive to a house" to keep away all but the most vigorous of invaders. The charm and fertility of the land made it certain that a bold and vigorous invader would be tempted to become a colonist and not be satisfied with robbing and passing on.
With the decay of the Roman Empire, and the withdrawal of the Roman legions to the defence of Rome, the Romanised Britons were left helpless. Civilisation and the growth of riches had made them at once more desirable objects of prey, and less able to resist attack. The province which Rome abandonedwas worried on all sides by the incursion of the fierce clans of the north and the west. A decision, ultimately wise, judged by its happy results, but at the moment disastrous, induced some of the harried Britons to call in to their aid the Norsemen pirates, who at the time, taking advantage of the failing authority of Rome, were swarming out from Scandinavia and from the shores of the Baltic in search of booty. The Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, were willing enough to come to Britain as mercenaries, even more willing to stay as colonists. An Anglo-Saxon wave swept over the greater part of England, and was stopped only by the mountains of Wales or of Scotland. That was the end of the Britons as the chief power in Britain, but they mingled with their conquerors to modify the Anglo-Saxon type with an infusion of Celtic blood. In the mountainous districts the Celtic blood continued to predominate, and does to this day.
The Anglo-Saxons would have been very content to settle down peacefully on the fat lands which had fallen to them, but the piratical nests from which they themselves had issued still sent forth broods of hungry adventurers, and the invasions of the Danes taught the Anglo-Saxons that what steel had won must be guarded by steel. They learned, too, that any race holding England must rely upon sea-power for peaceful existence. After the Danish, the last great element in the making of the present British race, was the Norman. The Normans were not so muchforeigners as might be supposed. The Anglo-Saxons of the day were descendants of sea-pirates who had settled in Britain and mingled their blood with the British. The Normans were descendants of kindred sea-pirates who had settled in Gaul, and mingled their blood with that of the Gauls and Franks. The two races, Anglo-Saxon and Normans, after a while combined amicably enough, the Anglo-Saxon blood predominating, and the British type was evolved, in part Celtic, in part Danish, in part Anglo-Saxon, in part Norman—a hard-fighting, stubborn adventurous race, which in its making from such varied elements had learned the value of compromise, and of the common-sense principle of give-and-take. One can see that it was just the race for the work of exploration and colonisation.
When this British people, thus constituted, were driven back to a sea-frontier by the French nation, it was natural that they should turn their energies overseas. To this their Anglo-Saxon blood, their Danish blood, their Norman blood prompted. The Elizabethan era, which was the era of the foundation of the British Empire overseas, was marked by a form of patriotism which was hard to distinguish in some of its manifestations from plain robbery. The fact calls for no particular condemnation. It was according to the habit of thought of the time. But it is necessary to bear in mind that the hunt for loot and not the desire for territory was the chief motive of the flashing glories of the Elizabethan era ofseamanship; for that is the explanation why there was left as the fruit of many victories few permanent settlements.
Drake was the first English naval leader to penetrate to the Pacific. His famous circumnavigation of the world is one of the boldest exploits of history. Drake's log entry on entering the Pacific stirs the blood:
"Now, as we were fallen to the uttermost parts of these islands on October 28, 1578, our troubles did make an end, the storm ceased, and all our calamities (only the absence of our friends excepted) were removed, as if God all this while by His secret Providence had led us to make this discovery, which being had according to His will, He stayed His hand."
On this voyage Drake put in at San Francisco, which he named New Albion. He went back to Europe through the East Indies and around Africa. But Drake made no attempt at colonisation. Looting of the Spanish treasure ships was the first and last object of his cruise. What was, according to our present lights, a more honourable descent upon the Pacific was that of Admiral Anson in the eighteenth century. He, in 1740, took a Fleet round the stormy Horn to subdue the Philippines and break the power of Spain in the Pacific. The force thought fitting for such an enterprise in those days was 961 men! Anson did not subdue the Philippines; but they were guarded by the scurvy, whichattacked the English Fleet, rather than by the Spanish might, and the little disease-racked English squadron was able to cripple the Spanish power in the Pacific by the mere dread of its presence. Anson took prizes and made them masquerade before the enemy's coast as hostile warships, and paralysed the Spanish commerce in those seas. He returned to England with only 335 men out of his original complement of 961. Practically all the deaths had been from disease. But again the idea of the Pacific expedition was not to colonise but to strike a blow at a rival European Power. It was not until the nineteenth century that Great Britain established herself on the western flank of the North Pacific.
So far as the South Pacific was concerned British indifference was complete, and it was shared by other nations. In the days when the fabled wealth of the Indies was the magnet to draw men of courage and worth to perilous undertakings by sea and land, there was nothing in the South Pacific to attract their greed, and nothing, therefore, to stimulate their enterprise. The Spaniard, blundering on America in his quest for a western sea-passage to the ivory, the gold, and the spices of India, found there a land with more possibilities of plunder than that which he had originally sought. He was content to remain, looting the treasuries of the Mexicans and of the Peruvians for metals, and laying the forests of Central America under contributionfor precious woods. He ventured but little westward, and the Hawaiian Islands represented for a time the extreme western limit of his adventures. Following him for plunder came the English, and they too were content to sweep along the western coast of South America without venturing further towards the unknown west.
From another direction the sea-route to India was sought by Portuguese, and Dutch, and English and French. Groping round the African coast, they came in time to the land of their desires, and found besides India and Cathay, Java, the Spice Islands, and other rich groups of the Malay Archipelago. But they, just as the Spaniards, did not venture west from South America; and neither Portuguese, Dutch, French nor English set the course of their vessels south from the East Indies.
It was thus Australia remained for many years an unknown continent. And when at last navigators, more bold or less bound to an immediate greed, touched upon the shores of Australia, or called at the South Sea Islands, they found little that was attractive. In no case had the simple natives won to a greed for gold and silver, and so they had no accumulations of wealth to tempt cupidity. In the case of Australia the coast-line was dour and forbidding, and promised nothing but sterility.
The exploring period in which the desire for plunder was the chief motive passed away, having spared the South Pacific. It was therefore the fate ofAustralia, of New Zealand, and of most of the islands of Polynesia and Melanesia, to be settled under happier conditions, and to be spared the excesses of cruelty which marked the European invasion of the West Indies and the Americas. The Newest World began its acquaintance with civilisation under fairly happy auspices.
It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that a scientific expedition brought the South Pacific before the attention of Britain. A transit of Venus across the sun promised to yield valuable knowledge as to the nature of solar phenomena. To observe the transit under the best conditions, astronomers knew that a station in the South Seas was necessary, and Lieutenant Cook, R.N., an officer who had already distinguished himself in the work of exploration, was promoted to be Captain and entrusted to lead a scientific expedition to Otaheite. Added to his commission was an injunction to explore the South Seas if time and opportunity offered. Captain Cook was of the type which makes time and opportunity. Certainly there was little in the equipment of his expedition to justify an extension of its duties after the transit of Venus had been duly observed. But he took it that his duty was to explore the South Seas, and explore them he did, incidentally annexing for the British Empire the Continent of Australia.
That was in 1770. But still there was so little inviting in the prospect of settlement in the SouthSeas that it was some eighteen years before any effort was made to follow up by colonisation this annexation by Captain Cook. When the effort was made it was not on very dignified lines. The American colonies had at one time served as an outlet for the overflow of the British prisons. The War of Independence had closed that channel. The overcrowding of the British prisons became desperate, and, because it was necessary to find some relief for this—not because it was considered advantageous to populate the new possession—the First Fleet sailed for the foundation of Australia in 1788.
We shall see in subsequent chapters how the reluctance of the governing Power of the British race in the Home Country to establish an Empire in the South Pacific found a curious response in the stubborn resoluteness of the colonists who settled in Australia and New Zealand to be more English than the English themselves, to be as aggressively Imperialistic almost as the men of the Elizabethan era. (What might almost be called the "Jingoism" of the British nations in the South Pacific must have a very important effect in settling the mastery of that ocean.) In the present chapter the establishment of the British Power in the North Pacific chiefly will be considered.
Singapore is to-day the capital of the three Straits Settlements—Singapore, Penang, and Malacca, but it is the youngest of the three settlements. Malacca is the oldest. It was taken possession of by thePortuguese under Albuquerque in 1511, and held by them until 1641, when the Dutch were successful in driving them out. The settlement remained under the Government of the Dutch till 1795, when it was captured by the English, and held by them till 1818, at which date it was restored to the Dutch, and finally passed into British hands in pursuance of the treaty with Holland of 1824. By that treaty it was arranged that the Dutch should leave the Malay Peninsula, the British Government agreeing at the same time to leave Sumatra to the Dutch. When Malacca was taken possession of by the Portuguese in 1511, it was one of the great centres for the commerce of the East; but under Dutch rule it dwindled, and Penang acquired a monopoly of the trade of the Malayan Peninsula and Sumatra, together with a large traffic with China, Siam, Borneo, the Celebes, and other places in the Archipelago. When Singapore was established Penang in its turn had to yield the first place to the new city.
Singapore was acquired for Britain by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819, by virtue of a treaty with the Johore princes. It was at first subordinate to Bencoolen in Sumatra, but in 1823 it was placed under the Government of Bengal; it was afterwards incorporated in 1826, with Penang and Malacca, and placed under the Governor and Council of the Incorporated Settlements. Singapore is now one of the great shipping ports of the world, served by some fifty lines of steamers, and with a trade of over 20,000,000 tonsa year. The harbour of Singapore is fortified, and the port is indicated by one advanced school of British Imperialists as the future chief base of a Fleet, contributed to by India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada, and kept to a standard of strength equal to that available to any other two Powers in the Pacific. Captain Macaulay, in a strategical scheme for Imperial Defence which has been received with deep attention in Great Britain, suggests:—
"The influence which an Indian Ocean Fleet, based on Colombo and Singapore, would have on Imperial Defence can hardly be exaggerated. The Indian Ocean—a British Mediterranean to the Pacific—with its openings east and west in our hands, is a position of readiness for naval action in the Western Pacific, the South Atlantic, or the Mediterranean. In the first case it influences the defence of Canada and the Australasian States; in the second, that of South Africa. An Indian Ocean Fleet can reinforce, or be reinforced by the Fleets in European waters, if the storm centre be confined to Europe or to the Pacific. As regards the direct naval defence of the Australasian Provinces, no better position could be chosen than that of a Fleet based on Singapore, with an advanced base at Hong Kong, because it flanks all possible attack on them. An advanced flank defence is better than any direct defence of so large a coast-line as that of Australia from any point within it. Moreover, Singapore andHong Kong are much nearer to the naval bases of any Powers in the Western Pacific than those countries are to Australia or to Canada. Hence, in operations for the defence of any Province, they favour offensive-defensive action on our part. And offensive-defensive is the great characteristic of naval power. Any East Asian Power contemplating aggression against Australasian or North American territory must evidently first deal with the Indian Ocean Fleet.