and Near Eastern territories might be nominally internationalized as "mandates," the mandates would be given to the Allies in accordance with the secret treaties. Contrary to a quite general impression, imperialism is not a closed story now that the German colonies have been divided. The climax has not yet been reached; the dénouement is still uncertain. Never was imperialist rivalry so keen as after the Great War. We are now entering a period of intensified international economic competition, in which the problem of imperialism is becoming all the more acute because most of the backward areas available for colonies have already been appropriated. Competition is stimulated by scarcity. There are no longer vast unclaimed reaches of Africa to sate the appetites of rising powers. Moreover, tariff barriers are being erected in hitherto open colonies; governments are taking a more vital interest and sometimes officially participating in the international scramble for oil, railway and mining concessions; the tide of immigrant "surplus population" from Europe and Asia is being turned back upon itself by American restrictions, to seek new outlets; backward peoples are fast becoming educated to the point of providing a really important, and rapidly increasing, market for manufactures; raw materials are becoming more and more the stakes of diplomacy. A few instances of the increasing economic importance of colonies will make these general statements more convincing. The exports of the United States to our own and other colonies amounted in 1900 to less than one-fifth of a billion dollars; in 1913, to two-thirds of a billion; in 1920, to more than a billion and a half. In twenty years our exports to colonies were multiplied by 8.8, other exports only by 5.4. These figures are mute witnesses to the all-important fact that the United States, like other industrial nations, is becoming increasingly dependent on non-European countries as markets for manufactured goods. Colonial markets are growing much more rapidly than European markets. To put it even more clearly, (non-European countries absorbed only 23% of the exports of the United States before 1900 Xaverage 1895-9), but their share rose to 40% in 1913, then 46% in 1920, and 49,8% in 1923. Almost sixty per cent of the new business which American exporters have gained since the 1890's has been found in Asia, Africa, and America. To gen eralize, in the decade from 1913 to 1923 the imports of colonies increased by 51% while the imports of other countries increased by less than 16%. Colonies in 1923 meant five billion dollars' worth of export business, of which two billions had been added in a decade.1 Conversely, as industrial countries import more raw materials and foodstuffs, colonial sources of supply are drawn upon more and more heavily. To take the United States as an example, again, the value of imports from colonies increased almost tenfold in the two decades from 1900 to 1920. From colonies and quasi-colonial "backward countries" we get our crude rubber, much of our oil, fertilizers for farmlands, fruit and coffee for the breakfast table, chocolate and sugar for the confectioner, tobacco, tea, hemp for rope, and jute for all the millions of bags in which goods are packed for shipment, indispensable manganese for our steel-mills. Inconceivably more do the less richly endowed European nations rely upon colonial products. Colonial investments, too, are multiplying, mounting into billions of dollars for the United States and into tens of billions for the imperialist nations collectively; more will be said later about their importance. Colonies and backward countries, spoils of diplomacy before the war, are vital features of everyday business to-day. Whether they are closed or open, developed or retarded, monopolized or shared freely, will be a much more significant question to-morrow than it was yesterday. Perhaps even more challenging as an omen of the approaching climax of imperialism is the uneasy stirring of nonEuropean races which have been subjected to enough of European rule to become restive. During the last few years a spirit of rebellious self-determination has seized upon hitherto inert subject races: Nationalist Turkey has turned against European exploitation, Nationalist Egypt has won independence; Indian Nationalism has assumed monumental proportions; Nationalist Persia and Afghanistan have cast off British shackles; Filipinos have become more insistent in their pleas for independence. Whether this movement of the non-European peoples for self-government will reach peaceful maturity is a grave question 'The foregoing statements are based on computations using statistics in the Statistical Abstract of the United States and the Statesman's YearBook. A THE REASON THAT THE ROCKEFEL for the entire civilized world, but even more interesting is the STATE TAKE OVER A democratic sentiments which have given Europe her seemingly BY GIVING In the following chapters, imperialism will be viewed both as The THE HAPPY MONDAYS - "STEP ... THE INTERNATIONAL BANKERS FINANCED THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION -1917 IN ORDER TO MAKE ON HOW CAPTIVE MONOPOLY MARKET OF RUSSIA. SEE THE B CAD CAST WAS CHAPTER II TWO CHANGES OF MIND Most of us are inclined to believe that our convictions are true and will remain true. Few realize with what astounding rapidity the most fundamental political and economic dogmas may be revolutionized. If for no other reason than to illustrate this changeability of ideas, it is worth while to review the interesting process by which Europe was first enamoured of colonial empire, then disillusioned, then reconverted to the old faith in the modernized form of imperialism. If one would analyze international relations to-day, one should first digest the fact that only fifty years ago the foremost statesmen of Europe were just as firmly convinced of the futility and folly, as their predecessors had been and their successors were to be persuaded of the value and virtue of imperialism. Another purpose, however, will also be served by a preliminary survey of the historical and economic antecedents of modern empire-building. Like trees, great historical events spring from a soil enriched by the remains of earlier growths. The to-days of our lives, and the to-morrows, arise from the yesterdays. The infant present cannot deny the parent past. The domination of the world by European powers which in modern times seems so natural as rarely to provoke the student's curiosity, is in reality one of the most astonishing paradoxes of history. During long millenniums while powerful empires and civilized cities were rising and falling in ancient Egypt, in Babylon, in Asia and China, most of Europe was a savage wilderness. In the case of the Phoenicians, at least, backward Europe received colonists from Asia and Spain was colonized by Carthage. Only toward the very close of ancient history did Greece and Rome, the southern fringe of the European continent, in contact with Asiatic and African civilization, begin to play any conspicuous rôle in the world. With the decline of Rome, Europe once more fell into weakness, and again became subject to colonization and conquest by Asiatic and African powers. Into Spain came the Moors from northern Africa; into southeastern Europe the Asiatic Turks fought their way. Surely Europe seemed destined to be the footstool of other continents, not the imperial mistress of the world! The beginnings, however, of Europe's rise to world-power became evident about the time of the Crusades, when Christendom, turning at bay, sent its armies to invade the Afro-Asiatic Mohammedan world, and when (Italian city-states such as Amalfi, Venice, Florence, Genoa and Pisa, reaching out for the commerce of the East, established their warehouses (fondachi) in the cities of Asia Minor. From the twelfth to the fifteenth century the Italian cities monopolized the trade routes linking the eastern Mediterranean with Asiatic countries whence came spices, gems, drugs, and many other luxuries desired by nobleman and burgher. This commercial expansion into the Near East was the prelude to, and the economic reason for, the epochal fifteenth-century European voyages of discovery. MERCANTILISM, OR THE CREED OF PRINCES One may well inquire why the great explorers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were sent out not by the Italian commercial city-states, nor by the opulent Hanseatic League of German commercial cities, but by commercially backward countries, predominantly agricultural countries, such as Portugal, Spain, England and France. An answer is suggested by even a cursory sketch of certain economic conditions at the time. Gold and silver were relatively scarce in medieval Europe. As commerce expanded, the supply of precious metals became so inadequate as to occasion inconvenience, even anxiety, especially in countries which had no mines. Furthermore, the rising national kings needed gold or silver to maintain their courts, to increase their power, to hire soldiers, to pay for wars. Yet it was difficult to obtain the precious metals, except in one of two ways. The Italian city-states, which monopolized the Asiatic trade, obtained supplies from Asia, and from their lucrative business as middlemen between Europe and Asia. The Germans had mines as well as profitable trade. Other countries resorted to many and curious, but largely futile, expedients, |