PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC.*
Mx. For has one excellent book to his credit and a great deal of valuable journalism, and his study of the Pacific question will be welcomed as the work of a. man who has something to say and knows how to say it well. He writes as an Australian to whom-the Pacific is the ocean of the future, the cook-pit of coming international rivalries in trade and war. He thinks that the numerical balance of the British race will shift one day from the Atlantic to the Pacific—a patriotic Australian opinion on which we have no desire to argue. But one thing is dear. It will be the arena to decide the supremacy of the world, for it contains the only incal- culable factors. Whoever controls the Pacific, its people, armies, and trade, will control mankind. Is it to be the White ace or the Yellow Race, and if the White Race, which branch of it P That is the kind of question to be asked, and the answer is obviously in the direction of prophecy. Mr. For attempts no such dogmatic speculations as are to be found, for example, in Mr. Homer Lea's recent book. He is content to examine the present factors in the situation, and to forecast their developments modestly, basing his arguments always on 'forces which he sees already at work. Hence the book Teaches no sensational conclusion. It is a guide to inquiry rather than a thesis. Its characteristic notes are common- sense, sobriety of judgment, and scrupulous fairness. Some- times we disagree with Mr. Fez. We think, for example, that he is inclined to underestimate the possibilities of Latin America, and that his view of the suitability for white rettlementof the Northern Territory of Australia is not borne out by the most recent evidence. But he is a safe guide, because he reasons and does not pontificate. And the book, es we have already said, is admirably written.
The inquiry, so far as present conditions go, can be limited to four Powers—Japan, Russia, the United States, and the 'British Empire. If we oenld accept present conditions as permanent, the Pacific Ocean would be Japan's home-waters. Holding her rugged islands with a veteran army and navy, so established on the mainland of Asia as to be able to make a lank answement on China, she is the one " Power in being of tithe Baoific littoral." But for various reasons Mr. Fox cannot etooept present conditions as final. He thinks that Japan's towers in war have been overstated. She showed no inspired genius in the struggle with Russia, and won chiefly owing tto,the inferiority of her enemy. She has no solid basis for industrial progress, her only assets being a supply of -poorish States is unjust, unnecessary, tyrannical, and impious; that any United States interference with another nation is •a necessary and .salutary effort on behalf of civilization." After all, it was our own point of view in the days when we were winning our Empire. The British position in the Pacific is curious. We are in a sense the " man in possession," and we desire only the maintenance of the present state of things. What are our assets P We hold Australia and New Zealand with small garrisons; we have in India a powerful base; we have a line of strategic stations like Hong Kong mid Singapore; and ese hold, though with as yet a scanty garrison, a large part of the North-West Coast of America. Our future, then, obviously depends upon the development of Clanada aud Australasia, for in India ours is a task of maintenance, not creation. Mr. Fox deals at length and in a spirit of great hopefulness with his own country. He is a convinced defender of the " White Australia " policy. " Without that policy, without an instinctive revolt on the part of the Australian colonists against any intrusion of coloured races, Australia would be to-day an Asiatic colony, still nominally held, perhaps, by a small band of White suzerains, but ripe todall at any moment into the hands of its 10,000,000 or 20,000,000 Asiatic inhabitants." The Australian wishes to make his country a working-man's paradise, but " he builds up his socialistic Utopia with a sword in one hand." Australia is committed to a system which ins short time will give her some 200,000 citizen soldiers. Her naval preparations are being hurried on; indeed the Australian unit is the only part of the 1909 Pacific programme which has net been neglected. There is something admirably businesslike about the way in which Australia has done her part. When- she invited a British Admiral to report on her naval needs, her Labour Government accepted his programme, involving an expenditure of £28,000,000, without a grumble. " We have called in a doctor. We must take his prescription,' said a member of the Cabinet. " Australia," says Mr. Fox, " is probably potentially the greatest asset of the British race. Her capacity as a varied food producer in particular gives her value. There is much talk in the 'soda to-dey flf 'places in the sun.' . . . Very soon there must'be a far mbre weighty and dangerous clamour for places at the table,' Ter the right to share in the food lands of the earth." Mr. Fox is not greatly concerned about the economic com- petition of the Yellow Races. Europe and America will, no doubt, in the future be less able to exploit Chinese markets, but he does not fear the competition of Asiatic products ba- the home markets of the 'White Races or in neutral markete. He lays down the comforting doctrine that "in most domirins of human industry the Asiatic worker, in spite of his 'very much lower initial cost, cannot compete with tile 'European,' We have no space to deal with his chapters on Pad% strategy, but we may note the general conclusion Of his whole argument. He thinks that the future of the Pacific is with the White Races, and that at the best the Asiatic can only hope to be secure in his own continent. The opening -of Panama Canal, in his opinion, deprives Japan of 'her last chance of supremacy. He does not believe that there is much chance of a Japanese-Chinese alliance. The real rivalry for the dominance of the ocean lies between the Britirsh Empire and the United States, but he does not think that that rivalry need be hostile. The situation is ripe for a reasonable under- standing, arid he urges that British diplomacy should giver up its habit of treating the United States as if she were a 'spoiled child, and speak frankly with that mixture of firmness and politeness which we use in our European relations. Canada, and Australasia have a right to insist on a share in our Pad& diplomacy. They desire to lay for good the spectre tit 't1 Yellow Peril, and would welcome a friendly' understalidirrk with the United States, but what Mr. For calls theft. 'Wet. patient Iinperialism " will not suffer them to view ealnifIllith MotherUountry playing a subordinate part in thel itdmiotio the United States or any other Power. r.
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