THE CLAIMS OF THE " HAVE-NOTS "
By H. POWYS GREENWOOD
SIX months or so ago the title of this article would have conveyed nothing to the reader except perhaps a vague form of Socialism. Today there can be no doubt about the reference to the arguments of those nations dissatisfied with their position and possessions. Are that dissatisfaction and the movements which underlie it merely outbreaks of national megalomania due to extra doses of original sin Certain facts seem inescapable. Germany, Italy and Japan, the only dissatisfied nations which as " Great Powers" are able to force the world to pay attention to their claims, are populous countries without "empty spaces" and poor in natural resources. On the other hand, the remaining four Great Powers, the British Empire, the U.S.A., France and Soviet Russia, embrace, together with the Dutch colonial empire, 61 per cent, of the surface of the globe and control far more than their - fair share of essential natural products. The funda- mental character of the pressure of population on the means of subsistence has been recognised by all economists, although of course each school has its pet remedy, such as Socialism or Free Trade, for diminishing the pressure. The economic difficulties of Germany and Italy, at any rate, are probably greater than those of any other leading industrial country. The "Have-nots " have at least a prima ,facie case. They support it with two main economic arguments : firstly, that space is needed to settle surplus population, and secondly the need of "access " to supplies of raw material and foodstuffs.
Emigration to undeveloped countries was the great safety-valve of the nineteenth 'century. It was at once tin outlet and an export. The millions of Italians, for e'xample, who sought their fortunes in the New World, did not merely relieve the pressure of population at home ; they sent remittances or returned with savings which were a major factor in enabling Italy to balance her precarious international trading position. Today the safety-valve has been screwed down all round. But since plenty of relatively undeveloped countries remain that is scarcely sufficient reason to expect the " Have- nots " to abandon their belief that space should go to the energetic and the fertile, and to restrict their populations. The problem of "access to essential raw products" was expressly recognised by Sir Samuel Hoare at Geneva. But he was careful to limit the scope of the proposed enquiry to raw materials from colonial areas and their free distribution without discrimination or monopoly among industrial countries which needed them. Here he was on comparatively firm ground. For in spite of one or two more or less abortive attempts to exercise monopoly control, such as the Stevenson rubber re- striction scheme, raw materials are in general available on equal and at present remarkably generous terms to anyone who can buy them. The real point is that some industrial countries are Unable to buy them. Germany, for example, is being increasingly driven to the expensive production of domestic substitutes, and it is therefore questionable whether she will be able- to maintain the present by no means high level of production and employment. What she and other "Have-nots "• need is increased ability to exchange manufactured goods for natural products—in other words; markets. That is why I have not enumerated the need for markets as a separate argument ; it is merely the much More important converse of the raw- material problem.
Broadly speaking, to the extent that the " Haves " can induce their colonies, dominions, and indeed all their rich non-industrial areas—this applies to the American Middle West just as much as to any colony—to purchase their industrial products instead of those of the " Have- nots," the latter can claim that they are hampered in.
"access " to natural products. In this sense the United States are the worst sinners, the French run them a close. second, the U.S.S.R. are difficult to place, while since Ottawa the Buy-Empire movements, and the quota discrimination against Japanese goods, the British. Empire is by no means blameless. Moreover, the British domestic tariff has stopped much of the three-cornered trade which is of course one way out of the difficulty. And there is no guarantee that future crises will not lead to. worse things, for example the policy of " Empire Free- Traders."
Undoubtedly the " Have-nots " have serious economic grievances against the "Haves " and even more serious • grounds for apprehension. But it is quite another matter whether even the most generous re-allocation of colonial territory conceivable without another world-war would solve or even make an appreciable impression upon the "Have-nots' " economic problem's. Suppose, for example, that all the former German colonies were handed back. Many of the 21,000 Germans settled there before the War are still in occupation, and even if, as Dr. Schacht maintains, improvement in tropical hygiene has greatly improved possibilities of settlement, here obviously is no real outlet for population pressure. Again, before the War Germany obtained less than 1 per cent, of her total im- ports of raw materials from her colonies. Today she might, by intensive exploitation regardless of cost, increase that figure, say four or five times at most, but she could only pay for it by completely closing the open door and bringing the colonies, with their native populations, within the iron curtain of German import control and exchange restrictions. It is some indication of the proportions involved that the transfer to Germany of the whole British non-self-governing Empire, lock, stock and barrel, with its present trade with Great Britain and all property rights and investments held in this country would be little more than worth while from the point of view of international payments if Germany had to resume in exchange the full service of her defaulted debt.
Yet if we may ask why there is such an insistent demand for colonies, the" Have-nots "are equally entitled to ask why we are so reluctant to part with them. There is a deep-rooted instinctive feeling about national territory which takes no account of logic—as witness the storm in the House of Commons over the proposal to cede Italy a tiny strip of Somali desert. Moreover, colonies do undoubtedly afford outlets for important sections of the middle classes and for energetic and aggressive people who might otherwise be leading Storm Troops. They add to the sense of national prestige—a particularly important factor for nations reacting from an " under- dog " mentality. And finally the "Have-nots " may conceivably believe that to demand them is the most effective way of drawing .attention to their grievances.
' Nothing is more certain than that the problems which I have endeavoured to outline in this article will have to be faced—in peace or in war. Can they be faced and dealt with in peace ?
With the recovery in the prices of natural products emigration overseas should once more be possible. The South American countries are already relaxing their restrictions, As The Times has put it, the emptiness of the Dominions is a problem of the first importance, and if suitable foreign immigrants are to supplement the comparatively infertile British stock, the sooner the fact is announced the better for peace and security. As for the United States, if unemployment continues to make immigration impossible, the tariff affords ample oppo- tunity for what would probably be the most beneficial concession of all.
- For the great colonial empires to return to the prin- ciple of the "Open Door would surely be no impossible sacrifice ; and this, as well as the renunciation of attempts to create monopolies of raw materials, could be guaranteed by international agreement. The idea of partnership in developing backward countries and acting as trustees for backward peoples might be under- lined by opening certain services to international recruit- ment. In the special case of the former German colonies it should not be beyond human ingenuity to devise special .financial machinery to facilitate German emigra- tion and enterprise in spite of the exchange difficulty, while to transfer the mandates of, say, the Cameroons and Togoland to Germany would finally dispose of the "colonial guilt lie" and probably of the vital question of prestige as far as she was concerned. Italy, be it re- membered, is already a Colonial Power.
Action of this kind in the colonial field would, if asso- ciated with the League, greatly increase the attraction of membership, and would be a beginning of that peaceful change which is at last being recognised as the inevitable corollary of organised peace. And it is action in which Britain can lead. For unless we are prepared to be generous ourselves in the Cause of peace we cannot talk to other nations as we must if the vast complex of political and economic crisis is to be tackled. But generosity is useless without strength : concessions from fear never brought more than a temporary respite. If the " Have- nots " have one outstanding characteristic in common, it is respect for courage.
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