BOOKS.
AMERICA TO-DAY.*
MOST students of politics are agreed that America stands on the threshold of a new career, a development to which her past history provides no parallel. Her national ideals have long been silently changing, but within the past few years she has shown both in word and deed that she is consciously adopting new ambitions. Hence the many studies of the American people with which the literature of last century is strewn • Greater America. By Archibald R. Colquhoun. With Naps. London: Harper and Brothers. [16s.]
require considerable revision. De Tocqueville's great book has been out of date for some time; and even Mr. Bryce's brilliant study is in certain aspects inaccurate and in many inadequate in view of this recent transformation. Mr. Colquhoun has attempted to bring our knowledge up to date, —in his own words, "to present American evolution as a whole, to treat her history from the standpoint of its wide national significance, to show to what point she has pro- gressed, to indicate what her future may be." America, in his view, is past the stage of incubation, and has emerged as a world-Power ; it is his aim to estimate the endowments which she possesses for meeting the responsibilities of an Imperial nation, her aptitude to deal with complex foreign relations, with the government of dependencies and alien peoples, and with the changes in her own administrative machine which must accompany her new duties. Mr. Colquhoun's wide experience of foreign countries specially equips him for a task which is mainly comparative, a comparison of American methods with those of older States under similar conditions. He has given us a study, not only of American politics, but of the conditions of each of her new dependencies, which in itself is highly im- portant. His generalisations on questions of world-policy are always worthy of attention, and he has the merit of putting his conclusions into fresh and memorable language. He does not, of course, profess to give a synoptic account of the modern American situation,—from our present standpoint, and in the present mass of detail, that is clearly impossible. The book is leas a systematic treatise than the gossip of a highly intelligent and experienced traveller, who follows no rigid order in his subjects, and frequently repeats himself, but never loses sight of the two or three great principles on which his criticism is founded. The writings of the most accomplished publicists are apt to be a little heavy; but we can truthfully say that few readers will find Mr. Colquhoun dulL
The first question which is asked in such an inquiry con- cerns that elusive thing, national character. The American character is not a permanent quality attached to the soil of the States, but a thing perpetually in process of transforma- tion. The difference between the old New England type and the modem inhabitant of Chicago is at least as great as between, let us say, any two branches of the Latin race. The immigrants have been chiefly hard-headed men of business, combined with some of the more turbulent elements of European society ; and the preoccupation of the /former in their private affairs, and the ready political activity of the latter, have been perhaps the chief causes of the present attitude of the best Americans towards political life. But all sections of the community were expansionist in tendency. The pioneers civilised the West, industrial development followed, and further expansion succeeded as a natural consequence. Whatever its political theories, a dynamic race must move, and so we find in last century long annals of American expansion, and her Imperialist ambitions to-day do not differ in quality from her old annexing instincts. The work is concerned with bigger problems, and is done more in the eyes of the world, but the motive-power is the same,—" sheer force, initiative and nervous energy." It has many special characteristics of its own. The real reasons, economic and temperamental, have been habitually disguised "in the garb of a mission of liberty." All enterprises have an idealistic side, and America has asked the world to accept her assurance that for her it is the only side. We have not space to follow Mr. Colquhoun in his interesting account of the various forms which the expansionist movement has taken. Pan-Americanism, with Canada in the North, and European capital the dominant force in South America, is, for the present at least, a very nebulous creed. The solid points of vantage are sufficient without any such theoretic embroidery. The Monroe doctrine, while it saddles her with heavy responsibili- ties, gives her great diplomatic purchase. The Panama Canal, joined with the virtual control of the Caribbean Sea which Cuba gives her, will enormously increase her trade, and pave the way for that domination of the Pacific which is her obvious interest. The Philippines have already made her an Asiatic Power. the canal may make her one of the greatest. She has put her hand to the plough, and there can be no turning back. America of to-day is face to face with the problem of ad- ministering foreign dependencies, and tropical dependencies
at that. It is with her fitness for this new task that Mr. Colquhoun's chapters are mainly concerned.
The American disqualifications are obvious enough. In spite of her democratic ideal of fraternity, she has a strong colour prejudice, which will make the government of coloured races always a little difficult and distasteful. She has, too, a deep-rooted dislike to the responsibilities of Empire, while ready enough to demand the advantages. She is apt to be in a hurry, and to seek to impose a ready-made code of Western civilisation on a half-savage race, which is a foolish policy with Orientals. Much of the failure in the Philippines is due to this national desire to "hustle." "Thanks to the generosity of the United States," says Mr. Colquhoun, "in presenting him with a ready-made social, political, and educational system, the Filipino, before he is rudimentarily educated, will be plunged in the vices of over-civilisation, and the chances are that he will pass from childhood to decay without ever reaching maturity."
Another serious disadvantage is the existing administrative machinery, which was framed for the government of Federal States more or less on the same level of civilisation. It is not an elastic system, and, unless radically altered, there will be no provision either for the incorporation of subject peoples in the body politic or effective administration from the centre. Nor has America any Civil Service, or any class from which to create a Civil Service, suitable to her new needs. The ordinary educated American has not the desire to rule which makes the highest type of Englishman gladly spend his beat years in a poorly paid profession. Finally, she is handicapped with certain constitutional doctrines which are of very doubtful application in the task before her. One is the old democratic abstraction, which has lost, indeed, much of its sanctity, but still survives to colour her practical policies. More dangerous still is her extreme doctrine of Protection.
Britain's experience has taught her the enormous value of Free-trade in the creation of young States. But we find America doing her best to prohibit the introduction of foreign capital in the Philippines ; and the Protective barriers in the United States against Cuban products will be a serious obstacle to Cuban prosperity. Mr. Colquhoun has given us a most instructive survey of the efforts of America to solve her
administrative problems in the face of these grave impedi- ments. She has been most successful where, as in Puerto Rico, she has boldly accepted the breakdown of the demo- cratic system and looked facts in the face. In the Philippines
she has had the intricate task of dealing with a clever, unstable population, part Latin, part Oriental,—precisely the kind of people to take advantage of American ideals for their own purposes. Mr. Colquhoun thinks that this race has been too soon admitted to a share in government, and that it would have been the better for a longer period of tutelage. The American official element, which is necessary to give support, is too small, and, Mr. Colquhoun thinks, inadequately paid.
What America has done so far is to create a fully equipped bureau of administration, with all the appurtenances of report-writing and indexing, while the really vital matters of practical government have been neglected by being put into incompetent Filipino hands. "What was wanted was less idealism and more common sense." Urgent public works such as railways and harbours have been put aside while an unnecessarily complete machine of government has been created. America is seen at her best in such practical measures as the extension of the methods of her Agricultural Department to the Philippines and her admirable sanitary measures in Cuba. Some parts, indeed, of her work in the Philippines are wholly admirable, such as General Wood's administration of the Mahommedan island of Mindanao. We have before us some of the recent Acts promulgated for that province, and in the regulation of tribal government and the measures for the suppression of slavery there is practical good sense without a suspicion of the doctrinaire.
So far as the Philippine experiment as a whole has gone, Mr. Colquhoun does not consider it a success. He thinks that there must be a radical change of attitude before America can enter upon her inheritance :—
"If the average American could see in the expansion of his race its true significance, if he could rid himself of the idea that he alone possesses the touchstone of freedom, if he were less con- cerned with the ethics of government and more with its practical justice and incorruptibility—if, in fact, he ceased to masquerade as the apostle of liberty and were content to appear simply as a peace-and-order-loving Anglo-Saxon, he would immensely simplify
the task he has set himself. By all means let him strive after his ideal democracy. He can find abundant material for reform in his own continent. Let him do all he can to adjust the relations between man and man in the manner most perfectly consistent with liberty and equality. But let him not, in a blind effort to prove his own adherence to a shibboleth to which he gives the lie every day in his dealings with negroes or Indians, force the Filipino along the path that leads to anarchy."
Such a change can only come after experience has taught its lessons, but in the meantime there are certain obvious practical reforms which cannot wait. The foundations must be laid of a true Civil Service, with reasonable security of tenure, to which the best class of men may be attracted ; and a permanent Department at Washington must be created for the control of the colonial administration. Local bureaux will be of very little use if the3 central bureau is wanting. Mr. Colquhoun has drawn an interesting parallel between the early history of our Indian Empire and the present position of Greater America. He argues rightly that this forms by far the most valuable precedent for America to study, for our problems, though harder, were concerned with similar con- ditions. The moral, which she has already recognised in part in her Cuban and Puerto Rican work, and will, we trust, accept more widely as the years bring her experience in her task, is that good government is more important than self-government for an imperfectly developed people.
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