German Achievements.
"Along every line her social organization of co-operation between the Government and the people successfully handled problems feared by all the outside world. While, as a result of the development of humane feeling, England and the United States have been saying that ignorance, vagabondage, and misery ought to be abolished, Germany has said, "They shall be!" And, saying it, she had actually commenced to abolish them.
"She had cut down enormous wastes of human energy and, for the first time in the history of the world, had established an economic minimum below which men and families were not permitted to sink.
"The cost of this was large; for insurance, colonies for tramps and vagabonds, employment agencies, and the like; but Germany made it pay in the creation of a nation built of loyal and efficient people. Both their loyalty and their efficiency have been proved and reproved in the course of the present struggle. They had accomplished marvels, they were ready for amazing sacrifices.
"Now, one of the princ.i.p.al reasons why Germany was able to do these things, although, she probably ignored it and possibly would deny it, is to be found in the free-trade policy of England.
"At any time during the past twenty years England could have checked German progress effectively by the establishment of a protective tariff system designed to encourage her own colonies and other nations with whom she had long been on friendly and influential terms, to the utmost development of exclusive trade privileges designed to shut out Germany.
Except for the long-established English policy of commercial freedom Germany could not have accomplished for herself what she has.
"Germany has been growing rapidly. Her birth rate has been high, but of late it has been falling, and when the war began there were indications that she soon would approach the low ratio of population increase already characteristic of France, of New England and the Middle West in the United States, and lately of England. But Germany"s population was still a growing one and, in a sense, a restive one.
"The Malthusian theory has not worked out in the civilized world as Malthus supposed it would, for the application of science to manufacturing, agriculture, &c., has prevented increasing populations from pressing upon the means of subsistence; but in all parts of the Western World the standards of living have been raised, the ambitions of the average man and woman have expanded. They have lived better than their parents lived, and they have wished their children to live better still.
"However, we can place no limit upon the probable expansion of human desires, and it is true that a population unchecked by the intelligent action of the human will tends to increase at a rate more rapid than that at which it is possible to raise the actual plane of human living.
"The speed of the working of the two rules is different, perhaps, but both are dynamic, and the population of Germany tended to grow more rapidly than betterment of conditions could be provided, even under the nation"s splendid governmental and commercial efficiency.
"The natural yearning of the nation, therefore, was toward colonial expansion, and, although note that I make no charges against either the German Government or German people, the nation probably has wished sovereignty over Western Europe, through Belgium and Holland to the sea.
Its narrow outlet through Hamburg and Bremen was insufficient for its needs.
"Of course, its trade and economic advance has sometimes conflicted with that of other nations. It is natural for Germany to suppose that England tried to block it. However, I think that all the evidence which Germany has brought forward in proof of this is weak and improbable, because England"s great source of revenue has been her foreign trade, and, above all, her carrying trade, and I am not partisan but stating the obvious when I say that England prospers when the rest of the world prospers, and that she has profited mightily through Germany"s commercial advance.
"These facts point to the conclusion that Germany really had everything to gain by avoiding war and continuing her prosperous expansion along commercial lines, increasing the strength of her grip in foreign countries, as, for example, in South America."
Germany"s Prosperous Commerce.
"In South America we Americans were not really competing with her. She had studied the market and adopted the methods necessary to its satisfaction; we had not. England was relatively losing her hold there.
In another twenty years Germany surely would have been one of the greatest commercial and manufacturing nations which the world has ever known. So it was not economic necessity, nor pressure approaching economic necessity, which precipitated this war.
"I think the German people, as they professed to do, did become greatly alarmed over a possibility, magnified into a probability, that Russia, taking up the cause of the Balkan peoples, would obtain Constantinople, that Servia would make her way to the Adriatic, and that all possibility of the expansion of Germany to the southeast would be blocked, and Germany probably became alarmed over England"s intentions--there were many indications of something close to panic in Germany after it was generally understood that King Edward figured in the pact with France.
"I, for one, do not believe that the German fears of England were well grounded; I do not believe that in the excitement the German mind worked discriminatingly or that it is working with discrimination today. I think that Germany has presented an extraordinary example of nation-wide mobmindedness in a situation which offered nothing but ruin through war and boundless advantages if she sat tight and waited for some one else to strike the first blow, which, then, probably never would have been struck.
"So, although I have outlined what I think may fairly be regarded as some of the economic conditions contributing to the war, I do not think that it is entirely to be explained by economic causes.
"They fail to account for the actual precipitation of the conflict. I think that there is no explanation of that, short of recognition of an abnormal reaction of the German mind to a situation the nature of which was mistaken, or, at least, exaggerated.
"And, of course, there were other factors concerning which we shall not know the truth for years, such as the personal influence of individual minds in the German and other Governments. It will be long before the complete history of the acts and negligence of diplomats and other responsible Ministers will be written."
I asked Prof. Giddings if, in his opinion, the struggle is likely to result in any wide and profound change in the economic life of the world.
"Yes," he replied, "I think it is sure to. In the first place, for at least half a generation, and perhaps longer, the producing capital of the world will be much smaller than it was before the war.
"But in this speculation we must be cautious, because, so far, the costly war material which has been consumed, such as fortresses destroyed, guns worn out, ammunition consumed, soldiers" clothing, and in general food, were princ.i.p.ally acc.u.mulated and paid for long ago.
They have come out of the world"s past production, and their cost already has been written off.
"The real loss, the new waste, over and above the devastation of Belgium and other lands, has been of labor, productive activity which would have been carried on during the period of the war had the struggle been avoided, the destruction of the lives of men in their economic prime, the maiming of others to the depletion of their future usefulness and the loss to European fatherhood.
"But if the war lasts a long time, necessitating the general renewal of ships, fortresses, weapons, and stores, the waste will be enormous, for the actual money expenditure will then come out of funds newly acc.u.mulated or charged against the future, and not out of those set aside in the past for war purposes."
One Great Change Occurring.
"Thus one great economic change already is occurring--the devastation wrought, the destruction of h.o.a.rded funds and supplies and of useful human life.
"There are others which are probable, but also problematical, although I think we fairly may take them into account.
"Will the European nations, in settlement of their differences through final terms of peace, simply endeavor to restore the old order, drawing their lines of demarkation very strictly, enacting, for example, higher tariffs, thinking that along that line will lie the easiest way of re-establishing national finances?
"If so, the old contentions will be perpetuated. It will be the old order of things over again.
"We shall again have the spirit of exclusiveness fostered and the old suspicions bred. The old intense compet.i.tion of nation with nation for trade to the exclusion of other nations from the markets of the world will return with its attendant inefficiency.
"But, on the other hand, the world will be an immense gainer through the war if it is followed by a broad and rational review of the whole situation and an adjustment of the map of Europe with due regard to the ambitions and legitimate economic opportunities and capabilities of the various peoples.
"This war may be the greatest good the world has ever known if it leaves Europe in a mental state disposed to Broaden opportunity, to break down suspicions, to eliminate barriers, and make commerce much freer than it has been.
"Then Europe"s economic recovery will be rapid, animosities will die quickly away, and every nation which is now involved will progress with a new speed, seeing that opportunity is created only through superiority in fair compet.i.tion.
"The next possibility, one far more nearly a probability, I think, than the somewhat Utopian speculation in which I have just indulged, is that after the war the world will have been deeply impressed by the tremendous activity of Germany, whether she be victor or vanquished.
"What is the secret of her efficiency as manifested in the mobilization of her vast army, in her use of science in new military devices, in her holding of the elements of her national life together during the struggle, in her keeping her industries going in the face of unprecedented difficulties--all to a degree never before dreamed of?
will be a general query.
"Other nations will study the German plan, asking whether it is true, as has been taught in America, that that Government is best which governs least.
"It may be that this war will result, entirely apart from the urgency of the labor problem which it will magnify, and wholly on the grounds of general efficiency, in a general inquiry as to whether or not the time has come for quasi-socialistic national developments.
"I think it unlikely that the war will give impetus to that proletarian socialism which is founded on cla.s.s consciousness and cla.s.s struggle; but it may urge forward a socialistic movement based upon the large and fruitful idea that the best hope for the future is offered by the most complete and highly organized co-operation of all elements, all interests, all agencies which in their combination make up national structures.
"As a matter of fact, I am an optimist, and I believe that this is about what will come after this war ends.
"To put my theory in slightly different terms, I believe that the conflict will greatly further the development of what perhaps may be called "public socialism," and I mean by that the highest attainable organization of whole peoples for the production of commodities, the furtherance of enterprise, and the promotion of the general well-being.
"I think that when the world sobers up it will ask: "How did Germany do it?"
"Whether she wins or loses that must be the universal query, for whether she wins or loses her achievement has been in many ways unprecedented.
"There can be but one answer to this query: She did it by an organization which brought together in efficient co-operation the individual, the quasi-private corporation, the public corporation, and the Government upon a scale never before seen.
"The world is bound to take notice of this."
Will Fear Loss of Liberty.