It is a fortunate fact that supposing a revival of militancy in China, a revival which is possible but not probable, the first brunt of the trouble would probably fall upon j.a.pan. At the present moment j.a.pan is the most serious offender against China"s national pride. As the conqueror of Corea and the occupier of Manchuria, she trespa.s.ses most of all foreign Powers on the territories and the rights of China. After j.a.pan, Russia would have to expect a demand for a reckoning; Great Britain would come third and might come into collision with an aggressive China, either because of the existence of such settlements as Hong Kong or because of the Thibetan boundary. A China in search of enemies, however, would find no lack of good pretexts for quarrelling.
There are, for instance, the offensive and humiliating restrictions on Chinese immigration of the United States, of Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
I find it necessary, however, to conclude that so far as the near future is concerned, China will not take a great warrior part in the determining of Pacific issues. She may be able to enforce a more wholesome respect for her territorial integrity: she may push away some intruders: she may even insist on a less injurious and contemptuous att.i.tude towards her nationals abroad. But she will not, I think, seek greatness by a policy of aggression. There is no a.n.a.logy between her conditions and those of j.a.pan at the time of the j.a.panese acceptance of European arts and crafts. j.a.pan at the time was a bitterly quarrelsome country: she turned from civil to foreign war. China has been essentially pacific for some centuries. j.a.pan was faced at the outset of her national career with the fact that she had to expand her territory or else she could not hope to exist as a great Power. China has within her own borders all that is necessary for national greatness.
If at a later date the Chinese, either from a too-thorough study of the lore of European civilisation, or from the pressure of a population deprived of all Malthusian checks and thus finding an outlet absolutely necessary, should decide to put armies and navies to work for the obtaining of new territory, the peril will be great to the White Man.
Such a Chinese movement could secure Asia for the Asiatics, and might not stop at that point. But that danger is not of this decade, though it may have to be faced later by the White Power which wins the supremacy of the Pacific.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] A very clear statement as to the position in China was that given in London during January of 1912 by Mr Kwei Chih, a secretary of the Chinese Legation.
"None of the dynasties in China," he said, "has ever maintained a tyrannical _regime_ for any length of time, least of all the Manchu dynasty, the policy of which has consisted rather of a mixture of paternalism and obscurantism than of hard repression of the people....
The present unanimous desire of the Chinese to remove the Manchu dynasty arises solely from the fact that the Chinese have fully awakened to the realisation that only a policy of thoroughgoing Westernisation can save China from disruption and part.i.tion. The removal of the Manchu dynasty is of no greater national moment to China than would be the fall of a Cabinet to any European country. Personal animus enters, indeed, so little into the determination of the new Chinese _regime_ that the question of setting apart lands for the deposed dynasty, and even of granting it ex-territorial privileges, may eventually be accepted in the way of a solution. In regard to the adoption of Republican ideas, it may be said that the Chinese statesman does not understand the meaning of the Republican principle, and if a new _regime_ should declare itself Republican, its Republicanism will be of a much more strongly democratic type than any known to Europe. It will even be more popular in its const.i.tution than the American, and will far more fully seek the development of the common weal than most bureaucratic systems bearing the name. The suggested application of Christian principles to the new _regime_ may be regarded as wholly impossible. Confucianism, by which China stands or falls, is a secular philosophy, the only semblance of a spiritual or religious tenet in which is the principle of ancestor-worship, and though a theocratic idea is admitted in the creation of the universe, the question of a life hereafter is wholly excluded from its teachings."
CHAPTER V
THE UNITED STATES--AN IMPERIAL POWER
Following the map of the North-Western Pacific littoral, the eye encounters, on leaving the coast of China, the Philippine Islands, proof of the ambition of the United States to hold a place in the Pacific.
It is a common fallacy to ascribe to the United States a Quakerish temperament in foreign affairs. Certain catch-words of American local politics have been given a fict.i.tious value, both at home and abroad.
"Republican Simplicity," "The Rights of Man," "European Tyranny,"
"Imperial Aggression," "The Vortex of Militarism"--from these and similar texts some United State publicists are wont to preach of the tyranny of European kings and emperors; of their greed to swallow up weak neighbours; and of the evils of the military and naval systems maintained to gratify such greed. By much grandiose a.s.sertion, or by that quiet implication which is more complete proof of a convinced mind than the most grandiose of a.s.sertion, the American nation has been pictured in happy contrast to others, pursuing a simple and peaceful life; with no desire for more territory; no wish to interfere with the affairs of others; in the world, but not of the world.
Astonishment that such professions should carry any weight at all in the face of the great ma.s.s of facts showing that the American national temper is exactly the reverse of Quakerish, is modified in the political student by the fact that it is the rule for nations as well as individuals to be judged in the popular estimation by phrases rather than by facts. Ignoring the phrases of politicians and considering only the facts, it will be found that the American people have Imperial ambitions worthy of their ancestry and inseparable from the responsibility towards civilisation which their national greatness involves.
It was in the middle of the eighteenth century that the United States began national housekeeping within a small territory on the seaboard of the Atlantic. By the nineteenth century that area had extended over a section of the continent of America as large almost as Europe. By the twentieth century this Power, still represented as incurably "peaceful and stay-at-home" by its leaders, was established in the Caribbean Sea, on the Isthmus of Panama, in the North and South Pacific, along the coast of Asia, and had set up firmly the principle that whatever affair of the world demanded international attention, from a loan to China, to the fate of an Atlantic port of Morocco, the United States had "interests" which must be considered, and advice which must be regarded. The only circ.u.mstance that genuinely suggests a Quaker spirit in United States foreign diplomacy is her quaint directness of language.
More effete peoples may wrap every stage of a negotiation up to an ultimatum in honeyed phrases of respect. America "tutoyers" all courts and is mercilessly blunt in claim and warning.
It would be very strange if the United States were otherwise than Imperial in spirit. Nations, like individuals, are affected by biological laws; a young, strong nation is as naturally aggressive and ambitious as a young, strong boy. Contentment with things as they are, a disposition to make anxious sacrifices to the G.o.ds who grant peace, are the signs of old age. If a boy is quite good his parents have a reasonable right to suspect some const.i.tutional weakness. A new nation which really resembled what a great many of the American people think the United States to be, would show as a morbid anomaly. No; the course of the world"s future history will never be correctly forecasted except on the a.s.sumption that the United States is an aggressively Imperial nation, having an influence at least equal to that of any European Power in the settlement of international issues; and determined to use that influence and to extend its scope year by year. In the Problem of the Pacific particularly, the United States must be counted, not merely as a great factor but the greatest factor.
If the American citizen of to-day is considered as though he were a British citizen of some generations back, with a healthy young appet.i.te for conquest still uncloyed, some idea near to the truth will have been reached. But since the deference exacted by public opinion nowadays compels some degree of pretence and does not permit us to parade our souls naked, it is improbable that the United States citizen of this century will adopt the frank freebooting att.i.tude of the Elizabethan Englishman when he was laying the foundations of his Empire by methods inspired somewhat by piracy as well as by patriotism. The American will have to make some concession to the times and seek always a moral sanction for the extension of his boundaries. Such a search, however, is rarely made in vain when it is backed by a resolved purpose. It was sufficient for Francis Drake to know that a settlement was Spanish and rich. The attack followed. The United States needs to know that a possession is foreign, is desirable, and is grossly ill-governed before she will move to a remonstrance in the sacred name of Liberty. Since good government is an ideal which seldom comes at all close to realisation, and the reputation of no form of administration can survive the ordeal of resolute foreign criticism, the practical difference is slight. The American Empire will grow with the benediction always of a high moral purpose; but it will grow.
It is interesting to recall the fact that at its very birth the United States was invested by a writer of prophetic insight with the purple of Empire. Said the _London Gazette_ of 1765:--"Little doubt can be entertained that America will in time be the greatest and most prosperous Empire that perhaps the world has ever seen." But the early founders of the new nation, then as now, deceived themselves and others with the view that a pacific little Republic, not a mighty Empire, was their aim. The Imperial instinct showed, however, in the fact that the baby nation had in its youngest days set up a formidable navy. It was ostensibly "for the local defence of its sh.o.r.es," but naval power and overseas Empire are inseparably linked.
The austere Republic began to grow in territory and influence at a rate putting to shame the early feats of the Roman power. By 1893 the United States had made it clear that she would not allow her independence to be fettered in the slightest degree by any claims of grat.i.tude from France: and her Declaration of Neutrality in the European War then raging was a clear statement of claim to be considered as a Power. The war with the Barbary States in 1802 to suppress piracy was a claim to police rights on the high seas, police rights which custom gives only to a paramount sea Power. By the next year Spain and France had been more or less politely relieved of all responsibilities in North America, and the United States stretched from ocean to ocean, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.
It is upon the early eloquence of her founders as to the duty of the United States to confine her attention strictly to America, that the common misconception of America"s place in foreign policy has been built up. That talk, however, was in the first instance dictated largely by prudence. Alexander Hamilton, who controlled the foreign policy of the infant Republic at the outset, was particularly anxious that she should find her feet before attempting any deeds of enterprise. In particular, he was anxious that the United States should not, through considerations of sentiment, be drawn into the position of a mere appanage of France.
He set the foundations of what was known afterwards as the "Monroe doctrine," with the one thought that, at the time, a policy of non-interference with European affairs was a necessary condition of free growth for the young nation. The same idea governed Washington"s farewell address in 1796 with its warning against "foreign entanglements."
Afterwards the "Monroe doctrine"--deriving its name from a message by President Monroe in 1823--was given the meaning that the United States would not tolerate any interference with the affairs of the American continent by Europe. Finally the "Monroe doctrine," which had begun with an affirmation of America"s non-partic.i.p.ation in European affairs, and had developed into a declaration against European interference with American affairs, took its present form, which is, in effect, that over all America the United States has a paramount interest which must not be questioned, and that as regards the rest of the world she claims an equal voice with other Powers. Yet, though that is the actual position, there is still an idea in some minds that the Monroe doctrine is an instrument of humbleness by which the United States claims the immunity of America from foreign interference and guarantees foreign countries from American interference.
It will be of value to recall, in ill.u.s.tration of the rapid growth of an aggressive national pride in the United States, the circ.u.mstances which led up to Mr. President Monroe"s formal message in 1823. The dawn of the nineteenth century found the young American nation, after about a quarter of a century"s existence, fairly on her feet; able to vindicate her rights abroad by a war against the Barbary pirates: given by the cession of Louisiana from France, a magnificent accession of territory.
The Empire of Spain was crumbling to pieces, and between 1803 and 1825 the Latin-American Republics in South and Central America were being established on the ruins of that Empire. Spain, her attention engaged in European wars, was able to do little or nothing to a.s.sert herself against the rebellious colonies. But in 1815, Napoleon having been vanquished, the Holy Alliance in Europe attempted to rea.s.sert the old power of the European monarchies. The terror of Napoleon"s army had forced the kings of the earth into a union which forgot national differences and was anxious only to preserve the Divine Right of Kings.
The formation of this Holy Alliance was viewed with suspicion and dislike in the United States, and when in 1823 the Alliance raised the question of joint action by European monarchies to restore Spanish rule in South America, the United States responded with Monroe"s famous message forbidding any European interference on the continent of America. Such European colonies as already existed would be tolerated, and that was all. The message stated:
"The American continents by the free and independent conditions which they have a.s.sumed are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation by any European Power.
"We could not view any interposition for purpose of oppressing them or controlling in any other manner their destiny by any European Power in any other way than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States."
That "Monroe doctrine" was destined to be extended greatly in scope. In 1845 Mr. President Polk declared that no future European colony should be planted on any part of the North American continent, and laid it down as the duty of the United States "to annex American territory lest it be annexed by European countries." True to that faith, he was responsible for the annexation of Texas, Oregon and California. The United States claim to overlordship of North America was still more remarkably extended in 1867, when a protest was entered against the Federation of the Canadian Provinces. The protest was not insisted upon then, though in 1870 Mr. President Grant revived the spirit of the protest with his forecast of "the end of European political connection with this continent." The Venezuela controversy between Great Britain and the United States in 1895 was responsible for another extension of the Monroe doctrine. It was then claimed that "foreign colonies ought to cease in this hemisphere." Insistence on that would, however, have led to a war in which Great Britain probably would have had the a.s.sistance of other European Powers affected; and the Monroe doctrine receded a little.
Exactly how this chief article of the United States foreign policy stands to-day one cannot say. Certainly the Monroe doctrine does not mean, as it was once supposed to mean, that the United States in return for foreign abstention from interference in American affairs pledges herself to keep apart from all extra-American affairs. In world politics she claims and exercises the privileges to which her vast resources and her high state of civilisation are the warrants. In regard to American affairs the Monroe doctrine clearly forbids any further European colonisation in North or South America, and const.i.tutes the United States as the Suzerain Power of all the Latin-American Republics (whether they are willing or not). What else it will be found to mean will depend on the circ.u.mstances of the moment and the feelings of the newspaper proprietors who exercise so great an influence on the American man-in-the-street, the governing factor in shaping his country"s foreign policy. In European countries, however democratic, the man-in-the-street has rarely any immediate authority over Foreign Affairs. In Great Britain, for example, the questions of the relations of the Government with other countries are not canva.s.sed before the voters. The close oligarchy of the Cabinet (acting often with the Opposition Front Bench) comes to decisions of peace and war, of treaty and _entente_, and, after decision, allows Parliament and the electorate to acquiesce. But in the United States foreign policy is actually dictated by the voters; and that means, in effect, by the newspapers. On occasion the Monroe doctrine has already been interpreted into a notice to quit to all European Powers holding settlements on the American continent. It may in the near future revive that claim to paramount and exclusive authority, and it may cover a declaration of direct suzerainty over Mexico, and over the smaller republics intervening between the United States border and the Panama Ca.n.a.l. In most Latin-American republics disorder is the rule rather than the exception; and it may become at any moment the honest opinion of the man-in-the-street of the United States that the Panama Ca.n.a.l is too important to civilisation to be left to the chances of interference from less stable governments than his own.
These conclusions are inevitable to anyone making any study of American history and the American character. They are not hostile criticisms.
They are rather appreciations. A great nation with a belief in its destiny must be "Imperialist" in spirit, because it has a natural desire to spread the blessings of its rule. The people of the United States believe as strongly in themselves as did the ancient Hebrews, and all must have a genuine respect for that fierce spirit of elect nationality which made the Hebrews found a great nation on a goat-patch. In Elizabethan England the same spirit flourished and was responsible for the founding of the British Empire. (It survives still in the British Isles, though somewhat spasmodically.) There is no ground at all either for wonder or for complaint in the fact that Imperialism has been born to vigorous life in the United States, where the people of "G.o.d"s own country" are firm in these two articles of faith: that any interference in the affairs of the United States is unjust, unnecessary, tyrannical and impious; that any United States interference with another nation is a necessary and salutary effort on behalf of civilisation. Let no man of British blood complain. But let no one in making calculations of world policy be deceived into any other conclusion than that the United States is the great Imperial force of this century, and also the one Power that has enough of the splendid illusions of youth to indulge in crusading wars, for which Europe nowadays is too old and cautious.
In the countries of Europe other than Great Britain that which I have stated is coming to be generally recognised, and if at any time a combination could be proposed with any hope of success "to put America in her place," the combination would be formed and the Old World would grapple with the New to try conclusions. Without Great Britain, however, such an alliance would have at present no chance of success, and British adherence is not within the realm of practical thought to-day.
The Imperialist tendency of United States policy is shown with particular clarity in the history of the Pacific Ocean. Very early in her life the vigorous young nation saw the Fates beckoning her across the Pacific. The downfall of the Spanish power in North America left the United States heir to a great stretch of rich coast line, including the n.o.ble province of California. Russia was ousted from the north-west coast of the Continent by a wise purchase. Before then, American whalers sailing out of Boston had begun to exploit the Southern Pacific. Their whaling trips brought back knowledge of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Group, and, following exactly the methods of British colonisation, American missionaries were the pioneers of American nationalisation. As far back as 1820 Hiram Bingham preached his first sermon at Honolulu from the text, "Fear not, for, behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy." A handsome church now marks the grat.i.tude of his native converts. With equal justice Bingham"s American compatriots might have set up a great statue to him as the first warden of the Marches of the Pacific for the United States. For from that day the annexation of Hawaii was inevitable. The process took the familiar course. First the United States Republic exercised a benevolent suzerainty over the Hawaiian kingdom. Then the blessing of free inst.i.tutions was bestowed on the natives by the foundation of an Hawaiian Republic. The next step was definite annexation. Following that, came steps for the formation of a great naval base at Honolulu.
When I visited the Hawaiian Group in the spring of 1909 the work of fortifying Honolulu was being pushed on with great vigour, and the American military and civil authorities boasted of their intention to make it the Gibraltar of the Pacific. The city of Honolulu has at present a very small harbour, a little bay to which access is given by an opening in the coral reefs which surround the island. This port would hardly afford shelter to a squadron of cruisers. But to the left as one enters is Pearl Harbour, a magnificent stretch of land-locked water sufficient to float a great Fleet. But Pearl Harbour basin in its natural state is too well protected, there being no means of access except for very small boats. American energy is now remedying that, and a deep-water channel is being cut from Honolulu Harbour to Pearl Harbour to take vessels of the largest draught at all tides. When that channel is completed, Pearl Harbour will be at once commodious and easily protected. The single narrow entrance will be dominated by the guns of Malakiki Hill, a great eminence, somewhat like Gibraltar in shape, to the right of the town, which commands the sea-front east and west: and within Pearl Harbour the American Pacific Fleet will find a safe haven.
It will be absolutely impregnable from the sea. Hostile ships approaching Honolulu would have to steer straight for Malakiki and then defile amid the coral reefs past its guns before the entrance to Pearl Harbour would open before them.
But land defence has also to be taken into account. The chief male element of the Hawaiian population is not American, not native Hawaiian.
It is j.a.panese. The Mikado"s subjects represent now the largest fighting element in the population, outnumbering even the natives. These j.a.panese, imported as coolies for the sugar-fields, are mostly men of military training. Further influx of them has now been stopped, not under an Immigration Restriction Act, but by private treaty with j.a.pan; and, as a measure of precaution, an Arms Registration Ordinance provides that no citizen shall have in his possession firearms unless he is licensed by the Government. But this precaution would be in vain if j.a.pan ever seriously thought of using her 50,000 soldier-citizens in the Hawaiian Group against the United States; for the whole of the fishing industry is in the hands of the j.a.panese, and their sampans could land arms at various places on the islands with ease. Such a contingency has been foreseen in the laying out of Honolulu as a naval base, and the land fortifications are designed with the same thoroughness as those designed to beat off a sea attack.
A glance at the map will show that the Power which holds Hawaii with a powerful Fleet can dominate the whole of the Northern Pacific, threatening every point east and west. The American position there is weakened by only one circ.u.mstance, the great j.a.panese population. This, though it may not be recruited with further drafts of males from its native source, will always be a very considerable, if not the most considerable, element of the Hawaiian population, for most of the coolies are married, and the j.a.panese abroad as well as at home fills the cradle industriously.
I remember on the morning of April 1, 1909, coming into Honolulu city from the Moana Hotel on the sea-beach, I found the tram rushed by j.a.panese at all the stopping places. Two cruisers of their navy had entered the harbour--cruisers which were once upon a time the Russian _Variag_ and _Koreitz_. All j.a.pan in Honolulu was making holiday. A fleet of sampans (the j.a.panese fishing-vessel) surrounded the ships, which commemorated so signally a great and successful war. The water front was lined with j.a.panese, the women and children mostly in their national costume. One j.a.panese father came on to the tram with seven boys, the eldest of whom did not seem more than ten years of age.
Asked, he said that they were all his own children. There will never be a lack of a big j.a.panese population in Hawaii.
The definite acquisition of Hawaii may be fairly dated from 1851. Before then there had been a significant proof of America"s gaze turning westward by the appointment in 1844 of Mr Caleb Cushing as the United States Amba.s.sador to the Court of China. A little later (1854) the American Power found the j.a.panese policy of exclusiveness intolerable, and United States warships broke a way into j.a.panese ports. It had also been decided by then that the task, originally undertaken by a French Company, of cutting a waterway across the Panama Isthmus should be the responsibility of the United States. British susceptibilities on the point were soothed by the Clayton-Bulwer treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of the ca.n.a.l, a treaty which was subsequently abrogated in response to the increasing deference which the growing power of the American Republic could exact. That abrogation created the present position which gives the United States sole control of that ca.n.a.l, and the right to fortify its entrances.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, therefore, the United States, a Power which some people still insist on regarding as an essentially domestic character interested only in purely American affairs, had established herself in a commanding strategical position in the North Pacific, had const.i.tuted herself the arbiter of j.a.panese national manners, and had obtained the control of the future waterway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The second half of the same century was destined to see an even more remarkable Imperial expansion. The misgovernment of Cuba by Spain became intolerable to American public opinion, and in 1898 war was declared with the avowed purpose of conferring the blessings of freedom on the people of Cuba. If one accepted the nonsensical view that the United States is a Power lifted above ordinary human nature by some mysterious racial alchemy, it would be difficult to understand why a war to free Cuba should also have been waged in another ocean to acquire the Philippines. But, looking at the matter in a sane light, it was natural that, being engaged in a war with Spain, the United States should strike at Spain wherever a blow was possible and should destroy the Spanish power in the Pacific Ocean as well as in the Caribbean Sea. Besides, the opportunity offered of stretching the arm of America right across the Pacific to the very coast of Asia. The Filipinos did not relish the subst.i.tution for the weak rule of Spain of the strong rule of the United States, and American Imperialism had the experience of having to force, by stern warfare on the liberated, acceptance of its role of liberator. Perhaps the experience taught it some sympathy with older players at the game of Empire-making: certainly it did not abate its ardour in the good work.
So much for the past history of the United States in the Pacific. A forecast of her influence on the future of the ocean is clearly indicated by the past. The United States spread from the east of the North American continent to the west, because there is no method known to prevent the extension of a highly civilised, a young, an ardent nation at the expense of backward, effete and tired peoples. It was impossible that either the Red Indian tribes or the picturesque old settlements of the Californian Spanish should stand in the way of the American Republic stretching from ocean to ocean. Once the United States was established on the Pacific coast, it was equally inevitable that the arm of her power should stretch across the ocean. The acquisition of the Hawaiian Group was necessary for the sound defence of the coast. The American trading ships which sought the coast of Asia and found barbaric barriers against commerce being battered down by European venturers, had to do as the other White Men did. The flag thus had to follow in the wake of the trade. It was all natural, necessary and ultimately beneficial to civilisation. Equally inevitable will be the future expansion of the United States in the Pacific. The overwhelming strength of her industrial organisation will give her a first call on the neutral markets of the ocean--_i.e._ those markets to which she has the same right of access as her trade rivals. As the tendency shows for the area of those neutral markets to narrow through coming under the domination of various Powers, the United States will seek to extend her domination too. The protection of what she has will enforce the need of acquiring other strategical points. So her Pacific possessions will grow, almost unconsciously, just as the British Empire grew.
CHAPTER VI
GREAT BRITAIN"S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC
Off the coast of China at a point where, in a strategical map the "spheres of influence" of j.a.pan and the United States and Germany would impinge, is the island of Hong Kong, the Far East station of the British Empire. Further south, in the Malay Peninsula, is Singapore, standing guard over the entrance to the Indian Ocean. On these two coaling stations British naval power in the North Pacific is based. The abandonment of either of them is unthinkable to-day, yet neither was taken possession of until the nineteenth century--Singapore in 1819, Hong Kong in 1841. In the South Pacific there was shown an even stronger hesitation in acquiring territory.
Why Great Britain entered so reluctantly into the Pacific as a colonising Power may probably be explained by the fact that at the time the ocean came to be exploited British earth hunger had been satiated.
The unsuccessful war which attempted to hold the American colonies to the Mother Country, had made her doubtful whether overseas dominions were altogether a blessing and whether the advantage to be gained from them outweighed the responsibilities which their holding entailed. It seemed to be the natural conclusion from the American War of Independence, that once a colony or a group of colonies arrived at the stage of growth which allowed it to be of some use to the Mother Country, the inevitable next development was for it to throw off the bonds of kinship and enter upon a career of independence at the price of an expensive and humiliating war to its parent. Thus, whilst British sailors were to the front in the exploration of the Pacific, British statesmen showed a great reluctance to take any advantage of their discoveries; and it was a series of accidents rather than any settled purpose which planted the Anglo-Saxon race so firmly in this ocean.
India, it must be noted, a century ago was a country having very little direct concern with the Pacific. The holding of the Indian Empire did not depend on any position in the Pacific. That situation has since changed, and Great Britain would be forced to an interest in the Pacific by her Indian Empire if she had no other possessions in the ocean.
In an earlier chapter on j.a.pan, something has been written concerning the reasons which would argue for the absence of an Imperial impulse in the j.a.panese islands and its presence in the British islands. The inquiry then suggested as to the instincts of expansion and dominion which were primarily responsible for the growth of the British Empire is full of fascination for the historian. If it comes to be considered carefully, the Empire-making of the British people was throughout the result of a racial impulse working instinctively, spasmodically, though unerringly, towards an unseen goal, rather than of a designed and purposeful statesmanship.
The racial origin of the British people dictated peremptorily a policy of oversea adventure, and that adventure led inevitably to colonisation.