Conclusion

America and the Future of the Latin Peoples

The Panama Canal and the two Americas—The future conflicts between Slavs, Germans, Anglo-Saxons, and Latins—The role of Latin America.

A new route offered to human commerce transforms the politics of the world. The Suez Canal opened the legendary East to Europe, directed the stream of European emigration towards Australia, and favoured the formation, in South Africa, of an Anglo-Saxon Confederation. The Panama Canal is destined to produce profound perturbations in the equilibrium of the nations of the New World. Humboldt announced these changes in 1804:[1] "The products of China will be brought more than 6,000 miles nearer Europe and the United States; great changes will take place in the political condition of eastern Asia, because this tongue of earth (Panama) has for centuries been the rampart of the independence of China and Japan."

The Atlantic is to-day the ocean of the civilised world. The opening of the canal will thus displace the political axis of the world. The Pacific, an ocean separated from the civilising currents of Europe, will receive directly from the Old World the wealth and products of its labour and its emigrants. Until the present time the United States and Japan have shared in its rule as a mare clausum, and they are disputing the supremacy in Asia and Western America. Once the isthmus is pierced, new commercial peoples may invade with their victorious industries the enchanted lands of Asia and the distant republics of South America. New York will be nearer to Callao, but the distance between Hamburg and Havre and the Peruvian coast will be equally diminished. It has been calculated that by the new route the voyage between Liverpool and the great ports of the Pacific will be reduced by 2,600 to 6,000 miles, according to the respective positions of the latter, and the distance between New York and the same centres of commercial activity will be diminished by 1,000 to 8,400 miles. German, French, and English navigation companies will run a service of modern vessels direct to the great ports of Chili and China. The paths of the world's trade will be changed; Panama will form the gate of civilisation to Eastern Asia and Western America, as Suez is to Central Asia, Eastern Africa, and Oceania. The Atlantic will become the ocean of the Old World.

The trade of the new era must undergo unexpected transformations. The influence of Europe in China and Western America will be considerably increased. Germany should become the rival of the United States in the commercial supremacy in the East and in the republics of Latin America. Her vessels, messengers of imperialism, which now make long voyages through the Straits of Magellan to reach Valparaiso and Callao, will then employ the canal route. The vessels of Japan will bear to Europe, as formerly did the Phoenician navigators, the products of the exotic Orient; New York will dethrone Antwerp, Hamburg, and Liverpool; the English will lose their historic position as intermediaries between Europe and Asia. The United States, masters of the canal, will create in New York a great fair in which the merchandise of East and West will be accumulated: the treasures of Asia, the gold of Europe, and the products of their own overgrown industries. They will thus have won an economic hegemony over the Pacific, South America, and China, where they will be at least privileged competitors in the struggle between England and Germany. Between New York and Hong Kong, New York and Yokohama, and New York and Melbourne new commercial relations will be established. In approaching New York the East will recede from Liverpool and the ports of Europe, and the Panama route will favour the industries of the United States in Asia and Oceania. It may already be foreseen that the United States will be terrible competitors in Australia, and above all in New Zealand, where they will drive the English merchants from the markets. It is difficult to write, like Tarde, a "fragment of future history"; too many unknown forces intervene in the historical drama of the peoples. But no doubt, unless some extraordinary event occurs to disturb the evolution of the modern peoples, the great nations of industrial Europe and Japan, the champion of Asiatic integrity, will oppose the formidable progress of the United States.

The canal sets a frontier to Yankee ambition; it is the southern line, the "South Coast Line" of which a North American politician, Jefferson, used to dream. As early as 1809 he believed that Cuba and Canada would become incorporated, as States of the Union, in the immense Confederation; anticipating the rude lyrics of Walt Whitman, he dreamed of founding "an empire of liberty so vast that the like has never been seen." Heirs to the Anglo-Saxon genius, the Americans of the North wish to form a democratic federation.

They have succeeded in doing in Cuba what Japan has done in Korea: first, the struggle for autonomy, then the necessary intervention, then a protectorate, and perhaps annexation. Thus the prophecy of Jefferson will be realised. Between Canada, an autonomous colony, and the United States, there are common economic interests, and commercial treaties have created such a plexus of interests that the evolution from these practical alliances to political union would seem to be a simple matter. The disintegration of the Anglo-Saxon Empire will be the work of the United States. American activities in Canada are steadily increasing; the Yankee capital employed in various Canadian industries amounts to £20,000,000. Trade is increasing, and by virtue of new conventions the United States will be even better situated than ever to dispute the Canadian markets with England. In this free colony there is a Far West which the States have peopled. The East is Anglo-Saxon, industrial, aristocratic; the West, barbarian and agrarian, desires union with the neighbouring democracy. Münsterberg reports that a Boston journal prints every day, in large letters, on the first page, that the first duty of the United States is the annexation of Canada.

The friendship of England, and the moral harmony of the English-speaking world, will perhaps check the progress of American imperialism northward; but the capital which develops and exploits the west of Canada is a competitor which cannot be resisted. Moreover, such men as Goldwin Smith, a moral authority in Canada, counsel union with the great Republican neighbour. Free trade, which the English radicals wish to maintain, relaxes the economic ties which might ensure the duration of the British Empire, and prevents the formation of a Zollverein, of that fiscal union between Great Britain and her colonies which was the great project of Chamberlain. It is to guarantee commercial and economic interests that Canada is approaching the United States and withdrawing from England.

Mexico, where £100,000,000 of American capital is invested; Panama, a republic subjected to the protectorate of the Anglo-Saxon North; the Canal Zone, which the Yankees have acquired as a remote southern possession; the Antilles, which they are gradually absorbing; Central America, where ever turbulent republics tolerate pacificatory intervention; and Canada, rich and autonomous, form, for the statesmen of Washington and the Yellow Press, a great and desirable empire. In two centuries the small Puritan colonies of the Atlantic seaboard will perhaps have come to govern the continent from the Pole to the Tropics; and will create, with the aid of all the races of mankind, a new Anglo-Saxon humanity, industrial and democratic. Thus the Roman Republic, from her narrow home between the Apennines, governed the world, as did Great Britain, peopled by a tenacious race, the sea.

To check the advance of the United States the South will lack a political force of the same weight. The conflict between the united Americans of the North and the divided inhabitants of the South will necessarily terminate fatally for the Latin New World.

The Pacific will be the theatre of racial wars and vast and transforming emigrations. Once the canal is open it is extremely probable that European emigrants will descend in large numbers upon the seaboard of Western America. Brazil and the Argentine attract the modern adventurer; their Eldorado is in the Argentine plains or the forests of Brazil. Venezuela, invaded by emigrants of Germanic race, will be born again; a dense population will fill her valleys, and Caracas will become a great Latin city. But in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, there is a great lack of centres of civilisation in the interior, and the sierra is largely wild and unpeopled; all progress is in the small towns of the coast, set amidst the aridity of the desert. Chinese and Japanese, who are content with low wages, are crushing the European worker by their competition. Japanese colonies will people the American West from Panama to Chili, and in these new countries the fusion of Japanese and Indian blood is by no means impossible.

There will always be two distinct regions in South America, separated by the Andes and divided by the Tropics. The Atlantic region will retain its liberty, and increase in wealth and in power. It is possible that the south of Brazil will become German, but the Argentine, Chili, Uruguay, and the great Brazilian States will defend the Latin heritage and European tradition. To the north and the west depopulated and divided nations will struggle against an invasion of peoples of similar races coming from the east and against a conquering people from the north. Thanks to the protection of Japan, they may be able to free themselves from the tutelage of the United States, or they may be able to hold off the subjects of the Mikado by submitting to the influence of North America. Only the federation of all the Latin republics under the pressure of Europe—that is to say, of England, France, and Italy, who have important markets in America—might save the nations of the Pacific, just as a century ago Great Britain was able to defend the autonomy of these peoples against the mystic projects of the Holy Alliance.

The Monroe doctrine, which prohibits the intervention of Europe in the affairs of America and angers the German imperialists, the professors of external expansion, like Münsterberg, may become obsolete. If Germany or Japan were to defeat the United States, this tutelary doctrine would be only a melancholy memory. Latin America would emerge from the isolation imposed upon it by the Yankee nation, and would form part of the European concert, the combination of political forces—alliances and understandings—which is the basis of the modern equilibrium. It would become united by political ties to the nations which enrich it with their capital and buy its products.

Japan has not lost her originality as an Asiatic nation, because she is united to England by a treaty which assures the status quo in the East. The Latin republics will not renounce their character as American nations because they may conclude understandings with the nations of the West. Already there are commercial treaties between these nations and Europe, as well as a harmony of economic and intellectual interests. Brazil and the Argentine, where British money and French ideals prevail, might themselves unite to form a vast combination of alliances with the group of European nations which conquered, civilised, and enriched America: that is, Spain, France, and England. Will not a community of interests in America give a new strength to the union of these peoples in Europe? Great political changes would result from these new influences: the American Latins, by entering into the combinations of European politics, would divide Italy, whose interests in the Argentine and Brazil are so great, from the Triple Alliance, and would strengthen the understanding between England and France against Germany, which disputes with them not only the hegemony of Europe but also the preponderance in America. Canning, who opposed the designs of the Holy Alliance, used to say a century ago that he had given the New World liberty in order to restore equilibrium to the Old World. Against the theocratic peoples who were seeking to overshadow the destinies of the earth he evoked the apparition of these free democracies destined to establish the benefits of liberty on a firm footing. His hope was premature, because it was hardly possible for perfect republics to rise from the ruins of Spanish absolutism. Even to-day, after a century of attempts at constitutional government, only a few Latin American States—the Argentine, Brazil, Chili, Peru, and Bolivia—seem capable of fulfilling the desires of Canning.

These peoples would contribute to the defence of the Latin ideal. But is not this an excessive ambition for nations still semi-barbarous? The old races of the West contemplate their impetuous advance with much the same distrust as that which Rome experienced as she watched the turbulent migrations of Goths and Germans. And even if the Latin race could check its irremediable decadence by the aid of the wealth and youth of these American peoples, would it really be profitable to oppose the triumph of the Anglo-Saxons and the Slavs for the sake of saving a fallen caste? Seventy years ago Tocqueville visited the United States and divined their future greatness. To-day M. Clemenceau, a politician and a great admirer of the North American Republic, praises the Latin vigour, as he sees it in Buenos-Ayres, Uruguay, and Rio de Janeiro. The Yankee republic has realised the prophecies of the former critic, and it would not be strange if the southern democracies of America were to confirm the optimism of the latter. A new energy, undeniable material progress, and a fertile creative faith announce the advent, in the new continent, if not of the Eldorado of which the hungry emigrant dreams, at least of wealthy nations, rich in industry and agriculture; the advent of a world in which the glorious age of the exhausted Latin world may renew itself, as in the classic fountain. When Emerson visited England fifty years ago he declared that the heart of the Britannic race was in the United States, and that the "mother island," exhausted, would some day, like many parents, be satisfied with the vigour which she had bestowed upon her own children.[2] In speaking of Spain and Portugal, might not Argentines, Brazilians, and Chilians employ the same proud language?

The decadence of the Latins, which seems obvious to the sociologist, may really be only a long period of abeyance. The adventures in which such an exuberant force of heroism was expended might well result in a reaction, a weariness after creation. At the beginning of the modern period, in the sixteenth century, the English, undisciplined adventurers, were hostile to the regularity and monotony of industrial life; in the nineteenth century they built an empire, organised a powerful industrialism, and became slow and methodical; and in 1894 Dr. Karl Pearson was uneasy as to "the decadence of British energy which is revealed by the adoption of State socialism and by the poverty of mechanical invention."[3]

In the future the Latins may regain their old virility. The ricorsi which Vico saw in history cause certain peoples to recover the pre-eminence they have lost, while others, prosperous nations, fall back into decadence; no privilege is eternal, no reaction is irremediable and inevitable.

"Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere, cadentque
Quæ nunc sunt in honore...."

The imperial policy of Charles V. and Philip II., the conquest of a continent by the Spaniards, Portuguese, and French, the glorious festival of the Renaissance, the triumph of Lepanto, the splendid empire of Venice, the political activity of Richelieu, the great century of French classicism, the Revolution which proclaimed the Rights of Man, and the Napoleonic epic, the liberation of Spanish America: this is the hymn of glory of the Latin race. To-day Belgium, Italy, and the Argentine give signs of a renaissance of that race, which men have supposed to be exhausted.

Heirs of the Latin spirit in the moral, religious, and political domain, the Ibero-American peoples are seeking to conserve their glorious heritage. The idea of race, in the sense of traditions and culture, is predominant in modern politics. Flourishing on every hand, we see Pan-Slavism, Pan-Islamism, Pan-Asianism, Pan-Germanism, Pan-Latinism—barbarous words which give an indication as to the struggles of the future. The Slavs of Dalmatia, Germany, Servia, and Bosnia would reconstitute, with the fragments of many divided nations, a State which would also be a race. Islam unites divers peoples by the ardour of a new fanaticism, under the inspiration of popular Khalifs or marabouts, from Soudan to Fez, from Bombay to Stamboul. Vast unions of scattered peoples are thus springing into formation, in the name of a religion or a common origin. Slavs, Saxons, Latins, and Mongols are contending for the possession of the world. It is thus that the drama of history becomes simplified; above the quarrels of precarious nations are rising the profound antagonisms of millennial races.

Onésime Reclus, in an excellent volume, the Partage du monde, has gone into the respective positions of each of these powerful groups. The conclusions of his analysis are full of hope; in spite of the Saxons and Slavs the Latins still hold vast territories, which they must people. Their geographical position, despite Anglo-Saxon imperialism and the immense surface of all the Russias of Europe and Asia, is certainly not inferior.

There are a hundred million Slavs scattered over an immense Asiatic and European territory, which stretches from Vladivostock to the Baltic Sea; two and a half milliards of hectares are waiting for the children of this prodigious race. By uniting the peoples of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland to the Germans of Austria, the German race, whether it propagates the gospel of Pan-Germanism by commercial penetration or by violence, possesses about 100 million hectares for 93 millions of men. The Anglo-Saxons, the natural enemies of German expansion, the rivals of the Deutschtum in Asia, Africa, and America, rule an almost unlimited area of milliards of hectares; India, Canada, the United States, South Africa, Egypt, Australia, conquered territories and kingdoms held in tutelage, peoples of all faiths and all races. More than 200 millions of Anglo-Saxons people this "greater Britain" without including India, which is not assimilable.

The territory occupied by the Latin peoples in Europe, America, and Africa is 3.9 million hectares, inhabited by 250 millions of men; the number of Latins is thus not really inferior to that of the Anglo-Saxons, nor are the territories open to Latin expansion inferior to those reserved for the rival race. With the French colonies in Asia they amount to 4 milliards of hectares.

Here we have a Latin superiority; by the extent of their territories and their numbers the Latins outnumber the Slavs and the Germans. They do not yield to the English either in human capital nor in wealth of exploitable territory. And England has reached the zenith of her industrial period, the maximum of her political development; the figures of the birth-rate in the industrial towns are diminishing, and emigration has almost ceased. The State is becoming the protector of a demagogic and decadent crowd. The United States seek to conquer new territories for their imperialist race. But the Latins possess in South America a rich and almost uninhabited continent, and in the north of Africa the French are in process of founding a colonial empire which will rival Egypt in wealth and importance, and will reach from Morocco to the Congo and from Dakar to Tunis.

Reclus calculates that Latin America could feed a hundred persons per square kilometre. While the natality of the Anglo-Saxon cities of the Atlantic seaboard in the United States remains stationary the Latin American population is increasing prodigiously; it is to-day 80 millions, and a century ago, when Humboldt visited the New World, it was approximately only 15 millions. It is possible that by the last years of the present century the number of South Americans will have reached 250 millions; the equilibrium between Latins and Anglo-Saxons will then be broken in favour of the former.

America is thus an essential factor of the future of the Latin nations. The destiny of France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy would be different if the 80 millions of Latin Americans were to lose their racial traditions; if in a century or two America were to pass under the sceptre of the United States, or if the Germans and Anglo-Saxons were to attack and oppress the nucleus of civilisation formed by the Argentine, Uruguay, and Southern Brazil. Economically America would lose markets; intellectually, docile colonies; practically, centres of expansion. To-day Anglo-Saxons, Germans, Slavs, and Neo-Latins are balancing forces which may develop in harmony in the framework of Christian civilisation without wars of conquest and without ambitions of monopoly. The moral unity of South America would contribute to the realisation of such an ideal. A new Anglo-Saxon continent running from Alaska to Cape Horn, built on the ruins of twenty Spanish republics, would be the presage of a final decadence. In the struggles of hundreds of years' duration between the Latin States and the barbarians, between Catholicism and Protestantism, between the French genius and the Teutonic spirit, between the Renaissance and the Reformation, the Latins would have lost the last battle.

America is a laboratory of free peoples. Dr. Charles W. Eliott, rector of the great University of Harvard, has studied the contribution of the United States to modern civilisation. Arbitration as a universal principle, toleration, universal suffrage, material well-being, and political liberty seem to him to be the characteristics of North American culture. In the Latin South we encounter similar principles. Arbitration is the basis of international relations; tolerance from the religious point of view is in process of development. Political liberty is still more a matter of Constitutions than of custom; but the liberal political charters, adapted to the principles of modern civilisation, are the ideal of these republics. When the wilderness is peopled by new races, democracies will grow to maturity within this scaffolding, and universal suffrage, individual rights and tolerance will be realities.

In Latin America, above all among the southern nations, one cannot conceive of the restoration of the old social order, or of despotism and religious inquisition. The new continent, whether Saxon or Latin, is democratic and liberal.

If as in the time of the Holy Alliance the theocratic peoples were to ally themselves—Catholic and warlike Austria, Germany, dominated by Prussian feudalism, Russia, mystic and formidable—the whole American continent would be the bulwark of liberty. If Germans and Latins or Latins and Anglo-Saxtons were to fight between themselves the overseas democracies would greatly contribute to the vitality of the Latin race. If in a Europe dominated by Slavs and Germans the peoples of the Mediterranean were forced to withdraw in painful exodus towards the blue sea peopled by the Greek islands and symbols old as the world, it is probable that the ancient myth would be realised anew, and that the torch which bears the ideal of Latin civilisation would pass from Paris to Buenos-Ayres or Rio de Janeiro, as it passed from Rome to Paris in the modern epoch, or from Greece to Rome in the classic period. America, to-day desert and divided, would save the culture of France and Italy, the heritage of the Revolution and the Renaissance, and would thus have justified to the utmost the fortunate audacity of Christopher Columbus.

[1] Essai sur le gouvernement de la Nouvelle Espagne, vol. i.

[2] Works, vol. ii. p. 160.

[3] National Life and Character, pp. 102 et seq.