Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

notable sitccess to our united efforts developed because of the overwhelining necessity of defeating Germany,— a need so urgent and so immediate that no other consideration could exist beside it. Race prejudice, trade rivalry, conflicting ambitions,—all gave way to the business of victory, and in face of the almost universal failure of such alliances throughout history, the great Entente fought a bitter war and resisted every effort of an ingenious and resourceful enemy to sow the seeds of dissension in its ranks. Not until the allied nations felt themselves secure against immediate peril from this common enemy have we seen signs of the revival of threatening jealousies.

The unpractical idealists, and there are many of them, are disposed to read into this remarkable example of harmonious action a significance at once false and dangerous. They ask us to believe that the international friendships produced by war will grow and ripen under the generous influences of peace, and declare that the price of the conflict, in blood, suffering, and destruction, has not been too high, since it is now proved that the nations of the world can in an emergency be brought together unselfishly to serve a common aim. If this can be done where the material surroundings are bloodshed and violence, how easy it should be, according to our theorists, to extend and perpetuate internationalism now that the goal of common action is the happiness of mankind.

The practical man, however, sees the probability of a very different sequel to the war. He recalls that in England, in France, in Italy, and even in the United States, the general condition of affairs immediately prior to the war was most threatening. Labor was discontented, capital was nervous, taxation was mounting at what we then thought to be an alarming rate. Government was

attempting, even in conservative England, to head off the danger of revolutionary socialism by enacting semi-socialist legislation. International commercial competition had reached a point where it was indistinguishable from political competition. Unemployment, not less in the United States than elsewhere, was worse than it had been for many years. The situation was indeed critical.

Then came the war! Came and passed! And now, after the turmoil of strife, the old-time struggle and rivalry are cropping up again. Furthermore, the problems which lie before us to-day are not those of the days "before the war," for, far from solving them, the war has immeasurably complicated them. Each one of these problems has been magnified out of all semblance to its former self, and to each have been added new and puzzling elements.

The broad task before us is, then, to adjust our national life to these new world conditions, and, because of the magnitude and importance of such an enterprise, we must set forth certain general considerations before examining in detail the various aspects of the undertaking. The three principal European belligerents, it should be noted, very early provided themselves with organizations devoted to handling after-the-war problems. Germany, in 1916, was the first to act, and she was followed within a year by France and England. It was not, however, until October, 1918, that the first sign of interest in such matters on the part of the American Congress came to light in the form of a proposal by Senator Weeks of Massachusetts that a commission be created for the study of our national requirements after the conclusion of peace.

Although the terms of peace have imposed heavy burdens upon Germany, her commercial agents are already

active in Russia, South America and elsewhere, attempting to gather up the old lines of influence that were temporarily broken. In our own country, although through various governmental reports and studies by such private organizations as the Foreign Trade Council and the United States Chamber of Commerce we are gathering valuable material, and although in the passage of financial and railway legislation a really good beginning has been made, we are still only on the threshold of our new business structure. Our attention may well be turned to some of these after-the-war problems, that we may learn something of what this new business structure must become in order successfully to cope with the changing situation.

During those first few months which followed the armistice the energies of the nation were bent upon the immediate task of bringing our soldiers home, demobilizing them, providing for the wounded, and replacing the sound and healthy in our social and industrial system. This work has been largely, although not yet entirely accomplished, and we now face matters of larger import which concern national and international affairs. The solution of these questions involves a broad knowledge of affairs, and a comprehensive view of world-wide movements and conditions. While they touch every element of our national life, they are to our misfortune inextricably mixed up with politics; in fact, they involve the consideration of every vital factor in the internal and external activities of our government, both on its political and its administrative side: the tariff, our immigration policy, our educational system, our domestic trade and industry, our foreign commerce, our merchant marine, the question of government ownership or control of big business, and the relations between labor and capital.

These matters simply cannot be taken up where they were left at the outbreak of war and made after a fashion to serve our present needs. They must be frankly and carefully examined in a spirit favorable to profound changes in practice, and possibly even to some modifications in principle, if the facts disclose the necessity. Our object in the following pages, therefore, must be to consider each separate problem deliberately, fairly, and thoroughly, remembering all the while that it is but a single wheel in a complicated machine, in which no single part can be perfect without proper correlation with the whole. We must strive to point the way to relative perfection for every part, but we must always keep in mind the necessities of the whole and of every other part in relation thereto.

We must start with the proposition that every shortcoming of which we were conscious before the war has now become much more urgent and much more difficult to deal with. And we must not forget that the European nations, because of the desperate straits in which they now find themselves, will be compelled to develop to the utmost every resource at their command if they are to avert national bankruptcy. This forces the problem of trade rivalry upon our consideration.

Our three great trade rivals-England, France, and even Germany with all her burdens,-in spite of their great handicaps of crushing debt and a depleted labor force, to which is added the incalculably disturbing factor of political unrest, have already begun, and in the future will continue to force the competition for foreign markets to a point immeasurably beyond anything we have heretofore been called upon to meet. Our rivals will not be content with merely getting back to their old basis of production, for if they do no more than that they will

be unable to meet even the interest on their national debts. It should, therefore, be brought home to every American that our ability merely to hold our own,-to retain, much less to advance, the high standard of living in this country, cannot be left to depend upon a measure of national efficiency which sufficed under the old conditions to supply our incomparable home market and to leave us a comfortable surplus for international trade. This is not a time for complacency. Our commercial rivals will direct their best intelligence to improving the technique of every business and manufacturing operation, and they will begin this process not in the office and the factory, but in the school and the university. Every energy will be turned to furthering this single aim.

The home training, the educational system, the governmental institutions of these nations will be enlisted in this work, so that the natural abilities of their people and the natural resources of their territories may be made to yield the utmost harvest of effectiveness. That they have every right as well as every incentive to do this no sensible man can deny. The part of wisdom for us lies not in caviling at their efforts but in emulating them. We recognize, when face to face with this situation, that the American has certain advantages and certain disadvantages. Of these it may be well to take stock before we go further.

On the credit side of our account it may be set down that, compared in business matters with the average European, the American is, on the whole, more adaptable, quicker in initiative, less enslaved by custom; that we have at our disposal greater resources both in capital and in raw material; that we are closer to the great undeveloped resources of South America and China, and that much of our country is still unsettled.

On the debit side it must be admitted that we Ameri

« НазадПродовжити »