Dr. G. von Schulze-Gaevernitz, British Imperialism and English Free Trade at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century, Leipzig, 1906 (477 pp.).
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Scoundrel of the first order and vulgar to boot, Kantian, pro-religion, chauvinist,—has collected some very interesting facts about British imperialism and has written a lively, readable book. Travelled in Britain and collected a mass of material and observa- tions. You’ve done a lot of plundering, you British gentlemen; allow us, too, a bit of plundering—with Kant, God, patriotism, and science to “sanctify” it = such is the sum and substance of the position of this “savant”!! |
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Introduction describes the “foundations of British world power”—the struggle against Holland, France ... the important role of puritanism, religious feeling ((especially)), sexual discipline, etc., etc.
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In Britain, “religious sects have their stronghold in the middle classes, and partly in the upper stratum of the work- ers, whereas the broad middle strata of workers, especially those of the big towns, are in general little susceptible to religious influences” |
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⎛ ⎝ |
N.B. workers’ upper stratum and religion |
⎞ ⎠ |
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p. 56: The Republic and Cromwell gave a tremendous impetus to imperial- ism in Britain, and especially to the building of the navy: under Charles not more than two “ships of the line” were built annually; under the Republic, 22 ships were built in a single year (1654). |
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| the republic and imperialism!!! |
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And at the apogee of Manchesterism and free trade, foreign policy went for- ward with particular rapidity: 1840-42 Opium War; naval expenditure (p. 73): 1837 3s. 3d. per capita 1890 10s. 0d. ” ” |
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| “colonies doubled” |
Between 1866 and 1900 colonial possessions doubled (ibidem). |
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“Sir Robert Peel said long ago: ‘In every one of our colonies we have a second Ireland’”... (75). |
N.B. |
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the British Empire’s appetite was insatiable: Burma, Baluchistan, Egypt, the Sudan, Uganda, Rhodesia, the South African republics were being devoured” (87).
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Incidentally, there is a mention of, Multatuli, his description of European administration of the colonies (104). |
to be verified!! |
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...“The Asiatic states, which Lord Curzon has called ‘the glacis of the Indian fortress’: Persia, Afghanistan, Tibet and Siam” (119). |
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“Great Britain is gradually becoming transformed from an industrial into a creditor state. Notwithstand- ing the absolute increase in industrial output and the export of manufactured goods, there is an increase in the relative importance of income from interest and dividends, issues of securities, commis- sions and speculation for the whole of the national economy. In my opinion, it is precisely this that forms the econo- mic basis of imperialist ascendancy. The creditor is more firmly attached to the debtor than the seller is to the buyer”[1] (122). |
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| N.B. | true!! | |||||
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“He [Peel] thereby” (by establishing and safeguarding a gold currency) “raised the pound sterling to the level of world money—a position which it monopolised until the end of the nine- teenth century” (159). |
N.B.: “monopoly” until the end of the 19th century |
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“To substantiate these views” (in favour of a customs union of the colonies and Great Britain) “reference is made to the damage imperialist tariff policy causes German exports to Canada. |
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Canada is the only country where Germany’s trade expansion has recently come to a halt. This is in contrast to the powerful growth of British trade, and to the advantage of the West Indian sugar producers” (p. 174). |
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| to be returned to (N.B.) |
Exports to Canada | German sugar exports to Canada (mill. marks |
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| British | German | |||||
| (£ mill.) | ||||||
| 1898 | 5.8 | 1.2 | — | |||
| 1899 | 7.0 | 1.2 | — | |||
| 1900 | 7.6 | 1.0 | 4.3 | |||
| 1901 | 7.8 | 1.3 | 6.2 | |||
| 1902 | 10.3 | 1.9 | 9.2 | |||
| 1903 | 11.1 | 1.8 | 2.4 | |||
| 1904 | 10.6 | 1.2 | 0 | |||
(p. 217) United Kingdom exports, in £ mill.
| 1866 | 1872 | 1882 | 1902 | ||||
| To British possessions . . . | 53.7 | 60.6 | 84.8 | 109.0 | |||
| ” Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 63.8 | 108.0 | 85.3 | 96.5 | |||
| ” non-British Asia, Africa and South America |
42.9 | 47.0 | 40.3 | 54.1 | |||
| ” America . . . . . . . . . . . . | 28.5 | 40.7 | 31.0 | 23.8 |
| N.B. |
“One can, therefore, fully agree with the imperial- ists in their appreciation of the value of colonial markets. But, in opposition to the financial reform advocates, it has to be noted that Great Britain has not so far required preferential tariffs in order to dominate these colonial markets. The best that Britain can expect from such preferential tariffs is to strangle the slowly penetrating foreign capital in the future”. |
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| N.B. |
...Incidentally, imperialist trends are strengthened by the fact that “some of these [foreign] protectionist states gain possession of ever more extensive raw-material areas and monopolise them for their own highly protected industry and shipping....
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...“The United States has acted especially brusquely in this respect. Previously, trade between the West Indies and the United States was carried exclusively by British ships. After Puerto Rico had been drawn into a customs union with the U.S.A. and American coastal shipping was given preference, British freight carriers were cut out at a single stroke. In 1900, 97 per cent of the foreign trade of the conquered island was carried by American vessels” (229). “The German customs tariff hitherto in force a British Blue Book notes, amounted to about 25 per cent of the value of the main British export commodities; France, however, took 34 per cent, the United States 73 per cent, and Russia 131 per cent” (230). |
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N.B. good example!! figures N.B. |
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“Whereas from 1865 to 1898 the British national income approximately doubled, the ‘income from abroad’ during the same period, according to Giffen, increased ninefold”[2] (p. 246). |
N.B. (very important) doubled and ninefold |
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The following quotations are from Robert Giffen, Economic Enquiries and Studies, 1904, Vol. II, p. 412 [and Fabian Tract No. 7].
The income from foreign capital investments in 1898 was from £90 million (Giffen)
and up to £118 million. Not less than £100 million (p. 251):
| population | income (estimate) | i.e per capita | ||||||||
| 1861 | 28.9 | mill. | £ 311.8 | mill. | = £ 10.7 | N.B. | ||||
| 1901 | 41.4 | ” | £ 866.9 | ” | = £ 20.9 | |||||
| Export of British Products (excluding ships) (£ 000) |
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| (A) | (B) | (C) | ||
| To countries with protective tariffs |
To neurtal markets |
To British possessions |
Total |
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| 1870 | 94,521 | 53,252 | 51,814 | 199,587 |
| 1880 | 97,743 | 50,063 | 75,254 | 223,060 |
| 1890 | 107,640 | 68,520 | 87,371 | 263,531 |
| 1900 | 115,147 | 73,910 | 93,547 | 282,604 |
| 1902 | 100,753 | 69,095 | 107,704 | 277,552 |
(A) = Europe and United States. (B) = South America, Asia and Africa = “non-European raw-material areas.” (C) = British colonies.
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⎛⎛ ⎝⎝ |
come back to this again and again |
⎞⎞ ⎠⎠ |
“The workers [of Great Britain] organ- ised in trade unions began to engage in practical politics long ago. The extension of the franchise made them masters of a democratised state system—the more so |
| N.B. very important!! |
because the franchise is still sufficiently restricted to exclude the really pro- letarian lower stratum”[3] (298). |
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“This powerful position of the worker is not dan- gerous for Great Britain, for half a century of trade union and political training has taught the worker to identify his interests with those of his industry. It is true that he opposes the employer in questions of the level of wages, hours of work, etc., but exter- nally he is at one with the employer in all matters where the interests of his industry are concerned. It is not rare for employers’ organisations and work- ers’ trade unions to act together on current economic questions. For example, the Lancashire trade unions supported bimetallism until the Indian currency was put on a gold basis; today they are assisting the efforts to introduce cotton cultivation in Africa” (299). He quotes E. Bernstein: “British Workers and the Imperialism of Tariffs Policy” in Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. Vol. XIX, p. 134. |
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N.B. N.B. |
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Now (1903) the workers are against Chamberlain (458 votes to 2 at the 1903 Trades Union Congress).... “The Co-operative Congress, which embraces the entire upper stratum of the workers, adopted the same attitude” (p. 300). |
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| N.B. (on the co-operatives) N.B. |
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That the position of the workers has improved is incontestable. Unemployment is not so con- siderable: “It [unemployment] is a problem that concerns mainly London and the proletarian lower stratum, which is politically of little account”[4] (p. 301) (author quotes the Board of Trade, Labour Gazette, December 1905, p. 355. “In November 1905 there were 24,077 unemployed in London as against 12,354 in the rest of England and Wales”) (note No. 400) |
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| N.B.N.B. | ||||||
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“In view of these facts, the u p p e r strata of the British workers see no reason at present for radical changes in British tariff policy” (p. 301). |
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| = N.B. | ||
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“What the Manchester Exchange used to be, the London Stock Exchange is now— the focal point of the British national economy. However, it is generally admitted that in the multiform world of the Stock Exchange, the leading place today is taken by exotic securities: colonial, Indian, Egyptian, etc., government and municipal loans; South American, especially Argen- tine and Japanese loans; American and Canadian railway and copper shares, but above all South African and West Austra- lian gold-mining shares, African diamond shares, Rhodesian securities, etc.... “In this connection, a new type of man is coming to the fore to take over the helm of the British economy. In place of the industrial entrepreneur with roots in his own country and heavily equipped with buildings and machines, we have the financier, who creates values in order to get them off his hands again as quickly as possible” (310). |
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| “finance capital” N.B. |
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Plant growth in the tropics is immeasurably more vigorous. There is “a tremendous future” for the banana (its flour), which is very easy to produce, and sorghum, dates, rice, etc. “These products are available in practically unlimited quantities, so that the old Malthusian notion of a limited supply of food is refuted and a possible exhaustion of grain areas is no longer a threatening danger” (315-16). |
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| imperialist |
⎛ ⎝ |
The European is of no use here, but the Negro, he says, cannot be trained without coercion. |
⎞ ⎠ |
| N.B.!! |
“In that lies the cultural-historical justification of modern imperialism. |
| N.B. (prospect) N.B. “Europe” =rentier (rides on the Negroes) |
Its danger is that Europe, under the extreme stress of the relations of polit- ical rule, will shift the burden of phys- ical toil—first agricultural and mining, then the unskilled work in industry— on to the coloured races, and itself be content with the role of rentier, and in this way, perhaps, pave the way for the economic, and later, the political emancipation of the coloured races”[5] (317). |
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“South America, and especially Argentina, is so dependent financially on London that it ought to be described as almost a British commer- cial colony”[6] (318). |
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(The tropics and subtropics are mostly in British hands.)
| N.B. N.B. |
“At the top of the list of foreign investments are those placed in politically dependent or allied coun- tries: Great Britain grants loans to Egypt, Japan, China and South America. Her navy plays here the part of bailiff in case of necessity. Great Britain’s political power protects her from the indignation of her debtors”...[7] (320). “As a creditor state, she [Great Britain] relies increasingly on colonial, politically more or less dependent regions, on a ‘New World’” (author quotes here note No. 422, data on incomes in 1902-03: from colonial loans—£21.4 million, from foreign loans—£7.56 million, of which Europe accounts for only £1.48 million!!!). “As a creditor state, Great Britain does not depend on the free-trade interests of Britain as an industrial country; on the contrary, under certain circumstances, she is interested in accelerating colonial development through financial reform. Such is the inner connection between the Stock Exchange and imperialism, between foreign policy and Britain’s interests as a cred- itor. |
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| !!! | |||||||
| N.B. | |||||||
| N.B. | |||||||
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“The creditor state is steadily advancing to the forefront, compared with the industrial state. At any rate, Great Britain’s income as a creditor is already many times greater than net profit from all her foreign trade. Giffen estimated that in 1899, net profit from foreign trade was £18 million on a total import and export turnover of £800 million whereas, according to a most cautious estimate, the interest on foreign loans was already £90-100 million. Moreover, it is rapidly growing, while the per-capita foreign trade income is diminish- ing. It should also be borne in mind that wars and war indemnities, annexations and foreign concessions stimulate Stock-Exchange security issues and that the leaders of the financial world can use most on the press to cultivate imperialistic sentiment. There can be no doubt, therefore, about the economic foundations of imperialism” (321). |
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| N.B. | |||
((but, he adds, not only economics: also ideas, religion, and so on and so forth))
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“The dependence of the most important and effec- tive financial interests of the London Stock Exchange on political imperialism is especially noticeable: the South Africans received a victory reward in the form of Chinese labour that they could never have obtained from old Krüger or from a reformed Volksraad.[11] Nothing is more uncomfortable for them than an opponent as weighty as John Burns who believes the Chinese should be sent home and South Africa made a nursery for cultivating white trade unions. Even Cecil Rhodes, the idol of the South Africans, preferred unorganised black labour and is supposed to have shifted white employees whose trade union sympathies were known to him to remote regions of the country, where they could freely preach their doctrines to the Bushmen and Zulus. The fear of a white labour movement on the Australian pattern is one of the ties which binds the Rand mining magnates to the chariot of polit- ical imperialism” (322). |
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| !!! | |||||||
| !!! N.B.N.B. |
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| N.B. N.B. N.B. |
⎛ ⎝ |
⎛ ⎝ |
and a note, No. 424, directly quotes this statement: the local, South African “leaders of industry” fear the example of Australia.... |
⎞ ⎠ |
⎞ ⎠ |
“The number of rentiers in Great Britain can be reckoned at about a million” (323).
| N.B. | Population of England and Wales |
No. of workers in main indus- tries |
Per cent | |||
| 1851 | 17,928,000 | 4,074,000 | 23 | |||
| 1901 | 32,526,000 | 4,966,000 | 15 |
=“a decline in the proportion of productively employed workers to the total population”[8] ((p. 323))....
“The creditor state is laying a deep imprint on some parts of Great Britain. Free trade or financial reform is, in a certain way, an issue of struggle between the industrial state and the creditor state, but, at the same time, it represents the contradiction between the ‘suburbia’ of Southern England with its villas, where industry and agriculture have been forced into second place, and the productive factory regions of the North. Scotland, too, has been largely taken over by the rentier class and shaped to serve the needs of people who go there for three to four months in the year to play golf, travel in cars and yachts, shoot grouse and fish for salmon. Scotland is the world’s most aristocratic ‘playground’; it, as has been said with some exaggeration, lives on its past and Mr. Carnegie”[9] (324) ((here, as in many other places, the author quotes Hobson)).
This is from §5 (of Chapter III), headed: “The Rentier State.”
§6 is headed: “Capitalist Enervation.” Author sets out facts showing Great Britain’s lag (behind Germany) in industrial development.
Cites following figures inter alia:
Patents were granted (p. 347):
| To Great Britain |
To Germany | To the U.S.A. |
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| In | Germany (1904) | 574 | — | 474 | ||
| ” | France (1904) | 917 | 2,248 | 1,540 | ||
| ” | Gr. Britain (1903) | — | 2,751 | 3,466 | ||
| ” | Italy (1904) | 337 | 1,025 | 314 | ||
| ” | Austria-Hungary (1904) | 154 | 962 | 209 | ||
| ” | Russia (without Finland) (1901) | 146 | 438 | 196 | ||
| ” | Switzerland (1903) | 164 | 897 | 198 | ||
| ” | Canada (1904) | 310 | 185 | 4,417 | ||
| ” | the U.S.A. (1903) | 1,065 | 1,053 | — | ||
| Total | 3,667 | 9,559 | 10,814 | |||
[Author does not give totals.]
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The old puritan spirit has disappeared. Luxury is increasing (360 et seq.).... “On horse- racing and fox-hunting alone, Britain is said to spend annually £14,000,000”[10] (361).... |
£ 14 million!! |
Sport. The Puritans waged a struggle against it. Sport is the sole occupation of “members of the idle, rich class” (362).
“Characteristically, the favourite forms of national sport have a strongly plutocratic stamp” (362).
“They [these forms of sport] assume the existence of a breed of aristocrats who live on the labour of Negroes, Chinese and Indians, on interest and ground-rent flowing in from all over the world, and who value the land of their own country only as a luxury item” (363).
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...“The public, and in particular the working-class public, becomes an inactive but passionately interested spectator” (of sport) (363). |
...“The rentier stratum is essentially without culture. It lives on past and others’ labour and, as William Morris said, it stifles in luxury” (363).
“For Great Britain, the question is whether the rentier class has a sufficiently strong neck to bear the social and political yoke which socialism would like to impose on it. Do the British rentiers already possess enough wealth to be bled for the honour of consuming goods produced by British workers, who have an eight-hour day and a ‘living wage’?” (374)
“The social protective tariff”, the idea behind it: the worker is interested in high prices (Fabian Tract No. 116)—p. 375—so that the country should be richer and able to give the worker a greater share.
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“It” (the realisation of such ideas) (der Ausbau) “is pos- sible, perhaps, for a twentieth-century Great Britain on the basis of a rentier class which exacts tribute from extensive raw-material areas, pays for raw materials and foodstuffs with interest coupons and dividend warrants, and defends its economic domination by political imperialism. Any attempt to bring the socialist state of the future out of the clouds and on to the earth, would have to reckon with the fact that this is possible only on the basis of a strictly national organisation. The country closest to the social utopia, the Australian Commonwealth, would be lost if, with the words ‘Proletarians of all countries unite’, it took the Chinese coolie to its heart. The Britain of which the Labour Party dreams is by no means to be dismissed out of hand as a utopia, but it would be an artificial social structure and would collapse owing to a revolt of the debtors, whom the ruling creditor state would no longer have the strength to subdue by political means” (375). |
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And in note No. 512 he quotes from Justice magazine, December 16, 1905 (!), that “we” must “crush the German fleet”.... “Hyndman [he remarks] embodies the connection between socialism and jingoism, which is especially directed against Germany” (p. 474). |
| N.B. |
(1) the “connection” between socialism and chauvinism; (2) the conditions for the “realisation” of social-chauvinism (the rentier state, keeping the colonies in subjection by political means, etc.).... (3) workers’ exclusiveness and aristocratic attitude (coolies). |
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Idealism in the service of imperialism:
“Economic activity as such does not raise man above the ‘animal world’; this is achieved only by subordinating economic life to supra-economic aims. Thereby, and only thereby, does the simple workman, as also the world ruler, become civilised man in the economic sphere. Idealistic population policy, idealistic national policy, and idealistic social policy require a broad economic foundation, which is thus included in the ‘realm of aims’; they present expanding claims for which the stagnated and fettered type of economy of the previous period does not suffice. In order to cope with our cultural tasks, we need the broad shoulders of the forward-storming Titan called modern capitalism” (401).
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The nation which achieves this “will—for the good of mankind and by the will of God—be at the head of the human race” (402). |
Germany at the head of the world |
End
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In general, everything of scientific value has been stolen from Hobson. He is a plagiarist in the cloak of a Kantian, a religious scoundrel, an imperialist, that’s all. |
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Literature sources:
Richard Jebb, Studies in Colonial Nationalism, London, 1905.
A. F. W. Ingram, Work in Great Cities, London (year?)
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Schulze-Gaevernitz is especially delighted by Bishop Westcott, who “organised friendly intercourse between employers and labour leaders by inviting leading persons from both sides to quarterly conferences in the Bishop’s palace ... here people who had hitherto passionately fought one another learned mutual respect” (p. 415, note No. 53). |
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| !! |
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Holland, Imperium and Libertas, London, 1901. Hobhouse, Democracy and Reaction, London, 1904. |
| (( |
has much of interest on the old, liberal colonial policy |
)) |
| R. Cobden, Pamphlet by “a free-trader and friend of peace”, | ||
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Bremen, 2nd edition, 1876. Cobden was a supporter of peace and disarmament. |
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Also discussed in Nasse, “The Development and Crisis of Economic Individualism in England”, Preus- sische Jahrbücher, Vol. 57, No. 5, p. 445. |
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For instance, Cobden’s remark about colonial policy: “Is it possible that we can play the part of despot and butcher there [in India] without finding our character deteriorate at home?” (p. 423, note No. 104). Ibidem for the separation of Canada. |
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| Cobden | |||
Cobden was against the Crimean War (p. 70 in Schulze-Gaevernitz).
John Morley, Life of Cobden, London, 1896, Vols. 1 and 2.
| Cobden N.B. |
“Cobden declared Britain’s mastery of the seas a ‘usurpation’, the possession of Gibraltar a ‘spectacle of brute violence, unmitigated by any such excuses’.... For Cobden, British rule of India was ‘an utterly hopeless task’... ‘a gamble’.... Cobden demanded unilateral reduc- tion of the British army and navy as a first step to international disarmament.... Cobden de- clared that war was only justified when part of the country’s territory had been occupied by the enemy”... (70-71). Marcks, The Present-Day Imperialist Idea, Dresden, 1903. |
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| !! N.B. |
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| N.B. |
De Thierry, Imperialism, London, 1898.
G. P. Gooch, The Heart of the Empire, London, 1902 (a Liberal criticism of imperialism).
Doerkes-Boppard, History of the Constitution of the Australian Colonies, Munich, 1903.
Baron von Oppenheimer, British Imperialism, Vienna, 1905.
| Irishman’s hatred of Britain | ||
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The newspaper The Gaelic American in New York. Inter alia, the meeting of November 18, 1905 (p. 429, note No. 136)—a protest against the policy of Edward (Delcassé, etc.) of in- volvement in a war with Germany. From the resolution: |
N.B. | |||
“England’s alliance with Japan guarantees Japanese aid to enable her to hold India in subjection, and she seeks American help to keep Ireland and South Africa down”....
On the “oppositional tone of the Indian press” ....
Meredith Townsend, Asia and Europe, 3rd edition, 1905.
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Younghusband, “Our True Relationship with India” in the symposium Empire and the Century. Also his article in The Monthly Review, February 17, 1902 (it is now easier for us to transport 200,000 troops to India than it was to transport 20,000 in 1857, and in face of excellent artillery, what can they do? p. 434, note No. 155). |
N.B. | |||
Of the many books about Cecil Rhodes, the author mentions a “highly amusing lampoon” (note No. 171):
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Mr. Magnus, London (Fisher Unwin), 1896. Title? |
N.B.? |
Africander, “Cecil Rhodes—Colonist and Imperialist” in The Contemporary Review, 1896, March.
Paul Jason, Development of Income Distribution in Great Britain, Heidelberg, 1905.
R. Giffen, Economic Enquiries, London, 1904. Two vols. (“extremely optimistic”) (p. 458, note No. 342).
E. Bernstein, “British Workers and the Imperialism of Tariffs Policy” in Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft, Vol. XIX, p. 134.
L. G. Chiozza-Money, British Trade and the Zollverein Issue, London, 1902.
| E. Jaffé, British Banks, Leipzig, 1905, pp. 125, 142, | ||||
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172 and passim. “The ratio of bills drawn by foreign countries on Britain to bills drawn by Britain on foreign countries is as 9 : 1” (p. 464, note No. 404). |
N.B. | |||
|
⎧ ⎪ ⎨ ⎪ ⎩ |
Charles Dilke, The Problems of Greater Britain, London (year?) H. D. Lloyd, Newest England, 1902 (London). Schulze-Gaevernitz, Towards Social Peace, Leipzig, 1890. Two vols. ⤜⟶The example of Australia, and her influence: “a socialism that addresses itself to the ruling class”. |
End
Multatuli.
Gooch, History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century (1913).
[1] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 278.—Ed.
[2] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 281.—Ed.
[3] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 282.—Ed.
[4] Ibid., p. 282.—Ed.
[5] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 281.—Ed.
[6] Ibid., p. 263.—Ed.
[7] Ibid., pp. 277-78.—Ed.
[8] See present edition, Vol. 22, p. 282.—Ed.
[9] Ibid.—Ed.
[10] Ibid.—Ed.
[11] Volksraad—the Boer parliament.
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