There is another, the Asiatic, side to the question. Without a doubt the
Asiatic territories in the Pacific will not continue to offer rich
prizes for European Powers seeking trade advantages through setting up
"spheres of influence." Since Japan won recognition as a nation she has
framed her tariffs to suit herself. In the earlier stages of her
industrial progress she imported articles, learned to copy them, and
then imposed a prohibitive tariff on their importation. Various kinds of
machinery were next copied and their importation stopped. China may be
expected to follow the same plan. Europe and America may not expect to
make profits out of exploiting her development. A frank recognition of
this fact would conduce to peace in the Pacific. If it can be agreed
that neither as regards her territory nor her markets is China to be
served up as the prize of successful dominance of the Pacific, one of
the great promptings to warfare there would disappear. "Asia for the
Asiatics" is a just policy, and would probably prove a wise one.
In discussing the position of Asiatic labour in the Pacific I have taken
a view which will dissatisfy some alarmists who cite the fact that the
wage rate for labour in Western Canada and Australia is about 8s. a day,
and in China and Japan about 1s. a day; and conclude therefore that the
Asiatic power in the industrial field is overwhelming. But an
examination of actual working results rather than theoretical
conclusions from a limited range of facts will very much modify that
conclusion. Asiatic labour competition, if allowed liberty of access for
the worker as well as his work, would undoubtedly drag down the White
communities of the Pacific. But when the competition is confined to the
work, and the workman is kept at a distance, it is not at all as serious
a matter as some have held, and can always be easily met with tariff
legislation. The most serious blow to European and American
industrialism that Asia could inflict would be an extension of the
Japanese protective system to the Asiatic mainland. Yet that we could
not grumble at; and it would have a compensating advantage in taking
away the temptation to conflict which the rich prize of a suzerainty
over the Chinese market now dangles before the industrial world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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