The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-SupremacyStoddard, Lothrop
History
The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy
Stoddard, Lothrop
Caucasian race; Race relations
"With an ocean of such labor power to draw on, China would appear to be on
the eve of a manufacturing development that will act like a continental
upheaval in changing the trade map of the world. The impression is
deepened by the tale of industries that have already sprung up."[144]
Of course there is another side to the story. Low wages alone do not
insure cheap production. As Professor Ross remarks: "For all his native
capacity, the coolie will need a long course of schooling, industrial
training, and factory atmosphere before he inches up abreast of the German
or American working man."[145] In the technical and directing staffs there
is the same absence of the modern industrial spirit, resulting in chronic
mismanagement, while Chinese industry is further handicapped by
traditional evils like "squeeze," nepotism, lust for quick profits, and
incapacity for sustained business team-play. These failings are not
peculiar to China; they hamper the industrial development of other Asiatic
countries, notably India. Still, the way in which Japanese industry, with
all its faults, is perfecting both its technic and its methods shows that
these failings will be gradually overcome and indicates that within a
generation Asiatic industry will probably be sufficiently advanced to
supply at least the Asiatic home-markets with most of the staple
manufactures.
Thus it looks as though white manufactures will tend to be progressively
eliminated from Asiatic markets, even under conditions of absolutely free
competition. But it is a very moot point whether competition will remain
free--whether, on the contrary, white wares will not be increasingly
penalized. The Asiatic takes a keen interest in his industrial development
and consciously favors it even where whites are in political control. The
"swadeshi" movement in India is a good example, while the Chinese and
Egyptian boycotts of foreign as against native goods are further
instances in point. The Japanese have supplemented these spontaneous
popular movements by systematic governmental discrimination in favor of
Japanese products and the elimination of white competition from Japan and
its dependencies. This Japanese policy has been markedly successful, and
should Japan's present hegemony over China be perpetuated the white man
may soon find himself economically as well as politically expelled from
the whole Far East.
A decade ago Putnam Weale wrote warningly: "If China is forced, owing to
the short-sighted diplomacy of those for whom the question has really
supreme importance, to make common cause with Japan as a _pis aller_, then
it may be accepted as inevitable that in the course of time there will be
created a _mare clausum_, which will extend from the island of Saghalien
down to Cochin-China and Siam, including all the island-groups, and the
shores of which will be openly hostile to the white man....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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