world dominion she represents herself as anti-imperialist and liberal, ready to encourage the aspirations of all downtrodden peoples-in short, as the true apostle of the much vaunted principle of self-determination." What has been China's reaction to this world calamity? China, the most beguiled, the most befriended, the most impassive of nations! Will she be partitioned? Will she become Japan's "horse" upon which that nation will ride to world dominion? Is she manifesting symptoms of self-assertion? Or will she remain forever the impassive sea absorbing alike belligerent and friendly invader and continue her national existence whether in storm or calm! What now is transpiring in China has transpired throughout the ages. The World War did not make China's millions "safe for democracy," nor did it bring internal peace and unity. The results were, nevertheless, definite and prophetic of a national greatness yet unrecorded in her annals. The great war drew China further out into the current of world politics and cast up her representative, the strong young Christian statesman, G. Wellington Koo, at the council table of the League of Nations; it cleared the vision of Chinese statesmen who are beginning to see China's problem with an eye single to national interests. They realize now that it is China's own exertions that must save her and not those of America or other powers. She now is aware that national integrity demands that encroachments of other nations upon her sovereign rights must be thwarted. She has discovered the imperative need of recovering her treaty ports, controlling tariffs, withdrawing concessions and freeing herself from extra-territorialities. These are a few of the significant effects of the World War on China and her leaders. The Browns India, the population center of the brown world, has approximately three hundred twenty millions of people, twothirds of the brown population of the world and one-fifth of the grand total. This vast section of brown humanity Ibid, p. 519 ff. is a seething ocean of social and political unrest. As early as 1906 the national spirit in India was troublesome to England. By 1916, because of international diplomatic complications incident to the war, England was forced to a line of action which resulted in a closer union of Mohammedans and Hindus in opposition to the government. Since that time the threat to England's supremacy has been grave. India's contribution to the success of the Allies was no small one. To quote B. G. Horniman: They supported the war by colossal sacrifices... enormous sums were raised for hospitals and the philanthropic side of the war generally. A million and a half of men went to shed their blood on the battlefields of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and even to fight against the Turks, whose Sultan exercises spiritual authority over so many of India's soldiers, and whose allegiance to their temporal sovereign was sustained by the solemn promise made to them that their spiritual interests would not be assailed or allowed to suffer. There is little margin for the taxation of a people so poor, but that imposed was borne without complaint, and one loan after another was raised, while in addition a free gift of a million sterling was made by the poorest to the richest nation in the world.10 The same author continues: They [the Indians] were enthusiastic for the war at the outset, the cause stirred their imagination and roused their sympathy . . . and they never wavered in the loyalty of their attitude to the Allies' cause. They believed the war was being waged for the freedom of all, and the reiterated declarations of one British statesman after another and the expressed ideals with which President Wilson came into the war encouraged them in the high hope that their freedom as a full partner in the Empire must inevitably follow the winning of freedom for others by help of their sacrifices. So, while for the most part they were uncomplaining, they kept up a steady agitation for their own claims. Con 10 Benjamin Guy Horniman, Amritsar and Our Duty to India. cessions were made. A writer in the Queen's Quarterly for December, 1921, states:11 Let us look at the great strides which India has made in the world as a result of the great part she played in the great struggle. The sacrifices which India made in the common cause. . . won for her a new and proud place among the nations which make up the British Empire... The Imperial Conference... welcomed representatives of India to its council board for the first time in 1917. ...India, too, is an independent member of the League of Nations; and already at the meeting of the Assembly of the League...her representatives have made their voice heard. Like the Dominion Governments, India has now her high commissioner in London...commissioned ranks of the army have been opened to Indians and one-half of the posts of the higher branches of public service are now reserved for natives of India. Many limitations formerly restricting the Indian legislature have been removed. "It now enjoys a very large measure of control over the annual appropriations and over all taxation bills." India has fiscal liberty in relation to other parts of the Empire which she has exercised in a "drastic revision of the tariff" to the great displeasure of certain interests of Lancashire. But the national ambitions of India aroused by contact with western influences have not been satisfied by these concessions. A writer in the Asiatic Review,12 asks, "What are the motives, conscious or unconscious which prompted India's outburst of generosity?" He replies that she had but one object-"to show her loyalty and to prove what that loyalty is worth. They felt the joy at the opportunity to prove their claim to be regarded worthy members of the Empire"... "A relation has been established which can only be incurred with honor between friends and equals.” The masses of India now demand home rule. Since 1917 the nationalist movement has spread with alarming rapid 11E. A. Horne, The Present Political Situation in India. 12"India After the War," by E. Agnes Haigh, Asiatic Review, N. S., Vol. 5, pp. 415-422, Nov. 16, 1914. ity. "When," as one writer has said,13 "before the end of 1921 it was realized that the Gandhi movement...was spreading alarmingly" the British took measures to uphold the authority of the crown. The writer continues: It is realized, however, that repression will fail, and that the only way to counteract and discredit the Gandhi movement is for the government of India to convince the people that they are well off and that they are being justly treated under British rule. The agitation for self-government will subside only when the Mohammedans are placated by a drastic revision of the treaty of Sèvres; when Indian tariffs are adjusted in the interest of India and not of Great Britain, and when the Indian people, forced to bear their share of the burdens of defending and maintaining the British Empire, will receive in return full privileges within the Empire enjoyed by British subjects of European origin. Leadership is passing from individuals to masses. It has encompassed both the radical and the nationalist parties. "One decisive outcome of the war," says a recent writer,14 "is that both parties, equally out of genuine conviction, stand for the permanent place of India as a constituent part of the British Empire. They desire their country to be on the same self-governing basis as Canada, Australia, and South Africa"...."Great and small, the note of discontent is present in every Indian heart." The latest, and to England the most disquieting, evidence of this fact is that the warlike Sikhs have joined Gandhi's Swaraj Sabha (Self-Governing Society), whose leader, according to Basanta Koomar Roy,15 "has more following than any other political leader ever had in any country. This makes him the powerful man of earth today... Gandhi-ism has fired the imaginations of the teeming millions of India and has stirred the country to its foundations and is threatening the existence of British rule in India and British supremacy in the East... He is moving one-fifth of the 18H. A. Gibbons, Introduction to World Politics, p. 504. population of the world to a destiny that cannot yet be definitely defined but which is sure to change the color map of the world." As in India so in Egypt and throughout the brown belt stretching the full length of North Africa. Where there was discontent and dissatisfaction before the war, there is now revolt and revolution. In the ancient land of the Pharaohs British imperialism is deadlocked with Egyptian nationalism. Basing their demands on the doctrine of "self-determination," the "rights of small nations," the "rights of oppressed nationalities" they have continued their demands from the time of the meeting of the Versailles Conference until recent events when Great Britain was forced to acceed to their claims and establish the Egyptian kingdom under King Fuad. This regime is supported by a combination of political parties under the nationlist banner. Likewise, in unhappy Korea where "militant nationalists prefer death to living under Japanese rule;"16 among the desert peoples of Asia and Africa; in Syria, in the plateaus of Tibet and the sands of Sudan; among the Arabs of Hedjez-who made possible British conquests in Palestinehave been registered in the pulse beats of the brown man the throbs of democratic aspirations radiating from the shock centers of Western Europe where Nordic nations are destroying a common civilization and giving the lie to their preachments of the brotherhood of man. 17 The Reds The red men live south of the Rio Grande river. They constitute about forty millions of the seventy-five millions below that line. Their country is governed by the pure white race, who, when they invaded the new land, did not destroy the Aborigines but inter-married with them. There is consequently today no color line or race problem in any of the Latin-American countries. Neither is there any such aversion to the Chinese, Japanese, or East Indians as is 16 Henry Chung, The Case of Korea, p. 189. 17 Wm. W. Sweet, A History of Latin-America, p. 225. |