Page:Imperialism, A Study.djvu/20

 financial, diplomatic, military, of the national government so as to secure preferential access to foreign markets and foreign areas of development by colonics, protectorates, spheres of preferential trade and other methods of a pushful economic foreign policy. It may be true that the people of the imperialist state are in the long, or even the short, run losers by a policy so costly in money and in lives. But if, as is normally the case, the larger part of this expense falls upon the public as a whole, it may still be advantageous to those capitalist interests engaged in foreign trade and investments to promote a policy that is to their profit. Even if, as Sir Norman Angell contends, such imperialism involves war-making and with it the perils of a domestic revolution fatal to the capitalist regime, the risks of such an issue may either be unrealised, or may be disregarded in view of the immediate gains which imperialism brings to favoured industries. If, as many close investigators of the business world appear to hold, the capitalism which has prevailed for the past few centuries is in any case destined to disappear, it may seem better for its defenders to endeavour to prolong its life by political pressure for external markets than to succumb without a struggle to the popular demand for state socialism or a policy of social services, the expenses of which shall consume the whole of surplus profits. There still remain large fields for capitalist exploitation. The largest of these, China, appears to be marked down for Japanese exclusive exploitation. But this appearance is deceptive, for the task of Chinese development far exceeds the national resources of Japan. If capitalists in the several Western Powers were capable of intelligent co-operation, instead of wrangling among themselves for separate national areas of exploitation, they would have combined for a joint international enterprise in Asia, a project which might have given the whole of Western capitalism another generation