1. Note on terminology: This expression "investment friction" will be used as a substitute for the lengthy and awkward locution, "international political friction between national states either caused by or associated with the investment of private capital abroad." Similarly, the expression "international investment conflict," or simply "investment conflict" will be used to mean clashes of interest or attitude associated with the investment of private capital abroad, insofar as these clashes involve private persons and groups, not states. Thus, antagonism between the native population of a Chinese province and foreigners who are building a railroad through the province is "investment conflict." If foreign governments send threatening notes to the Chinese government in connection with these matters, or if they quarrel among themselves over the railroad, then we have "investment friction."
2. Burton J. Hendrick, The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page (Garden City, N. Y., 1922), I, 217, 251.
J. Fred Rippy, The Capitalists and Colombia (New York, 1931), pp. 108-11, points out that it is a question whether or not the pressure from the United States was the really effective influence in leading Cowdray to abandon his projects in Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and elsewhere. The Page letters merely show that such pressure was exerted.
3. File of clippings on Abyssinia in the "Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv" of the Institut fur Weltwirtschaft, Kiel, especially "Das Tsanasee-Problem," by Max Grühl, leader of the German expedition to Abyssinia in 1925-6 and 1927-8, in the Kölnische Zeitung, July 8, 1928; Wirtschaftsdienst (Hamburg), March 21, 1931.
4. The facts are well presented in Herbert Feis, Europe the World's Banker: 1870-1914 (New Haven, 1930), p. 376.
5. Feis, op. cit., Chapter V, "Finance and Government in France," especially pp. 133, 148, 153-4
6. Cited by P. Arndt, "Wesen und Zweck der Kapitalanlage im Auslande," Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft, N. F., III (1912), 188, from the Reichstag debates of February 11, 1911, p. 20 of the stenographic reports.
7. Die Grosse Politik, numbers 8980, 8996, and Bülow's statement in number 8992, with comments by Kaiser Wilhelm II.
8. Karl Helfferich, Deutsche Türkenpolitik (Berlin, 1921), p. 20 ff., quoted in Rudolf Ibbeken, Das Aussenpolitische Problem, Staat und Wirtschaft in der deutschen Reichspolitik 1880-1914 (Schleswig, 1928), pp. 265-6.
10. Walter H. C. Laves, doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago, 1927, p. 206. (An abridgment of Dr. Laves' thesis was published in the Political Science Quarterly, December, 1928, Vol. XLIII, pp. 498-519.)
14. F. M. Huntington Wilson, former Assistant Secretary of State under Knox in the Taft administration, in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 68 (November, 1916), 303.
15. The Diplomatic Protection of Citizens Abroad, p. 400.
16. On the basis of concrete, factual evidence, that is. Of course, one might assume premises to suit himself and deduce whatever answer he likes best.
17. Some items are omitted, such as "successful" and "unsuccessful" investments.
18. The exceptions are Belgian investments in the Congo, which led to exploitation of the natives and also to international political complications, and the recent friction over German private debts, in which capital from Holland and Switzerland figured prominently.
19. No doubt cases of political friction involving the investments of these smaller countries can be found, though most of them would be in close connection with investments of major powers. For example, the Royal Dutch-Shell oil interests have derived their international political significance from their British rather than their Dutch connections, and Belgian investments in China became involved politically because much of the capital which went out from Brussels was really French and was regarded as such.
20. Sometimes, as in the investment of German capital in Shantung, private investments have been made in a given region under governmental auspices, with direct or indirect governmental stimulation, and at the same time other private investments have been made in the same region from purely business motives. This explains the frequent appearance of x-marks in more than one column of heading V (Table I) with reference to the same case, for "patriotic" investments of different types and "purely business" investments may be involved in the same political friction.
21. Cf. Karl Helfferich, Georg von Siemens (Berlin, 2d edn., 1923), II, 99, 128, 132-3.
22. The only political complications concerning them have been due to the World War.
24. The discussion of Canadian capital imports and their political significance is based on remarks by Professor Jacob Viner before the Roundtable on Canadian-American Relations, Williamstown Institute of Politics, August 20, 1929. See Report of the Roundtables and General Conferences at the Ninth Session, edited by Richard A. Newhall (Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1929), p. 129. Cf. also J. Viner, Canada's Balance of International Indebtedness, 1900-13 (Cambridge, Mass., 1924).
25. Cf. R. G. Hawtrey, Economic Aspects of Sovereignty (London and New York, 1930), pp. 33, 52-57.
26. In Argentina and Uruguay, for example, the evaluation of French holdings presented considerable difficulties. Frenchmen who migrate to such countries arrive with modest capitals, become rich, "but the fortune thus acquired can be counted only partially as an asset of the mother country, for in the great majority of cases it is destined to be denationalized. French firms, French industries, are in the hands of Frenchmen who make Argentina their country by adoption and whose children will usually be Argentine citizens." Not so, however, in countries like China. (Journal Officiel, September 25, 1902, report on the French fortune abroad, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.)
27. The Russian and German cases were tabulated as "B" cases, the Italian as an "A," and the Saar instance as both "A" and "B."
28. The same cannot be said of the investments of the United States, of course.
29. Japan traveled this road rapidly in the past, and now private foreign investments in Japan are hardly more likely to become involved in political friction than are similar investments in other "advanced" countries.
.
1. note on terminology, second paragraph of Chapter 13.
2. Davis R. Dewey, State Banking before the Civil War (Washington, U. S. National Monetary Commission, 1910), p. 28.
3. New York Times, January 20, 1933; also January 19. The account which multitudes of Americans read in Time, a weekly "newsmagazine," further illustrates the nationalistic aura which surrounds capital-labor conflicts that cut national boundaries, and also how these lend themselves to sensationalizing by news organs in quest of interesting stories. The report leads off with a notice which the Singer branch manager had found posted on his door some weeks earlier: "Look Out! Brute-like American by name of Aurell dismissed his company's 1,000 employes who logically worked for the company's interests, yet obtained not a sen at their retirement from services. Aurell dares to discharge the employes thus cruelly and is still indifferent. There is no knowing what he further attempts to kill the employes to starvation. Neighbors! Be very careful about Aurell whose inhuman acts know no bounds. Expel Aurell from Japan. (Signed) All Japan Singer Sewing Machine Employes Union." Then follows a dramatic account of the approach and depredations of the rioters. "All this took 20 minutes. Police, who must have seen the mob of 200 approach, arrived tardily, arrested 138.... Last week the United States Embassy and the Swiss Legation in Tokyo hotly protested.... In previous anti-Singer riots, marchers have carried anti-foreign banners: 'Down With Foreign Capital!'; 'The United States Is Rich But Little Japan Can Whip It!'; 'Give Foreign Factories To Japanese Workers!' Last week no such banners were reported. . . ." The critical reader will notice that this colorful story introduces insinuations against the Japanese police, makes the diplomats protest "hotly" the Associated Press reported a "request" for immediate investigation), and uses the banners alleged to have been carried on previous occasions to impart the anti-foreign tone which the riotous strikers on this occasion apparently neglected to supply. (See Time, January 30, 1933.)
4. Occasionally difficulty has arisen over threatened or actual introduction of a considerable group of workers below managerial grade from abroad. When the Harriman Company, for example, announced its intention of bringing one hundred Americans to its metal works in Upper Silesia, at a daily wage of $5.60 plus transportation, the Polish labor organization protested, pointing to 46,000 unemployed in that district, and requested the government to intervene. (Frank A. Southard, Jr., American Industry in Europe [Boston, 1931], p. 164.)
5. Cf., Parker T. Moon, Imperialism and World Politics (New York, 1927), pp. 85 ff.; E. D. Morel, Red Rubber (Manchester, 1919), The Black Man's Burden (Manchester, 1920); and other books cited by Moon.
6. Stuart Chase, Mexico, A Study of Two Americas (New York, 1931), p. 220.
7. The labor and social problems that may be created by the unrestrained activities of foreign capital, especially through its acquisition of land, are clearly pointed out in a study by Melvin M. Knight, The Americans in Santo Domingo (New York, 1928). See especially pp. 24, 142-3, 160, 164.
Readers particularly interested in the crucial question of land policy with respect to the fate of non-industrialized native populations will do well to examine Raymond Leslie Buell's The Native Problem in Africa (New York, 1928), the documentation of the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations, and the articles and bibliography on "Native Policy" in the Encyclopædia of the Social Sciences.
9. Of course, these countries also have the benefit of previous experience to guide them in mitigating the undesirable effects of industrialization. They do not have to re-invent factory legislation, for example.
10. Cf. Henry Kittredge Norton, China and the Powers (New York, 1927), p. 170.
11. Mongton Chih Hsu, Railway Problems in China (New York, Columbia University Studies, 1915), pp. 20-21; Herbert H. Gowen and Josef Washington Hall, An Outline History of China (New York and London, 1929), pp. 289-90.
14. Gowen and Hall, op. cit., pp. 455-6.
15. Introduction by W. Tetley Stephenson to M. J. Cheng, Communications and Economics in China (London, 1930).
16. Norton, op. cit., p. 177; Gowen and Hall, op. cit., pp. 497-501.
17. W. F. Collins, Mineral Enterprise in China (London and New York, 1918).
The following excerpts from a concession issued to the Yunnan Syndicate, a Franco-British mining company, in 1902 indicate some of the problems raised by mining in China:
"Article VII. In order to avoid all cause of trouble the Yunnan Syndicate, Limited, undertakes to avoid all operations or encroachments during the construction of the means of communication or the working of the mines, which may damage houses, fields, or graves. The Syndicate will also respect the customs and usages of Yunnan, the mines worked by the State, and the rights acquired by private persons.
"Article XVI. Since the Imperial Government and the Provincial Authorities share in the profits realized by the Syndicate, they have a pecuniary interest in safeguarding the mining enterprises of the Syndicate. In consequence, orders will be given to the local authorities to conform in the strictest manner with the clauses of the present convention.
"Article XVII. The Syndicate will do
all in its power to keep up the best possible relations with
the authorities. Any want of respect to an official, and any
unfriendly act of which an employee may be guilty, must be reported
by the local official. The Syndicate undertakes to dismiss an
official who has been proved guilty, or at least not to allow
him to work on the same mine."
(Ibid., Appendix V.)
18. Dr. B. Ischchanian, Die ausländischen Elemente in der Russischen Volkswirtschaft (Berlin, 1913, pp. 136-139.
20. Ch. Pomaret, L'Amérique à la conquête de l'Europe (Paris, 1931).
21. The Secretary of Agriculture in Czechoslovakia said in 1928 that "thousands of Czechish workers are today in the service of foreign capital. The nationalization of industry must be carried out in order that the rise and decline of business shall not be merely a source of profit to foreigners." (Quoted in Frank A. Southard, Jr., American Industry in Europe (Boston and New York, 19311, p. 185.)
Extreme financial protectionism designed to maintain high rates of interest and profit for the benefit of domestic capitalists, such as lay behind the Rumanian oil law of 1924, is relatively rare, however.
22. Mainly based on a study published in 1918, Raphael Polak, Wering van Vreemden Invloed uit Nationale Ondernemingen (Amsterdam, 1918). There is no doubt that the rampant nationalism of recent years has multiplied such measures considerably.
23. H. Thomas, "Les cables sous-marin," Revue Economique Internationale, 1906, II, 298 ff. Indeed, England has required that its companies have no foreign employees in any of their stations, accept the control of no other government, and run their lines through no foreign office. The example of England has been followed by other countries. The obligation to employ only nationals was imposed by the United States on the Commercial Pacific Cable Company.
25. Abendblatt, September 11, 1929. Cited in Southard, op. cit., p. 181, on which the material in the text is based.
26. L'information, October 26, 1929.
27. Cases selected by Mr. Southard from files of the Economist, Manchester Guardian Commercial, and English daily newspapers.
28. Southard, op. cit., p. 180.
29. That devices of this type are not altogether new developments of the last decade is shown by the large variety of such methods enumerated in the 1918 study drawn upon above.
An official publication bearing on the topic is Iver C. Olsen, Rights of Foreign Shareholders of European Corporations, United States Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Trade Information Bulletin No. 659, October, 1929.
30. Charles R. Flint, Memories of an Active Life (New York, 1923), pp. 69-72.
31. Herbert Feis, Europe the World's Banker:.1870-1914 (New Haven, 1930), p. 428; Foreign Relations of the United States, 1911, p. 236.
32. E. A Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers and the Bagdad Railway (New York, 1924), p. 84.
33. Gustav Herlt, "Zusarnmenschrumpfungen der weltwirtschaftlichen Beziehungen der Türkei," Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft und Sozialpolitik, V (N. F.), 1927, pp. 137-8.
34. Karl Helfferich, Georg von Siemens (Berlin, 2d edn., 1923), I, 89.
35. A. C. Millspaugh, The American Task in Persia (New York and London, 1925), pp. 18-19.
37. Leland James Gordon, American Relations with Turkey, 1830-1930, An Economic Interpretation (Philadelphia, 1932), pp. 282, 286.
38. Foreign Policy Association, Information Service, V (May, 1929), No. 4, p. 78.
39. See, for example, Arturo Orzábal Quintana, "Los Soviets y el petroleo del Caucaso," Nosotros, 22 (November, 1928), 162-187, in which it is urged that Russia, through the revolution, has freed itself from foreign economic domination and has learned how to manage its own resources. In this achievement there is a lesson for Argentina.
.
1. Of course, in order to be symmetrical a discussion which treats first the conflicts between capital-importing and capital-exporting countries and then the conflicts between capital-exporting countries would have to follow with an examination of conflicts between capital-importing countries. Conflicts of economic interest certainly exist between capital-importing countries, but so far as I know they have never taken on any political importance.
2. This includes attitudes and policies which look to the extension of a nation's political sway over additional territory through colonial conquest, protectorates, spheres of influence, and the like. The term "imperialism" is avoided because it means too many different things to different people.
3. This is even more true when dealing with the clashes between capital-exporting powers than when the relations of capital-importing to capital-exporting countries are under discussion. When Country A imports capital from Country B the creditor interests are concentrated in B and the debtor interests in A in such a manner as to make it easy to identify the interests of each country with the interests of the creditor and debtor groups, respectively. When investment opportunities in Country A are being competed for by citizens of Country B and by citizens of Country C, however, it is not quite so plain why the "economic" conflict should be considered to exist between B and C more intensively than between competing citizens of B or competing citizens of C. That it is so considered is an important fact of a social-psychological, political---at any rate non-economic---character, which must be added to the purely economic conflicts in order to explain why they take the political forms they do.
4. In order to forestall needless attack by exponents of the economic interpretation of history it should be made clear that the discussion does not concern the validity of that approach as such, but certain crude forms of the doctrine which, though widely held, would certainly be rejected by its more careful interpreters.
5. This concept of "surplus capital" needs critical analysis. As with all notions of a surplus in economics one must inquire "Surplus at what price?" Pursuit of this question leads in the present instance to the discovery that the situation usually described by the phrase "surplus capital" does not involve a surplus in the absolute sense that the exported capital could not be used at home, assuming the rate of return was made low enough. A more precise description of the circumstances would be that, after due allowance for the expected risks, a greater return is looked for abroad than at home. Response to this differential in the expected rate of return is a more accurate description of the forces which cause capital migration than such phrases as "surplus capital," implying as they do a sort of squeezing out of redundant capital for which there is no use regardless of price. The differential in the expected rate of return arises not only out of conditions affecting the supply of capital in the exporting country, but also out of demand factors there and abroad, including developments in communication and transportation which make it possible to manage investments abroad more efficiently and to market their products more cheaply. As the steamship, the refrigerator car, and the refrigerator ship came into use, for example, it became possible to market bananas profitably all over the world, and the probable rate of return on investments in banana plantations in Central America took a sudden jump. Capital invested there promised to yield more than capital invested at home. This promise of a higher return, not redundant "surplus capital," led around 1900 to the beginnings of large investments by United States citizens in Central American banana culture.
6. "Men have sought a specially profitable source of investment. They have been able to utilize their government to protect their interest; and, in the last analysis, the government becomes so identified with the investor, that an attack on his profit is equated with a threat to the national honour. In those circumstances the armed forces of the state are, in fact, the weapon he employs to guarantee his privilege." So writes Harold J. Laski in a chapter on "The Economic Foundations of Peace" contributed to a symposium on The Intelligent Man's Way to Prevent War (ed., Leonard Woolf, London, 1933), p. 508.
This theory of "Economic Imperialism at Work" is advanced in support of the contention that "while the roots of war cannot be traced to any single habit, its main causes lie in the economic field. Its chief object is a search for a wealth obtainable by its means that is deemed greater by those who push the state to its making than will be obtainable if peace is preserved" (p. 501). The specific cases cited as examples in connection with the first quotation are nearly all given a questionable interpretation: "No one now denies that the British occupation of Egypt was undertaken in order to secure the investments of British bondholders; and that the South African War was simply a sordid struggle for the domination of its gold mines, The French invasion of Mexico under Napoleon III was an effort to protect the interest of French investors in that ill-fated state. Nicaragua, Haiti, San Domingo, to take only the most notable cases, have all been reduced to the position of American provinces in the interest of American capitalists. The Russo-Japanese War was, in the last analysis, the outcome of an endeavour by a corrupt government to defend the immense timber concessions in Manchuria of a little band of dubious courtiers. The savage cruelties of the Congo; the struggle between British and American financiers for the control of Mexican oil; the fight between Germany and the Entente for the domination of pre-war Turkey; the reduction of Tunis to the position of a French dependency; the Japanese strangulation of Korean nationalism; all these are merely variations upon an identical theme."
7. The international struggle over the Bagdad Railway offers a number of instances where the business men and financiers were eager to clear difficulties out of the way and go ahead on the railway under a compromise arrangement but were restrained by the political objections of their governments. Similarly, in the Mannesmann difficulties over mining rights in Morocco, it is doubtful whether the Mannesmanns would have taken the stiff-necked attitude they did without being imbued with some of the chauvinistic spirit of the Pan-German League and without its support, while on the other side the political interests of the French government set definite limitations to the means of compromise that the business men were free to consider.
8. The Italian bankers could not be interested, and "it was mainly Greek capital that went in under the Italian flag." Karl Helfferich, Georg von Siemens (Berlin, 2d edn., 1923), III, 40-41.
9. The development of expansionism in Germany has been particularly ably explored. Consult Mary E. Townsend, Origins of Modern German Colonisation and Colonialism (New York, 1921).
.
1. Frederick Sherwood Dunn, The Protection of Nationals; A Study in the Application of International Law (Baltimore, 1932), p. 18.
2. We are assured by Mr. F. S. Dunn, who was Assistant Solicitor of the Department of State for a number of years and has recently written two penetrating studies of diplomatic protection, that "the normal case of protection seldom gets beyond the stage of diplomatic negotiation." (The Protection of Nationals, cited above, p. 19.) At the end of his volume on The Diplomatic Protection of Americans in Mexico (New York, 1933), p. 425, he sounds a warning like that given in the text above. A study centering on controversial issues that have arisen between the United States and Mexico "does not give an entirely fair picture of the operation of the legal process in the field of diplomatic protection as a whole," for it leaves out of account the many complaints which have been settled as legal matters without difficulty, the many cases in which the United States has declined to espouse the complaints of its citizens against Mexico because there has not been a sufficient legal basis for the complaint or for some other reason, and the numerous cases in which the Mexican government has complied with the requests or demands of the United States without objection. "As a matter of fact, a majority of the complaints examined seem to have terminated without controversy."
3. Mr. Dunn continues, after the passage excerpted above, "But with all due allowance for these factors, it still must be admitted that, taken as a whole, the record of the operation of diplomatic protection in the relations between the United States and Mexico has been surprisingly bad. As an institution for the peaceful solution of conflicts of interest, its accomplishments have been meager. Instead of removing or neutralizing occasions for controversy, it often seems to have generated them." (Ibid., p. 427.)
4. But see point six below in the case against diplomatic protection.
5. Dunn, The Protection of Nationals, p. 58.
8. Dunn, Diplomatic Protection of Americans in Mexico, p. 8.
10. See other examples in Chapters 3, 4, 9, and 10.
11. Dunn, Protection of Nationals, p. 21.
12. Insofar as the current efforts at the codification of international law are successful in bringing about more precise definitions and more general agreement as to what may be considered established principles this particular difficulty will be lessened. But the problem of codification is much more than a mere matter of finding a precise formulation for accepted doctrines of law. It is also a difficult legislative process, involving the reconciliation of diverse points of view and often of sharply clashing interests. This was amply demonstrated in the field of the law of diplomatic protection by the experiences of the conference on codification held at the Hague in 1930. Its carefully prepared deliberations ended in a deadlock between the weak states and the strong states as to whether international law entitles an alien merely to treatment as good as that received by the citizens of the country where he is residing, or whether his state may claim for him a certain minimum standard of justice, regardless of the conditions endured by native citizens. This difficulty which the unsettled state of international law imposes upon diplomatic protection as an instrument of social adjustment is not likely to be soon removed.
13. Dunn, Protection of Nationals, pp. 70-71.
"According to the prevailing view, the solution of legal problems seems to consist; first, in the ascertainment of the 'facts' of the case; second, in the classification of these facts under some preëxisting legal category or categories (such as 'confiscation,' 'revolutionary damages,' 'denial of justice' 'false imprisonment,' etc.); third, the identification of the rule, principle or standard which applies to this class of events; and finally, the deducing of the answer from this rule, principle or standard by logical processes. In other words, finding the law which governs a particular issue is a process of discovery of preëxisting things and of formal logic or syllogistic reasoning, in which the general rule or principle forms the major premise and the facts of the case at issue the minor premise. By this method the conclusion is presumed to be reached by formal laws of thought, from which all individual prejudices and predispositions are removed. This process is sometimes spoken of as a 'government of laws and not of men,' meaning that, given a particular set of laws, the decisions reached thereunder are impersonal and inevitable. Everything necessary to the determination of the law controlling a question in issue is supposedly already in existence before the question itself arises, and all that is required is to discover and apply these preëxisting realities to the facts of the case at issue." (Ibid., pp. 71-2.)
14. Some of these "unacknowledged factors" which Mr. Dunn has listed as important in the day-to-day determination of legal issues by foreign office authorities, diplomats, arbitration courts, and others who apply the law of diplomatic protection are: (1) the necessity of deciding one way or the other; (2) "the administrative factor"---that is, a reluctance to consider new ways of meeting problems if such methods threaten to upset going arrangements or existing habits of thought; (3) the desire to win the approval of fellow practitioners of a profession; (4) "the institutional factor"---a tendency to favor decisions which increase rather than diminish the importance of an institution on which one's social status or livelihood depends; (5) "the prophylactic factor "---illustrated by the tendency to decide more readily that international responsibility exists when complaints are received from a country in great numbers than when they arise as isolated events; (6) the revenge factor; (7) the carry-over of local ideas or the ideas of a particular social stratum into the realm of international law; (8) the factor of nationality, especially where, as is often true in diplomatic protection, the deciding official is also charged with the duty of protecting the interests of his own country---is advocate as well as judge; (9) the economic or political interests involved on either side; (10) "the word factor," that is, the emotional content, likely to be different for each individual, of such highly charged verbal symbols used in legal discourse as justice, sovereignty, independence, honor, dignity, vital interests, equality, duty, and responsibility. (Ibid., Ch. VI.)
.
1. It is untrue, though often asserted in after-dinner speeches, that international capital investments and increasing international contacts of other kinds work in the direction of world peace by "bringing the peoples closer together." Until effective institutions of adjustment are worked out, merely bringing peoples closer together tends to produce friction, not peace. So long as peoples stay apart they do not fight. The Bolivians have never fought the Persians. The first effect of new contact between strange groups is likely to be conflict. Peace between groups in contact depends upon a continuous process of adjustment and has to be achieved, it is not automatic.
2. Wilhelm von Humboldt, quoted in Tylor, Primitive Culture, Ch. 1.
3. The judicial power of the United States "shall extend ... to Controversies between two or more States;---between a State and Citizens of another State;---between Citizens of different States;---between citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects." (Article III, Section 2, U. S. Constitution.)
4. Of course, such developments might nevertheless be worth while.
.
1. The meaning of this special term will be explained later.
2. The possible development of a world in which all international economic contacts might be centralized in the hands of the separate national states themselves, eliminating private international investment, is a case considered later.
3. The British North Borneo Company started, for example, in a concession obtained quite independently by certain traders from native chieftains. The concession granted wide governmental, as well as commercial , powers to the white men, and there is no doubt that they could have established their rule, as did the East India Company in earlier times. When the Borneo Company applied for an imperial charter from the British government, Gladstone defended its granting, and recalled that the government had no power to say to the Company, "You shall not exercise the rights obtained by your concession." Rather, the government had simply to decide whether it was preferable that the Company exercise those rights without any responsibility to the country, without any control, or that it exercise them under certain conditions, permitting the government to step in at any moment to prevent abuses. (Carton de Wiart, Les grandes compagnies coloniales anglaises du 19e siècle (Paris, 1899), pp. 26-7.)
4. For example, a pamphlet issued by a liberal organization in the United States, "Program of the People's Lobby for 1929," asked, among other measures relating to foreign relations, " 2, A Public Record of Concessions Americans Have Obtained Abroad,---To End Armed Intervention!" The New Republic has advocated, but only " as a beginning to an understanding of the situation" that the details of all foreign loans should be publicly recorded with the State Department and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. (Editorial of June 6, 1928.) Another liberal organ said in its issue of April 18, 1934:" The Nation believes that foreign loans, indeed all credit, should be under government control, but it should be exercised through administrative action, not legislative fiat. The desirable agency would be an administrative board capable of studying each case on its merits. . . ."
5. The exactly appropriate term is different from case to case. Each term given refers to a form of territorial demarcation of national interests, which is the principle under discussion.
6. See W. W. Willoughby, Foreign Rights and Interests in China (Baltimore, 1927), I, Ch. VI on "Spheres of Interest" for abundant illustrations of the process.
8. Sir Charles Addis, Manager in London of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, in the Far Eastern Review, March, 1920.
9. See Chapter 7; André Tardieu, Le Mystère d'Agadir (Paris, 1912).
10. Tardieu, op. cit., pp. 59-74.
11. Tardieu, op. cit., p. 68. "This shows how difficult it is to mix politics with economic enterprises without compromising these enterprises themselves," comments Tardieu. A French diplomat closely connected with Moroccan affairs of the period emphatically assured me in an interview that it was not the business men and financiers who kept the Accord of 1909 from working.
12. Joseph Caillaux, Agadir, Ma Politique Extérieure (Paris, 1919), p. 128, also pp. 53-4 and 125 ff.
14. Tardieu, op. cit., pp. 350-59; Caillaux, op. cit., pp. 74 ff.; Oscar Freiherr von der Lancken Wakenitz, Meine dreissig Dienstjahre, Potsdam-Paris-Brüssel (Berlin, 1931), pp. 92ff. Von Lancken testifies to the irritation of German statesmen over France's repeated "backing out" of consortium projects. "First N'Goko Sangha, now Congo Railway," Kiderlen is reported to have argued---"therefore it is necessary for us to bring our fist down on the table." That was done at Agadir.
15. Asiatic Turkey was marked out into national preserves by agreements among France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, and Turkey. See E. M. Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway (New York, 1924), Ch. X, 239 ff; Bernadotte E. Schmitt, The Coming of the War (New York, 1930), I, 81, and references there cited; Die Grosse Politik, Chapters 284-287.
16. Die Grosse Politik, No. 11500, memorandum dated May 18, 1911, from the Deutsche Bank to the German foreign office.
17. Ibid., No. 11503, July 13, 1911. The allusion is to the French failure to undertake the placement of a portion of the Bagdad Railway bonds in France, due to official opposition.
18. Earle, op. cit., pp. 202, 92-3.
19. Die Grosse Politik, No. 5262, April 26, 1903, quoting a letter from C. E. Dawkins, London associate of Pierpont Morgan and former financial secretary for India, to Arthur von Gwinner of the Deutsche Bank, in which the former expresses sorrow at the failure of the negotiations and lays the blame entirely at the door of press agitation and a public antagonism against Germany not shared by the British government or English financiers.
20. British Documents, II, No. 216, April 14, 1903; also Nos. 221, 224, etc.
21. British Documents, VI, No. 65 (Nov. 16, 1907) and the series following; Karl Helfferich, Georg von Siemens (Berlin, 2d edn., 1923), III, 143-4; von Schoen, Erlebtes, pp. 57-8; Earle, op. cit., p. 198; Haldane, Before the War, pp. 48-51; Morley, Recollections, p. 238.
22. Die Grosse Politik, Nos. 9976, 9986, and 9990.
23. Herbert Feis, Europe the World's Banker: 1870-1914 (New Haven, 1930), pp. 293 ff.
24. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1909, pp. 144 ff.; 1912, pp. 87 ff
25. W. W. Willoughby, op. cit., II, 1025 ff.
26. Widespread étatism on the national basis would tend to place the control over foreign investment interests of the capital-exporting countries directly in the hands of the same authorities who also control the armed forces and direct the political strategy of the state. It would tend to establish in the people of each nation the sense of social ownership of its foreign economic interests, so that they would regard economic undertakings abroad not as "investments of our capitalists," but as vital parts of "our" economic plan, "our" direct interests. At the same time, the foreign interests of the separate politico-economic states would overlap and clash in various parts of the world---say in the raw material producing countries. Each state would bargain with the others as it saw fit, without accepting any compulsory obligation to abandon its particular interests at the behest the world community. Each politico-economic unit would be sovereign; in other words, there would be economic contacts, but no government (anarchy) in their relations. It has been argued that "National governments based on the economic interest of the majority of their several peoples, and controlling internal economic life in pursuit of that interest, would find it relatively easy to agree and trade with one another." (George Soule, "A New Internationalism," Harper's Magazine, February, 1934, pp. 357-66.) If the analysis of this book has been correct that conclusion must be doubted.
27. See the account in Arnold J. Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, 1929 (Oxford, 1930), pp. 344 ff.
28. Sir Arthur Salter has said that, "the close association of the power of the government with the competitive economic struggle seems to me to involve danger in innumerable ways; and the closer the association the greater the danger.... It is a primitive and dangerous form of commerce when the trader goes with his goods in one hand and a pistol in the other.... The more the activities of the world come into touch with each other not by contact at national frontiers but by cutting across them, the broader the foundation of peace." (Williamstown Institute of Politics, typewritten records, 1925.)
"It is better," he says further in Foreign Affairs (New York, October, 1932, p. 18), "that men should think of themselves more in terms of their occupations, professions and businesses, and meet the nationals of other countries on that basis; and be less conscious in all their activities of their differences as Englishmen, Germans, or Frenchmen. The identification of all the interests and activities of a country with its political sovereignty, and the political authority which controls its armed forces, is the greatest of all the ultimate dangers."
29. Whether it can be attained at all, in even approximately satisfactory fashion, is, of course, a very real question. The only comment one can make when this question is raised is that if the world is prevented by irreconcilable nationalisms or other factors from readapting its political institutions to modern economic conditions, then confusion and conflict, wars, devastation, and economic and social chaos must rule for generations. It is a case of either-or: either adaptation to the requirements imposed by the results of modern civilization, among which are world-wide economic contacts, or a period of destruction through which modern civilization and its requirements can be disposed of. This book takes the optimistic view that man is capable of rational adaptation.
30. The French noun monde means "world," and its adjective form is Mondial. "World" can sometimes be used as an adjective in English, but one cannot say, "Supervision of investments should be 'world' (or 'world-al,' or 'world-ish') rather than national." As the future will probably continue the rapid increase of problems, interests, and organizations of a "mondial" as distinct from a merely "international" character, this useful word ought to be generally adopted in English. The evolution of the language would thus reflect social evolution.
Later: Evidently others have felt a need for the usage recommended here, for "mondial" now has the sanction of no less an authority than the recent supplement to A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford, 1933), which cites examples dating from 1918-20. According to the same authority it was only one hundred fifty years ago that Bentham employed "international" for the first time in English and apologized for introducing a strange word.
.
1. Where aliens make direct investments, as in the plantations of Central America, the residents of the region are not " borrowers " or " debtors " in the strict sense, though the capital investment may vitally affect their interests.
2. Cf. Walter H. C. Laves on a proposal for an international body to control foreign investments, American Economic Review Supplement, March, 1932, pp. 175-6.
3. The Commission would probably deal with state loans as well as with the private investments upon which the discussions of this volume have been focused.
4. Report by MM. F. L. de la Barra and A. Mercier to the Institut de Droit International, Annuaire, 1927, 11, 601 ff., especially pp. 608-9. The report deals with arbitral procedure, and the relevant portion here is Section III, "Accès des particuliers à la procédure judiciaire internationale."
5. When Siemens and Halske, a German firm, undertook the construction of the Indo-European Telegraph in the late 1860's they founded an English corporation for the purpose. (Ludwig von Winterfeld, Entwicklung und Tätigkeit der Firma Siemens und Halske in den Jahren 1847-1897 [Kiel, 1931] p. 41 )
Emil Rathenau founded the first financing corporation for the expansion of his electrical organization (the A.E.G., German General Electric) in Zurich, "correctly feeling that it would be safest to anchor the undertaking on the neutral soil of Switzerland, and also that coöperation with foreign financial powers would be facilitated thereby." (A. Riedler, Emil Rathenau und das Werden der Grosswirtschaft [Berlin, 1916], p. 172.)
6. Cf. E. Minost, Le féderalisme économique et les sociétés à charte internationale; les coopérations interétatistes (Paris, 1929). The Compagnie Internationale de Navigation Aérienne, described on pp. 91-94, offers the most interesting example.
7. It might be possible thereby to avoid some of the worst defects pointed out in connection with the consortium device, for these defects would tend to be present in international mixed enterprises.
8. This suggestion was advanced by Professor Jacob Viner at the Williamstown Institute of Politics in 193 1931. Report of the Roundtables and General Conferences at the Eleventh Session, Arthur Howland Buffinton, editor (Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1931), p. 193.
9. Sir Arthur Salter writes on this point, with particular reference to diplomatic participation in commercial struggles by the representatives of great powers at the smaller capitals:
"The results are of many kinds and almost all disastrous. One Minister may acquire special relationships with one group of rival politicians, and may be interested in their success at a moment of political crisis; the result may be that the impact of an influence derived from the strength of a great foreign country may add one more complicating factor to the difficult problem of an unstable political situation. Then the success of one Minister in securing a trade advantage is always resented by the others and usually ascribed to the use of illegitimate means of persuasion. As the arguments used are unknown---and as there is no recognized criterion to distinguish between what is legitimate or not---this is unavoidable. The consequence is that the diplomatic representatives are kept in a constant state of rivalry and mutual suspicion; and their ability to exercise a collective influence in favor, for example, of a pacific policy in relation to a local political difficulty is correspondingly impaired. This state of mind is reflected in their dispatches to their home governments. If we could see the correspondence which pours into the Foreign Offices of the Great Powers from their representatives in small capitals abroad we should find a steady stream of complaint and suspicion of the activities of other Ministers. This constitutes a constant influence tending to injure the relations of the Foreign Offices of the Great Powers themselves and likely at any moment to be a real factor in international relations." (Sir Arthur Salter "A New Economic Morality," Harper's Magazine, 166 [May, 1933], p. 645.)
10. The title of a memorandum, submitted by Professors M. J. Bonn and André Siegfried at the request of the Economic Consultive Committee of the League. The memorandum was designed to suggest fruitful topics for studying the relation between economic activities on the one hand and war and peace on the other. It grew out of a resolution of the World Economic Conference Of 1927. (Unnumbered League document, dated April 9, 1929.)
11. Consult Charles E. Merriam, The Making of Citizens (Chicago, 1931), pp. 310-18, 348, 356.
.
1. These estimates are sprinkled through a mass of heterogeneous literature, for most of them---the earlier ones, at any rate---have been made incidentally, with a view to application in the discussion of some specific problem. For example, some have been arrived at in the course of estimates of national wealth or income, others in the discussion of foreign trade history, others to be used as propaganda for larger navies, and many with reference to post-war problems connected with international debts and reparations. This very diversity of purpose indicates something of the extreme variation in reliability and objectivity to be expected among them. Furthermore, in many cases the estimators were not really trying to measure the same thing. Some paid attention only to securities publicly floated, others based their figures on these and added guesses as to direct investments abroad, some few may have included short-term trading balances, and others appear to have had no very clear idea as to what they were including or excluding. Nevertheless, this compilation affords an interesting picture of the trend of informed opinion regarding the amounts of foreign investment over the last century, and it may have further value to the discriminating by revealing how extremely unreliable even the best of such estimates have been in the past and of what uneven quality are the figures available on the foreign capital holdings of different countries today.
In compiling the British estimates, valuable suggestions were received from notes made by Miss Cleona Lewis of the Institute of Economics, Brookings Institution, Washington, author of The International Accounts (New York, 1927). Many of the French estimates were assembled in H. G. Moulton and Cleona Lewis, The French Debt Problem (New York, 1926), p. 323, and many of the German estimates in H. G. Moulton and C. E. McGuire, Germany's Capacity to Pay (New York, 1923), p. 260.
2. League of Nations, Memorandum on International Trade and Balances of International Payments, 1927-1929 (Geneva, 1931), Vol. II, p. 90.
3. Since the above was written a study by Jean Malpas, Les Mouvements internationaux de capitaux (Paris, 1934), has come to hand. The part devoted to French long-term foreign holdings after the war rests on Meynial's work, but also alludes to estimates which appeared in L'Europe Nouvelle of January 11, 1930, attributed there to M. Olphe-Gaillard. These put French foreign security holdings in 1925-6 at 80 billion francs, in 1926-7 at 60, in 1927-8 at 80, and in 1928-9 at 118 billion francs.
.
1. Report by M. St. P. Séfériadès to the Institut de Droit International on access of private individuals to international jurisdictions. Annuaire, 1929, I, 505-585. The precedents here referred to are cited on pp. 530 ff.
3. Ibid., p. 538. See also the Acts and Documents of the Second International Peace Conference, The Hague, 1907, II, pp. 788, 1076.
4. The Séfériadès report cited above, p. 540.
5. The law case of Alfred von Hellfeld vs. the Russian treasury was decided by the Prussian court for the determination of competence on June 25, 1910. The court held that a foreign state cannot be submitted to a domestic court, even where it has acted in the capacity of a private person rather than in the exercise of sovereign powers, and that this doctrine has been recognized by the courts of Germany, Austria, France, and the United States. Thereupon a Berlin merchants' organization (Die Aeltesten der Kaufmannschaft von Berlin) memorialized the Chancellor of the German Reich in favor of an international court of arbitration for disputes between private persons and foreign states and continued to urge the matter (memorials of September 30, 1910, and May 20, 1912). A brochure by the international jurist, Dr. Hans Wehberg, which advocated the establishment of an international court for private claims, was published by an association for the promotion of German export trade (Handelsvertragsverein) in 1911: Ein Internationaler Gerichtshof für Privatklagen (Handelspolitischen Flugschriften No. 7, Berlin, 1911). The Hellfeld affair called forth a considerable literature in legal journals and stimulated much discussion of possible remedies. See the report and discussion by eminent jurists in the proceedings of the third assembly of the Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftsverein, Munich, October 14, 1911. In February, 1922, the Chamber of Commerce of Berlin (Handelskammer, successor to the organizations mentioned above) memorialized the Minister of Foreign Affairs and again urged the desirability of an international court to which private parties could have direct access, adding that recent tendencies toward increased state participation in commercial affairs---the U. S. Shipping Board, Soviet trading agencies, etc.---made the question still more important. (Documents kindly made available by Professor Wehberg.)
6. Speaking especially of public loans, Mr. Borchard pointed out that the unpaid creditor has no individual right under international law to bring about an adjustment of his claim. "The action of his government in his behalf depends upon political considerations and is entirely a matter of expediency and policy. If his government for any reason declines to become interested in his case or to espouse his claim against the foreign government the creditor is without a remedy. A legal right of the individual may therefore be sacrificed to the political exigencies of his government. With the constant growth of international contractual relations between individuals and foreign governments, the fulfillment and enforcement of legal obligations toward individuals should be divorced from political considerations. The difference in the practice of governments in the support of contract claims gives an unequal advantage to the nationals of some states and correspondingly embarrasses the governments whose policy or practice it is to decline diplomatic pressure in such cases.
"These various defects of the system," Mr. Borchard continues ". . . lend much weight to the proposal, advanced with greatest emphasis in Germany, that an international court be created by international agreement for the adjustment of these essentially legal claims. The individual should be given the right to bring suit against the debtor nation before this international tribunal, as has been done in the convention for the establishment of an international prize court and in the treaty of Washington for the establishment of a Central American Court of Arbitration. The creditor will thus be assured of a hearing, the debtor state will be secured against the pressure of exorbitant claims accompanied by disagreeable diplomatic coercion, the government of the claimant will avoid what is always a potential germ of international difficulty and ill-will, with the incidental expense of pressing a diplomatic claim, and the peace of the world will be fostered by the removal of one great source of international conflict." (Edwin M. Borchard, The Diplomatic Protection of Citizens Abroad [New York, 1915], pp. 328-9, also pp. 861-4. In a note on p. 329 a considerable amount of German literature on the subject is cited.)
7. The latter has been cited and drawn upon above, the former in Chapter 19.
8. See, for a good introduction, Jean Spiropoulos, L'Individu en droit international (Paris, 1928), which describes the position of the die-hards who still insist that only states can be "subjects of international law," of the moderate progressives who admit that in more and more instances private parties must be considered alongside of states, and of the still more radical wing---represented by such writers as Duguit, Krabbe, and Politis---which asserts that international law relates first and foremost to individuals. See also, N. Politis, Les nouvelles tendances du droit international (Paris, 1927). The rights of individuals under international law as revealed in the actual practice of various international courts (arbitration courts, mixed arbitral commissions, Central American Court, Permanent Court of International justice) and in the supervision of mandates and minorities by the League of Nations are investigated in S. Segal, L'Individu en droit international positif (Paris, 1932). A doctrinal discussion which includes a good bibliography is Georges Ténékidès, L'Individu dans l'ordre juridique international (Paris; 1933).
9. All these objections and answers are from the report of Monsieur Séfériadès, who concluded that: (1) There is no reason, either juridic or political, that can be invoked today against the conception of a system providing for the solution of all differences between a private person and a foreign state by a special international tribunal, constituted in advance, before which the private person will have direct access. (2) On the contrary, any other system of giving justice to private persons in their differences with foreign states can lead either to trial before courts that may be suspected of partiality, or to denials of justice, or even, at times, to war.
In the discussion of the report, it was urged by several members of the Institut that recourse to international law must be surrounded by certain precise conditions. Notably (at least for cases involving the international responsibility of the defendant state) such recourse should be permitted to a private party only with the support and under the control of his own government. It seems to me that this doctrine must be vigorously rejected, for reasons that have already been sufficiently elaborated.
The further question was raised: Should not a preliminary condition be the exhaustion of remedies within the defendant state before appealing against it to an international court? Also: Should not the principle be established that competence of national courts would be the rule and appeal to an international jurisdiction the exception? These points merit careful consideration when the preparation of a practical proposal is undertaken.
Finally, several members observed that giving foreigners access to an international court in appeal against a state would be giving them greater rights than those of the citizens of the state. It was answered by M. Séfériadès that different rights of this sort are not a novelty in international or municipal law. M. Wehberg argued that in principle nothing stands in the way of giving citizens in the future the right to appeal to an international court against their own state, if the state seems to have violated certain fundamental rights guaranteed by international law. Many voices in Europe have proposed this sort of protection for minorities. The departure proposed is therefore very satisfactory. It may be added, in this connection, that the same session of the Institut de Droit International adopted a declaration in favor of recognizing certain international "rights of man," thus tending to assert the primary right of the international community over that of the state.
After the discussion, M. Séfériadès withdrew the original resolutions embodied in his report and asked for a vote on the following, which was adopted unanimously, with one abstention:
"L'Institut de Droit International est d'avis qu'il y a des cas dans lesquels il peut être désirable que le droit soit reconnu aux particuliers de saisir directement, sous des conditions à déterminer, une instance de justice internationale dans leurs différends avec des Etats." (Annuaire, 1929, II, 267.)
10. International Law Association, Report of the 26th Conference, London, 1910, p. 210, p. 524.
11. Ibid., p. 210; also the report of M. Nicolas Politis, "Condition juridique des associations internationales," Institut de Droit International, Annuaire, 1923, pp. 126 ff.
12. The Politis report, cited above, p. 128, refers to the law of October 25, 1919, Moniteur Belge. November 5, 1919, p. 5872.
13. Annuaire, 1923, pp. 57-173; 348-381
14. The proposed treaty set up a Bureau at Brussels consisting of the diplomatic representatives or other designated representatives of the signatory states. This Bureau was to supervise the international associations, which might be of two kinds: associations without legal personality in any country, or associations already having legal personality in a given country, but desirous of obtaining the international status conferred by registration with the Brussels Bureau.
International associations so registered might, without special authorization, sue at law, acquire property, and in general make contracts needed in the pursuit of their various purposes, conforming in all such acts to the laws of the country where the acts were performed. Their power to contract and the powers and responsibilities of their representatives would be regulated by their statutes, supplemented where necessary by the law of their place of formation, for associations under the jurisdiction of a particular state, or by the law of the country where the activity of the type in question was carried on.
International associations would enjoy the same fiscal favors accorded by the signatory powers to national associations having the same objects. They would have free access to the national tribunals of the signatory powers, and would be submitted to the following court jurisdictions: regarding real estate, to the courts of the place where the property is held; regarding personal and movable property, to the courts of the domicile of their organs charged with the responsibility of representing them legally, or to those of the place of incorporation, if the association was incorporated in a particular state, or to those of the country where the contract involved was concluded or executed; in matters of gifts and legacies, to the courts of the domicile of the giver, etc.
Differences which might arise between two or more international associations would be brought before the Bureau in Brussels, which would endeavor to bring about friendly conciliation. Under certain circumstances the Bureau might dissolve an international association, which would have the right to contest this action before the Permanent Court of International Justice.
15. There were forty members present and four abstentions. (Ibid., p. 381.)
16. The above paragraph rests upon Sir John Fischer Williams' masterly analysis of "The Legal Character of the Bank for International Settlements," American Journal of International Law, 24 (October, 1930), 665-673.
As a postscript to the foregoing the same article suggests that another of the agreements concluded at The Hague in January, 1930, that between Hungary and its creditors, provided for the creation of two "Funds" which are to possess legal personality and which, so far as the agreements themselves go, are constituted by international action alone without the grant of a charter by the authority of any one state. "These 'Funds' are thus international bodies corporate in the strictest sense of the word: They are created by an international instrument and they possess, at any rate within the territories of the States which have established them, the capacity of enjoying rights and fulfilling duties and, therefore, corporate personality. They are not incorporated by and in any one State nor subject to any one system of municipal law." They will issue bonds, but, unlike the Bank for International Settlements, will not carry on any business that might compete with private financial institutions.
17. See C. A. Masten and W. K. Fraser, Company Law of Canada Ord ed., Toronto, 1929); Dominion Companies Act, Revised Statutes of Canada, 1927 (Ottawa, 1927), chap. 27; Ontario Companies Act, Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1927 (Toronto, 1927), chap. 218; Quebec Companies Act, Revised Statutes of the Province of Quebec (Quebec, 1925), chap. 273; and similarly for the other provinces.
18. Arthur K. Kuhn, A Comparative Study of the Law of Corporations (New York, 1912), p. 93. It may be noted parenthetically that Prussia, Bavaria, and the other German states had their own independent corporation procedures, modified by certain ineffective attempts to bring about uniformity, until a law on corporations was adopted by the North German Confederation on June 11, 1870. This soon became a law of the new Reich, and since then incorporation in Germany has been regulated by the Berlin government, not by the states. The Italian states also had separate corporation laws until unification took place. In 1865 a commercial code was adopted for the new Italian kingdom. (Georg Cohn, Die Aktiengesellschaft [Zurich, 1921], pp. 44 ff., 69.)
19. Guerra Everett, Trading under the Laws of Australia, Trade Information Bulletin No. 417, United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce (Washington, 1926), p. 11.
