Chapter XXIV: Part 24

These differences occur over again in more restricted areas, even within the temperate zone itself. The inhabitants of the colder portions of a country have often shown their superiority to the men who dwell in the warmer districts. The causes of the contrast between the Northerners and the Southerners, which has dominated in the development of the United States, may for the most part be clearly traced: the South was weakened by the plantation method of cultivation, and slavery; its white population increased slowly, and shared to a lesser degree than did the Northerners in the strengthening, educating influences of agriculture and manufacturing industries. Thus after a long struggle that finally developed into a war, the North won the place of authority.

[Sidenote: Sunbeams and Rainfall in History]

In Italy and in France the superiority of the north over the south is partially comprehensible; and in Germany the advantages possessed by Prussia, at least in area and in sea coast, are obvious. But when in English history also the north is found to have been victorious over the south, conditions other than climatic must have been the cause. In this case elements have been present that are more deeply-rooted than in sunbeams and rainfall alone.

We must call to mind the zone-like territories of early times, occupied by peoples from which the nations of to-day are descended; the boundary lines have disappeared, but the northern elements have remained in the north, and the southern elements in the south. It is well known that Aristotle adjudged political superiority and the sphere of world-empire to the Hellenes because they surpassed the courageous tribes of the north in intelligence and in mechanical instinct, and were superior to the both intelligent and skilful inhabitants of Asia in courage. “As the Hellenic race occupies a central geographical position, so does it stand between both intellectually.” The thought that this union of extreme intellectuality and power in arms on Hellenic soil could be the result of ethnical infiltration did not seem to have occurred to the philosopher. The fundamental idea of Aristotle, the aristocratic state, in which the talented Hellene alone was to rule over bondmen of various origins, who were, above all, to labour for him, could not have been possible had his views been otherwise. And yet he had clearly seen that the two talents--for war and for industry--were unequally distributed among the different Hellenic stocks, and that they were also variable according to time.

The Yakuts, who lead a nomad life in the valley of the Lena, and
the Turks who govern Western Asia, are of the same stock, but the
genial climate has enabled the Turks to flourish while the cold has
kept the Yakuts poor. These groups represent both branches of the
stock.
]

Considering the influence even of slighter differences in climate, the locations of regions of similar mean annual temperature, and the distances which separate them from one another, cannot be otherwise than important. A map on which the isothermal lines are drawn is rich in historical instruction. Where the lines diverge we have regions of equal temperature; where they crowd together, districts of different mean annual temperatures lie close to one another. The crowding of climatic variations in any region enlivens and hastens the course of history in that region. If the variations occur only at long intervals, all parts of a large territory having approximately equal mean annual temperatures, then climatic contrasts, which act as a ferment, as it were, are not present to any appreciable extent, and their effects lose in intensity and are dispelled.

Where are greater combinations of contrasting climatic elements to be found than in Greece and in the Alps? The joining together of the natives of rich, fruitful Zürich with the poor shepherds of the forests and mountains was of the utmost importance to the development of the Swiss Confederation. It was also a union of regions of mild and cold temperatures. The possession of Central European and Mediterranean climates, that shade into one another without any sharp line of demarcation, is a great advantage to France. If climatic differences approach one another in too great a contrast, clefts in development are likely to occur, such as the gap between the Northern and the Southern States in America, and that between North and South Queensland. If it be possible to adjust the political differences, then the union of areas of different temperatures has an invigorating effect, as shown by the history of the American Southern States since 1865.

There is a world of difference between the two branches of the
Tunguse race: the one is a poor people living in cold regions and
subject to Russia; the other is the ruling race of the Chinese
Empire, flourishing in a temperate climate. The upper group is
composed of ruling Tunguses in China and the lower group represents
Tunguses subject to Russia.
]

Winds blowing in a constant direction for many months at a time were of great assistance to navigation during the days of sailing vessels, which, indeed, have not yet been entirely supplanted by steamships. Before the time of steam vessels all traffic on the Indian Ocean was closely connected with the change of the monsoons; and important political expansions have followed in the track of the same winds--for example, the diffusion of the Arabs along the east coast of Africa and in Madagascar. The influence of the trade winds on the Spanish and Portuguese discoveries along the Atlantic coast of America is well known. The south-eastern trade winds have been a cause of both voluntary and involuntary emigrations of Polynesian races. It may be clearly seen from the history of Greece what advantage was obtained by the race that won the alliance of the coast of Thrace and the wind that blows south from it with constancy during the entire fair season, often eight months long.

Where the wind is most variable, visiting entire countries with storms, to the great destruction of lives and property, the result is a stirring up of the survivors to exertions that cannot fail to be strengthening both to body and to mind, and of direct benefit to life in general. At the same time that the people of Holland were engaged in forcing back the ocean, they won their political liberty. In another part of the North Sea coast the Frisians receded farther and farther south, owing to the invasions of the sea and the attacks of the natives of Holstein. The tempest that scattered the armada of Philip II. was one of the most important political events of the time; and it is not to be denied that the snowstorm in Prussian Eylau, at the beginning of the battle in which Napoleon suffered his first defeat, contributed not a little to the result.

[Sidenote: One of the Greatest Problems]

Acclimatisation is one of the greatest of human problems. In order that a nation shall expand from one zone into another, it must be capable of adapting itself to new climates. The human race is, as a whole, one of the most adaptable of all animal species to different conditions of life; it is diffused through all zones and all altitudes up to about thirteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. But single nations are accustomed to fixed zones and portions of zones; and long residence in foreign climates leads to illness and loss of life.

[Sidenote: Climate and Will-Power]

In some races the individuals are of a more rigid constitution than in others, and are thus less capable of adaptation. Chinamen and Jews adapt themselves to different climates far more easily than do Germans, upon whom residence in the southern part of Spain even, and to a still greater degree in Northern Africa, is followed by injurious effects. The constant outbreaks of destructive disease before which the German troops withered away are to be counted amongst the greatest obstacles opposed to the absorption of Italy into the German Empire. During the Spanish discoveries and conquests in America in the sixteenth century, whole armies wasted away to mere handfuls. The greatest hindrances to German colonisation in Venezuela are climatic diseases. Medical science has, to be sure, pointed out such deleterious influences as may be traced to unsuitable dwelling-places, nutrition, clothing, etc.; and the losses to Europe of soldiers and officials in the tropics have been greatly reduced. But even to-day deaths, illnesses, and furloughs make up the chief items in the reports sent in from every colony in the tropics. British India can only be governed from the hills, where the officials dwell during the greater part of the year.

Climatic influence is not limited to bodily diseases. One of the first effects of life in warm climates upon men accustomed to cold regions is relaxation of what is known as will-power. Even the Piedmontese soldier loses his erect carriage in a Neapolitan or Sicilian garrison. Englishmen in India count on an ability to perform only half the amount of work they would be capable of at home. Many inhabitants of northern countries escape the bodily diseases of the tropics; but scarcely one man of an entire nation is able to resist the more subtle alterations in spirit.

[Sidenote: The Peoples of North and South]

Their historical influence extends only the deeper for it. The conquering nations that advance from north to south have invariably forfeited their power, determination, and activity. The original character of the Aryans who descended into the lowlands of India has been lost. A foreign spirit rings through the Vedic hymns. West Goths and Vandals alike lost their nationalities in Northern Africa and Spain, as the Lombards lost theirs in Italy. In spite of all emigration, immigration, and wandering hither and thither, there always remains a certain fixed difference between the inhabitants of colder and those of warmer countries; it is the nature of the land, moulding the more ductile character of a people into its own form. There are differences also between the northern and the southern stocks of the same race, and thus climate exerts here greater and there lesser influence upon nations and their destinies.

Since it lies in the nature of climatic influences to produce homogeneity among those peoples who inhabit extensive regions of similar mean annual temperatures, it follows that a unifying effect is also produced on political divisions that might otherwise be inclined to separate from one another. In the first place, a similar climate creates similar conditions of life, and thus the northern and southern races of each hemisphere, with their temperate and their hot climates, differ widely. Climate is also the cause of similar conditions of production over large territories. Leroy-Beaulieu rightly mentioned climate--above all, the winter, during which almost every year the whole land from north to south is covered with snow--as next in importance to the configuration of the country in its unifying, cohesive effects on the Russian Empire. Winters are not rare during which it is possible to journey from Astrachan to Archangel in sledges; and both the Sea of Azov and the northern part of the Caspian Sea are frozen over during the cold months, as well as the Bay of Finland, the Dnieper as well as the Dwina.

The weather has greatly influenced the course of history and
helped to mould the fate of nations. The tempest that scattered
the Spanish Armada in 1588 was one of the most important political
events of the time. This picture, from the painting by J. W. Carey,
illustrates the wreck of the galleon “Girona,” at Giant’s Causeway.
]

Situation determines the affinities and relations of peoples and states, and is for this reason the most important of all geographical considerations. Situation is always the first thing to be investigated; it is the frame by which all other characteristics are encircled. Of what use were descriptions of the influence of the geographical configuration of Greece on Grecian history, in which the decisive point that Greece occupies a medial position between Europe and Asia, and between Europe and Africa, was not insisted upon above all? Everything else is subordinate to the fact that Greece stands upon the threshold of the Orient. However varied and rich its development may have been, it must always have been determined by conditions arising from its contiguity with the lands of Western Asia and Northern Africa. Area in particular, often over-valued, must be subordinated to location. The site may be only a point, but from this point the most powerful effects may be radiated in all directions. Who thinks of area when Jerusalem, Athens, or Gibraltar is mentioned? When it is found that the Fanning Islands or Palmyra Island is indispensable to the carrying out of England’s plans in respect to telegraphic connection of all parts of the empire with one another, merely because these islands are adapted for cable stations on the line between Queensland and Vancouver, is it not owing to their location alone, without consideration as to area, configuration, or climate?

Every portion of the earth lends its own peculiar qualities to the nations and races that dwell upon it, and so does each of its subdivisions in turn. Germany, as a first-class Power, is thinkable only in Europe. There cannot be either a New York or a St. Petersburg in Africa. Our organic conception of nations and states renders it impossible for us to look upon situation as something lifeless and passive; far rather must it signify active relations of giving and receiving. Two states cannot exist side by side without influencing each other. It is much more likely that such close relationships result from their contiguity; that, for example, we must conceive of China, Korea, and Japan as divisions of a single sphere of civilisation, their history consisting in a transference, transplanting, action, and reaction, leading to results of the greatest moment. Some situations are, indeed, more independent and isolated than others; but what would be the history of England, the most isolated country in Europe, if all relations with France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia were omitted? It would be incomprehensible.

The more self-dependent a situation is, the more is it a natural location; the more dependent, the more artificial, and the more it is a part of a neighbourhood. Connection with a hemisphere or grand division, identity with a peninsula or archipelago, location with respect to oceans, seas, rivers, deserts, and mountains, determine the histories of countries. It is precisely in the natural locality that we must recognise the strongest bonds of dependence on Nature. Apart from all other features peculiar to Italy, her central position in the Mediterranean alone determines her existence as a Mediterranean Power. However highly we may value the good qualities of the German people, the best of these qualities will never reach so high a development in the constrained, wedged-in, continental situation of their native land as they would in an island nation; for Germany’s location is more that of a state in a neighbourhood of states than a natural location, and for this reason more unfavourable than that of France.

_Outward Voyage of Columbus shown thus_
_Homeward Voyage of Columbus shown thus_
_Periodical Winds_ (_Monsoons_) _shown thus_
_Prevailing & Constant Winds shown thus_

POLITICAL EXPANSION HAS FOLLOWED IN THE TRACK OF THE WINDS

This map illustrating the trade winds and prevailing winds shows
how important were these winds before the days of steam vessels. It
shows that the outward voyage of Columbus was entirely along the
track of the north-east trade winds. Where the arrows cross, as off
the North-west of Scotland, we have regions of wind disturbances.
]

The influence of riverways in furthering political development may
be best seen in the contrast between South America and Africa; the
colonising movement came to Africa three hundred years later than
to South America.

EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AND THEIR NEARNESS TO THE SEA

A country’s prosperity depends greatly upon its relation to the
sea. This map shows the boundaries of European countries, and the
black lines indicate those countries that lie within 250 and 500
miles from the sea-coast.

THE RELATION OF RIVERS AND THE SEA TO THE CIVILISATION OF COUNTRIES]

[Sidenote: The Ideal Situation for a State]

Natural localities of the greatest importance result from the configuration and situation of divisions of the earth’s surface. The extremities of continents--such as the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Horn, Singapore, Ceylon, Tasmania, and Key West--are points from which sea power radiates; and at the same time they are the summits of triangular territories that extend inland and are governed from the apex. In the same way all narrowings of parts of continents are of importance. France occupies an isthmian position between ocean and sea; Germany and Austria between the North Sea, the Baltic, and the Adriatic. Some states are situated on the coast, occupying a bordering position; others occupy an intermediate location. And the more isolated situations are all fundamentally different, according to whether they are insular, peninsular, or continental. Situations in respect to the oceans are even more various. How different are Atlantic locations in Europe from those on the Mediterranean, the Baltic, or the Black Sea! Only a few nations occupy a position fronting on two great oceans. The ideal natural situation for a state may be said to be the embracing of a whole continent within one political system. This is the deeper source of the Monroe Doctrine.

[Sidenote: Contrasts and Comparisons]

Similar locations give rise to similar political models. Since there are several types of location, it follows that the histories of such locations assume typical characters. The contrast between Rome and Carthage, their association with each other, exhibiting the reciprocal action of the characters of the northern and southern Mediterranean coasts, is repeated in similarly formed situations in Spain and Morocco, in Thrace and Asia Minor, and on a smaller scale in the Italian and Barbary ports. In all these places events similar to those in Roman and Punic history have taken place. Japan and England are unlike in many respects; yet not only the peoples, but also the political systems, of the two island nations have insular characteristics. Germany and Bornu are as different from each other as Europe is from Africa, but central location has produced the same peculiarity in each--a source of power to the strong nation, of ruin to the weak.

Contiguity with neighbouring states brings with it important relationships. The most striking examples of such contiguity are to be seen in nations that are cut off from the coast of their continent and completely surrounded by other countries. Owing to the constant reaching out for more territory, such a situation in Europe, as well as in other continents, signifies unconditional loss of independence. Only connection with a great river can prevent the dissolution of a nation so situated. The instinctive impulse to extend its boundaries to the sea, shown by all nations, arises from the desire to escape an insulated continental position. Only the very smallest of states, such as Andorra and Liechtenstein--which, moreover, do not aspire to absolute independence--could have existed for centuries in the positions that they occupy. A medial situation held by one country between two others is also, in point of risk, comparable to a completely encompassed position. France was so situated when Germany and Spain were under the same ruler. The alliance of two neighbouring lands may place a third state in a similar position.

[Sidenote: What is National Progress?]

Whatever the individual locations of neighbouring states may be, their number is a matter of great importance. It is better to have a multitude of weak neighbours than a few strong ones. The development of the United States that gradually ousted France from the south, Mexico from the west, and Spain from both south and west, in order to be in touch with the sea on three sides, has, with the decrease in neighbouring Powers, resulted in an enviable simplification of political problems.

A nation covering various dispersed and scattered situations is to be seen at the present day only in regions of active colonisation and in the interiors of federal states. Powerful nations are consolidated into a single territory. We may see everywhere that when the area of distribution of a form of life diminishes in extent, it does not simply shrink up, but transforms itself into a number of island-like sites, giving the appearance that the form, of life is proceeding from a centre of the conquest of new territory. In what does the difference lie between islands of progress and of recession? With nations and states progress lies in the occupation of the most advantageous sites; retrogression lies in their loss and sacrifice. The American Indians, forced back from oceans, rivers, and fertile regions, form detached groups of retrogression; the Europeans who took these sites from them formed isles of progress as, one after another, they seized the islands, promontories, harbours, river-mouths, and passes.

Professor FREDERICK RATZEL]

THE SIZE AND POWER OF NATIONS

[Sidenote: The State and its Territory]

It is not without reason that so much importance is attached to extent of surface in geography. Area and population represent to us the two chief characteristics of a state; and to know them is the simplest means--often too simple--for obtaining a conception of the size and power of a nation. We cannot conceive of any man, much less a human community, without thinking of surface or ground at the same time. Political science may, through a number of clever conclusions, reduce the area of a state to a mere national possession; but we all know that territory is too tightly bound up with the very life of a state for it to assume a position of so little importance. In a nation, people and soil are organically united into one, and area and population are the measure of this union. A state cannot exchange or alter its area without suffering a complete transformation itself. What wonder, then, that wars between nations are struggles for territory? Even in war the object is to limit the opponent’s sphere of action; how much more does the whole history of nations consist in a winning and losing of territory. The Poles still exist as they did in former times; but the ground upon which they dwell has ceased to belong to them in a political sense, and thus their state has been annihilated.

[Sidenote: The Vast Modern Empires]

During the course of history we constantly see great political areas emerging from the struggle for territory. We see nations from early times to the present day increasing in area: the Persian and Roman Empires were small and mean compared with those of the Russians, English, and Chinese. Also the states of peoples of a lower grade of culture are insignificant compared with the states of more advanced races. The greatest empires of the present day are the youngest; the smallest--Andorra, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, appear to us only as venerable, strange petrifications of an alien time. The relation of surface to the growth of spheres of commerce and of means of communication is obvious. Communication is a struggle with area; and the result of this struggle is the overcoming of the latter. The process is complicated because, as control is gained over area, one also acquires possession of its contents: advantages of location, conformation, fertility, and, by no means least, the inhabitants of the territory themselves. But the loss in value of all these things, brought about by their being widely scattered throughout an extensive area, can be overcome only by a complete control of the region over which they are spread.

[Sidenote: Traffic Leads to Empire]

The development of commerce is the preliminary history of political growth. This applies to all races, from Phœnicians to North Americans, who point out to us a post of the American Fur Company as the germ from which Nebraska developed. Every colony is a result of traffic; even in the case of Siberia, merchants from European Russia travelled thither as far as the Ob about three centuries before its conquest. The phrase “conquests of the world’s commerce” is perfectly legitimate. The building of roads is a part of the glory of the founders and rulers of nations. To-day, tariff unions and railway politics have taken the place of road-making. It has always been so; both state and traffic have had the same interest in roads and thoroughfares. Traffic breaks the way, and the state improves and completes it. It seems to be certain that the firmly organised state in ancient Peru opened the roads which were later a service to traffic. In a lower phase of development we may see commerce leading directly to the establishment of states; in a higher, to victory in war, arising from commercial and railway communication. It would be impossible for France to construct the Sahara Railway without first subjugating the Tuareg and seizing their country. Highways of traffic as weapons for hostile states, the important part played by commercial nations and the culture of strictly industrial and commercial peoples, the endeavour of traffic to be of service to the policies of states, and, finally, the powerful reactions caused by the removal and disuse of thoroughfares of commerce to races, nations, and to entire spheres of civilisation--can only be indicated here.

[Sidenote: Every Trader Bears his State with him]

Every political movement, whether it be a warlike expedition or a peaceful emigration, is preceded by movements which are not political. Inquiries must be made and relations instituted; the object must be determined, and the road explored. All the while that knowledge of the world beyond the bounds of a country is being gained, there is also an imperceptible broadening of the geographical horizon; and this not only widens out, but becomes clearer. Fabulous tales are circulated as to the terrors of strange countries; but the fear gradually vanishes as our knowledge increases, and with the latter a spirit of political enterprise awakens One can say that every trader who passes the bounds of his country bears his state with him in his load of merchandise. To be sure, there are both long preparations made and quick leaps taken in the processes of commerce. Roman merchants prepared the way to a knowledge of Gaul and its conquest. But how different the attitude of the Romans to Gaul before and after the time of Cæsar! What a difference in the Spanish estimate of the worth of American colonies before the days of Cortez and Pizarro, and afterward! The broader and clearer the geographical horizon grows, the greater become political schemes and standards of policy.

[Sidenote: Causes of National Success and Failure]

The widening of the geographical horizon and the clearing up of mysteries beyond are invariably a result of the travels of individuals or of groups for peaceful purposes. The first of these purposes is commerce; the chase and fishing are also to be taken into consideration; and the involuntary wanderings of the lost and strayed are not to be excluded. Europe possessed a Pytheas and a Columbus who discovered new worlds; and every primitive community had its explorers, too, who cleared paths from one forest glade to another. If such pioneers return, they also bring back with them contributions to the general stock of knowledge of the world without, and it becomes less difficult for others to follow in their footsteps; finally armies or fleets may advance, conquering in their tracks. Whenever traffic makes busy a multitude of men, and employs extensive means by which to carry on its operations, the truth of the saying, “The flag follows trade,” is finally established in its broadest sense. With all this struggling and labouring, territory does not fall to the state simply as a definite number of square miles. Just as single individuals bring enlightenment to the state, in the same manner the idea of area arises in the intelligence of the aggregate.

When we say that an area increases, we must remember that by this we mean that the intelligence which views it and the will that holds it together have increased, and naturally, also, that which is requisite for rendering intelligence and will capable for their work. In this lies one of the greatest differences that exist between nations, one of the greatest causes of success and failure in development.

A disposition for expansion that advances boundaries to the farthest possible limit is a sign of the highest state of civilisation. It is a result of an increase both of population and of intellectual progress.

[Sidenote: Small States in Fine Situations]

There is something very attractive in the small political models of early times: those city-states whose development had in definiteness and in precision a great deal of the lucidity and compactness of artistic compositions. Lübeck and Venice are more attractive than Russia. The concentration of the forces of a small community in a limited, beautifully situated, and protected location, is a source of a development that takes a deeper hold on all the vital powers of a people, employing them more extensively, and therefore ending in a more rapid and definite perfection of historical individuality. Thus small areas take the lead of large territories in historical development; and we may see many examples of a slow but sure transference of leadership from the small area to the large, and of the gradual diffusion of progress in the latter. Thus Italy followed Greece; Spain, Portugal; England, Holland.

Great Britain’s strength is a proof of the tremendous importance of
the sea as a factor of political power. This is a bird’s-eye view
of the British Navy assembled at Spithead.
]

The opposite of this is precocity in growth: the earlier a state marks out its limits without consideration for later expansion, the sooner the completion of its development. The growth in area of Venice and the Low Countries stood still, while all about them territories increased in size. The development of small countries flags unless the increase of population within a limited area leads to that disquiet and emigration and expulsion of citizens especially characteristic of small nations: the horizon grows too narrow for the times; patriotism becomes local pride; and the most important life forces are impaired. Thus minor nations, through which races are separated into little groups, develop: the great national economic and religious cohesive forces are broken up; and even the political advantages of the ground are reduced in value through disintegration.

[Sidenote: Founding of States by Strangers]

Under such conditions the impulse for new growth must be brought in from without. The native, who is acquainted with only one home, is always inferior to the foreigner, who has a knowledge of two lands at least. It is remarkable how numerous are the traditions of the establishment of states by strangers. Sometimes these are mighty hunters, as in Africa; often they are superior bearers of civilisation, as in Peru; and an especially large number of them have descended to the earth from heaven. In the face of history which tells of the foundation of a Manchurian dynasty in China and a Turkish in Persia, of the establishment of the Russian Empire by wandering North Germans, and that of the great nations in the West Sudan by the Fulah shepherds--these mythical accounts, although they may appear decidedly incredible when taken singly, as a whole are probable enough. The foundation of the nation of Sarawak in Borneo by Brooke is reality and corresponds with many of the old legends of the formations of states.

[Sidenote: A Great Turning-point in History]

The broad conception of a state, which acts as a ferment does on a disrupted mass, is introduced from one neighbouring nation into another, each sharing in its production. When such territories are adjacent, the state situated in the most powerful natural region overgrows the other. The more mobile race brings its influence to bear on the less mobile, and possibly draws the other along with it. The more compact, better organised and armed state intrudes on weaker nations, and forces its organisation upon them. A nation left to itself has a tendency to split up into small groups, each of which seeks to support its own life upon its own soil, heedless of the others; and as such groups increase, they always reproduce in their own images: families families, and tribes tribes. We find all sorts of measures taken by some nations to limit an increase in growth that would carry them beyond their old boundaries and place them under new conditions of life. Many an otherwise inexplicable custom of taking human life is a result of this tendency; perhaps, in some cases, even cannibalism itself. This impulse towards limitation would have rendered the growth of nations impossible had not the antithetical force of attraction of one to another led to growth and amalgamation. Truly, the advance from a condition of isolated, self-dependent communities to one of traffic between state organisms, which must of necessity lead to ebb and flow and union of one group with another, is one of the greatest turning-points in the history of man.

[Sidenote: Nations as Neighbours]

Since the tendency has been for territory to become the exclusive reward of victory in the competition of nations, balance of territorial possessions has grown to be one of the chief ends of national policies. The phrase “balance of power,” which has been so often heard since the sixteenth century, is no invention of diplomats, but a necessary result of the struggle for expansion. Hence we find an active principle of territorial adjustment and balance in all matters concerning international politics. It is not yet active in the small and simple states of semi-civilised peoples; such states are much more uniform, for they have all originated with a uniformly weak capacity for controlling territory. In addition, the principle of territorial isolation hinders the action of political competition. As soon, however, as necessity for increased area leads to the contiguity of nations, the conditions alter. The state that occupies but a small region strives to emulate its larger neighbour. It either gains so much land as is necessary to restore equality, or forces a decrease in the neighbour’s territory.

[Sidenote: The Balance of Power]

Both alternatives have been of frequent occurrence. Prussia expanded at the expense of Schleswig and Poland in order to become equal in territory to the other great Powers. The whole of Europe fought Napoleon until France had been forced back within such boundaries as were necessary to international balance. Austria lost provinces in Italy and replaced them with others in the Balkan Peninsula. This loss and gain appears to us, in looking over an easily epitomised history, such as that of France, as an alternation of violent waves and temporary periods of rest attained whenever a balance is reached. Therefore it is not owing to chance that the areas of Austria, Germany, France, and Spain may be respectively designated by 100, 86, 84, and 80, that the area of Holland is to that of Belgium as 100 is to 90, and that the United States stands to Canada as 100 to 96. To be effective, such balances must presuppose equal civilisations, similar means for the acquirement of power. Rome was so superior to her neighbours in civilisation that she could not permit any territorial balance. Perhaps the adoption of the River Halys as the boundary between Media and Lydia was a first attempt to establish a national system on the principle of balance instead of “world” dominion.

[Sidenote: A New British Empire is not Conceivable]

Our standards for measuring the areas of countries have constantly increased during the growth of historical territories. The history of Greece is to us but the history of a small state; and how many years shall pass before that of Germany, Austria, and France will be but the history of nations of medium size? England, Russia, China, and the United States include the better half of the land of the world; and to-day a British Empire in the other half could not be conceivable. Development has ever seized on greater and greater areas, and has united more and more extensive regions into aggregates. Thus it has always remained an organic movement. The village-state repeats itself in the city-state, and the family-state in the race-state, the smaller ever being reproduced in greater forms. The smallest and greatest nations alike retain the same organic characteristics more or less closely united to the soil.

[Sidenote: Area Does Not Mean Power]

The surface of a state bears a certain relation to the surface of the globe, and according to this standard is the land measured upon which the inhabitants of a nation live, move, and labour. Thus it may be said that the 208,687 square miles of the German Empire represent about 1/940 of the entire surface of the earth; further, that the empire has a population of 60,500,000, from which the ratio of 5·45 acres to each individual follows. Although it is true that wholly uninhabited or very thinly populated regions, high mountains, forests, deserts, etc., may be valuable from a political point of view, nevertheless the whole course of the world’s history shows us that, as a general rule, the value of territory increases with the number of inhabitants that dwell upon it. Thus, before their disunion, Norway-Sweden, with an area of 297,000 square miles--two-fifths greater than that of the German Empire--but with a population of 6,800,000, cannot be looked upon as a first-class Power; while Germany closely approaches the Russian Empire in strength, for although its area is but 1/43 that of the latter, its population is only one-half less. Thus area alone is never the deciding factor of political power. In the non-recognition of this fact lies the source of the greatest errors which have been made by conquerors and statesmen. The powerful influence that small states, such as Athens, Palestine, and Venice, have exerted on the history of the world proves that a great expanse of territory is by no means indispensable to great historical actions. The unequal distribution of mankind over a definite area is a much more probable source of political and economic progress.

Civilisation and political superiority have always attended the thickly populated districts. Thus the whole of development has been a progression from small populations dwelling in extensive regions to large populations concentrated in more limited areas. Progress first awoke when division of labour began to organise and differentiate among heaped-up aggregates, and to create discrepancies promoting life and development. A simple increase of bodies and souls only strengthens that which is already in existence by augmenting the mass. In China, India, and Egypt, population has increased for a long time; but development of civilisation and of political power has been unable to keep pace with it.

Professor FREDERICK RATZEL]

THE FUTURE HISTORY OF MAN

[Sidenote: Man and the Universe]

Looking back upon the history of man, it appears to us the history of the human race as a life phenomenon bound and confined to this planet alone. We are thus unable to form any conception of progress into the infinite, for every tellurian life-development is dependent upon the earth, and must always return to it again. New life must follow old roads. Cosmic influences may broaden or narrow the districts within which man is able to exist. This was experienced by the human race during the Glacial Period, when the ice sheet first drove men toward the equator, and later, receding, enabled them once more to spread out to the north. The limits of world life in general depend upon earthly influences; and thus, for mankind, progress limited by both time and space is alone possible.

Perhaps it would be well, for the elucidation of the question of development, were geography to designate as progress only that which from sufficient data may be established as such beyond all doubt. Thus, to begin with, we have learned to know of a progress in space--man’s diffusion over the earth--which proceeds in two directions. The expansion of the human race signifies not only an extension of the boundaries of inhabited land far into the Polar regions, but also the growth of an intellectual conception of the whole world.

[Sidenote: Manifold Growth of Mankind]

Together with this progress there have been countless expansions of economic and political horizons, of commercial routes, of the territories of races and of nations--an extraordinarily manifold growth that is continually advancing. Increase of population and of the nearness of approach of peoples to one another goes hand in hand with progressing space. Mankind cannot become diffused uniformly over new areas without becoming more and more familiar with the old. New qualities of the soil and new treasures have been discovered, and thus the human race has constantly been made richer. While these gifts enriched both intellect and will, new possibilities were all the while arising, enabling men to dwell together in communities; the population of the earth increased, and the densely inhabited regions, at first but small, constantly grew larger and larger.

[Sidenote: History is the Growth of Differences]

With this increase in number, latent abilities came to life; races approached one another; competition was entered into; interpenetration and mingling of peoples followed. Some races acted mutually in powerfully developing one another’s characteristics; others receded and were lost, unless the earth offered them a possibility of diffusion over better protected regions. Already we see in these struggles the fundamental motive of the battle for area; and at the same time, on surveying this progress, we may also see the limit set to it--that increase in population is unfavourable to the progress of civilisation in any definite area, if the number of inhabitants become disproportionately large in respect to the territory occupied. Many regions are already over-populated; and the numbers of mankind will always be restricted by the limits of the habitable world.

Already in the differences in population of different regions lie motives for the internal progress of man; but yet more powerful are those incentives to the development of internal differences in races furnished by the earth itself through the manifoldness of its conformation.

The entire history of the world has thus become an uninterrupted process of differentiation. At first arose the difference between habitable and uninhabitable regions, and then within the habitable areas occurs the action brought about by variations in zones, divisions of land, seas, mountains, plains, steppes, deserts, forests--the whole vast multitude of formations, taken both separately and in combination. Through these influences arise the differences which must at first develop to a certain extent in isolation before it is possible for them to act upon one another, and to alter, either favourably or unfavourably, the original characteristics of men.

[Sidenote: Earth’s Variety Reflected in its Peoples]

All the variations in race and in civilisation shown by different peoples of the world, and the differences in power shown by states, may be traced to the ultimate processes of differentiation occasioned by variations in situation, climate, and soil, and to which the constantly increasing mingling of races, that becomes more and more complex with the diffusion of mankind over the globe, has also contributed. The birth of Roman daughter states, and the rise of Hispano-Americans and Lusitano-Americans from some of these very daughter nations, are evidences of a development that ever strives for separation, for diffusion over space, which may be compared only to the trunk of a tree developing, and putting forth branches and twigs. But the bole that has sent forth so many branches and twigs was certainly a twig itself at one time; and thus the process of differentiation is repeated over and over again. Progress in respect to population and to occupied area is undoubted; but can these daughter nations be compared to Rome in other respects? They have shown great powers of assimilation and great tenacity, for they have held their ground. Nevertheless, their greatest achievement has been to have clung fast to the earth; in other words, to have persisted. Certainly this is far more important than the internal progress in which the branches might perhaps have been able to surpass the older nation.

[Sidenote: Decisive Element in a Nation]

It is an important principle that since all life is and must be closely attached to the soil, no superiority may exist permanently unless it be able to obtain and to maintain ground. In the long run, the decisive element of every historical force is its relation to the land. Thus great forces may be seen to weaken in the course of a long struggle with lesser forces whose sole advantage consists in their being more firmly rooted in the soil. The warlike, progressive, on-marching Mongols and Manchus conquered China, it is true, but they have been absorbed into the dense native population and have assumed the native customs. The same illustration applies to the founding of nations by all nomadic races, especially in the case of the Southern European German states that arose at the time of the migration of Germanic peoples. The health and promise of the English Colonies in Australia present a striking contrast to the gloom that reigns over India, of which the significance lies only in a weary governing, conserving, and exploiting of three hundred millions of human beings. In Australia the soil is acquired; in India only the people have been conquered. Will a time ever come when all fertile lands will be as densely populated as India and China? Then the most civilised, evolved nation will have no more space in which to develop, maintain, and root its better characteristics; and the success of a state will not result from the possession of active forces, but from vegetative endowments--freedom from wants, longevity, and fertility.

[Sidenote: The Goal of the Nations]

Even though the future may bring with it a union of all nations in the world into the one great community already spoken of in the Gospel of John, growth may take place only through differentiation. And thus there is no necessity for our sharing the fear that a world-state would swallow up all national and racial differences, and all variations in civilisation.

From the fact that history is movement, it follows that the geographer must recognise the necessity for progress in space in the sense of a widening out of the historical ground, and a progressive increase of the population of this ground; further, a development toward the goal of higher forms of life together with an uninterrupted struggle for space between the older and newer life-forms. Yet, for all this, the definite bounds set to the scene of life by the limited area of our planet always remain.

Finally, all development on earth is dependent on the universe, of which our world is but a grain of sand, and to the time of which what we call universal history is but a moment. There must be other connections, definite roads upon which to travel, and distant goals, far beyond. We surmise an eternal law of all things; but in order to _know_, we should need to be God himself. To us only the belief in it is given.

FREDERICK RATZEL

This History begins with the East and comes westward round the
world. Japan is therefore the first country to come into its
survey, and from Japan we travel to Siberia, which, though
extending far west, must be treated as one. After Siberia come
China and Korea; and Australia, Oceania, and Malaysia all come into
the “Far East” when thus treated geographically. The whole of the
white portion of this map is treated in the Grand Division which
now opens.
]

SECOND GRAND DIVISION

THE FAR EAST

STEPHEN REID
]

SECOND GRAND DIVISION

THE FAR EAST

The Far East falls into two sections, Asiatic and Oceanic. The Asiatic comprises the insular empire of Japan; and, on the continent, China, Korea, and Siberia, the extreme northern territory which, though extending far westward, must be treated as one.

The Oceanic division includes the Australian continent, with the island of Tasmania; the Pacific islands grouped under the names of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, to which last New Zealand is attached, the whole being conveniently associated under the name of Oceania; and the Malay Archipelago, or Malaysia, lying between Australia and the Asiatic continent.

Of these three sections of Oceanic Far East only Malaysia has a record extending over centuries. The history of the other two, till the white sea-going races began to settle among them, is inferential, conjectural. A doubt was suggested whether New Zealand should be attached rather to Australia than to Oceania, for the reason that it has developed into one of the group of autonomous states which make up so large a portion of the British Empire; but this consideration must clearly yield to those based on geography and ethnology.

PLAN

THE INTEREST & IMPORTANCE OF THE FAR EAST
Angus Hamilton

JAPAN
Arthur Diósy and Max von Brandt

SIBERIA
Dr. E. J. Dillon and other writers

CHINA
Sir Robert K. Douglas, W. R. Carles, C.M.G., and other writers

KOREA
Angus Hamilton

AUSTRALIA & OCEANIA
Hon. Bernhard R. Wise and Professor Weule

MALAYSIA
Basil Thomson and other writers

INFLUENCE OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN IN HISTORY

* * * * *

For full contents and page numbers see Index

THE INTEREST AND IMPORTANCE OF THE FAR EAST

BY ANGUS HAMILTON

The influence of environment upon a people is seldom shown more prominently than in the high degree of civilisation attained by the early Chinese.

Although the records are shrouded in mystery and marred by discrepancies, a consensus of scientific opinion traces the origin of the Chinese to a nomad tribe who, setting out from the shores of the Caspian, continued to wander until it found a home on the banks of the Yellow River and in the plains of Shansi. Under the influence of these immigrants, the rude manners of the aboriginals gave way to conditions in which a knowledge of the smelting of iron and the resources of agriculture was acquired. In the upward process of development, the weaving of flax into garments and the spinning of silk from cocoons followed; then, with primeval chaos reduced to order and the faculties quickened by habits of industry, the beginnings of government were made in the separation of the tribes from one another under their own leaders.

While conditions of a settled existence were in course of attainment within the region which is now known as China Proper, the spectacle of a prosperous civilisation, reacting upon the uncouth instincts of tribes dwelling among the grassy uplands of Mongolia and the plains of Manchuria or amid the ice-clad fastnesses of the mountains and forest-strewn valleys of the farthest north, was presently to be responsible for the rise of predatory races, who, in the zenith of their strength, regarded the teeming cities of the south as lawful prizes. While the northern heights of Asia were producing a race that was to leave an indelible impression on the whole of the Asiatic Continent, the evolution of a no less specific type was proceeding in the islands off the coast. Carried by a wave of migration from India, which lapped the coast of Malaysia, Indo-China and Polynesia, and mingled in the islands of the Yellow Sea with a stream from New Guinea so that separate ethnographic identities were lost, were tribes who looked to the ocean for their existence much as the earlier Chinese relied upon the proceeds of their husbandry and the northern nomads upon their flocks.

Glancing at the people living amid the plains, the uplands, and the islands, it will be seen that an irresistible force was enveloping the several races, moulding their instincts and idiosyncrasies in accord with the nature of their environment. Thus, while the Chinese, under the incentive of a knowledge of arts and crafts, had already produced, in 2356 B.C., a system of civilisation destined to endure to our time, the nomads and the islanders, unqualified by knowledge and controlled by climate, were hardly removed from a state of savagery a few centuries before the Christian era.

If the passage of 4,000 years has affected the Chinese no more than the gliding of an hour, the existence of this great impassive people has not been without its effect upon the nations of Europe as upon the races of the Farthest East.

[Sidenote: Eternal Mystery of China]

A point of ancient contact between Christendom and the world of Confucius, reflecting, in contemporary Japan to-day the more permanent qualities of its teaching, China has stirred the spirits of the adventurous in all ages by its singular graces of refinement, its hidden wealth and the exquisiteness of its artistic perceptions. Arousing the curiosity of the Arab traders as early as the eighth century, it was known to the ancients, if they journeyed by the Southern Sea, as the kingdom of Sin, Chin, Sinæ, or China, in corruption, perhaps, of the word Tzin--under which dynasty occurred, in 250 B.C., the fusion of several petty kingdoms into an organic empire; or by the name of Seres if, traversing the longitude of Asia, they came by the overland route. Known to the Middle Ages by the name of Cathay--corrupted from Kitai, the name by which China is still described by Russia and by the races of Central Asia, but which itself sprang from the Khitans, the first of the northern dynasties--it represented to European commerce of the thirteenth century the embodiment of wealth, romance, and mystery; much as its position, maintained unchanged through long centuries, had made it the actual repository of the records of Central, as well as Southern, Asia.

[Sidenote: Korea, the Middle Kingdom]