The Conflict of Colour: The Threatened Upheaval Throughout the World.
1912; Oxford University Press; Volume: 27; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2141112
ISSN1538-165X
Autores Tópico(s)Color perception and design
ResumoBut since in geo-politics there exists such a large number of imponderablesfactors which, though they are not susceptible of accurate classification and estima- tion, are often more weighty than aught elsein many parts of this detailed enquiry it has been necessary for him to take refuge in generalities and to evade direct deductions.This is perhaps equivalent to confessing that nothing final or decisive can be said about the very matters which are just the most interesting, and regarding which people must always be most curious.Yet though this serious limitation may be admitted as in some degree true, so clear has the conviction become in the writer's mindafter an exhaustive study in one great quarter of the globethat certain forces are being inevitably ranged against one another as they have never been before, that he ventures to believe that a general considerationno matter how imperfect it may beof a subject which most intimately concerns every member of the human race, will be of very widespread interest.To the white races in the lands of the coloured peoples, the twentieth century, unlike all its predecessors, can only prove a century of retroaction and redemise; and it is from this point of view that the whole vast question of the conflict of colour will be considered.Though any orientation of politics based on a foregone conclusion is necessarily faulty, it is at least possible, by adopting this method, to avoid that distressing ambiguousness which, because it touches other, and are engendered by the action of certain forces, which act under the empire of certain laws.There is, in a word, an organ- isation and a life of societies, as well as of the individual.This organisation has also its science, the science of the secret laws which preside over the course of events.This is the physiology of history."* The writer is, of course, aware that there is an element of weakness in this argument, since it follows that if density of population is soon to become the determining factor in political evolutiona point which he himself constantly insists uponnations which are standing still, such as France, Spain and Portugal, must sooner or later submit openly to the influence of others, who will pour in their men.This will mean warnot necessarily unsuccessful to the numerically weaker nations.But to put the matter differently and to use a useful simile, Europe THE CONFLICT OF COLOUR they are a little weary, people are far more apt to dwell with melancholy on the solitary instance of a Euro- pean State which seems to have reached the station- ary condition -France ^-than to reflect on the marvel may be compared to an unequal terrain on which water is steadily collecting in certain places to a greater and greater extent.An overspill is bound to occur on to the higher barren places when the level reaches a certain altitude.The greatest density of population in any European country is to-day about 600 to the square mile, in Belgium, and Belgians are already spilling intoFrance.When Germany reaches that density a similar movement will possibly commence; and though Spain and Portugal are effectively isolated by mountain-ranges, it cannot be doubted that unless they arise from their torpor, their future is sealed.Thus we may really see one day a new infiltration of Germanic peoples over Latin Europe (with the exception of Italy), for it is impossible for populations to attain a density of 2,000 or even 1,000 to the square mile without overspilling on to more empty lands.But all this belongs to a political future too distant to be considered in any practical way to-day.A fresh mixture of Teutonic with Latin blood may cause a repetition of the history of fifteen centuries ago.* Alison, in his History of Europe, written more than half a century ago, has the following informing footnote on this pregnant question of French population (Vol.L, p. 119): -"Now, to show the capability of the soil of a country of this description to maintain an increase of inhabitants, let us consider merely what may be raised from 40,000,000 of arable acres, little more than one half of its arable ground, and considerably less than a third of its total superficies.The average produce of arable land in all the counties of England is two quarters and five bushels to an acre -M'Culloch's Statistical Account of Englandy p. 476.Take it as two quarters only in France, to be within the mark, and we shall have 40,000,000 acres yielding 80,000,000 quarters, which would feed 80,000,000, and that, without pressing upon the limits assigned by the physical extent of its natural capabilities to the increase of man, a hundred and twenty millions might be maintained with ease and comfort on the French territory.This calculation will excite surprise, and by many be deemed incredible: let those who are of this opinion examine of the expansion of the English, a race which in some three centuries appears to have multipHed nearly twenty- five fold.^When it is remembered that to-day the world and point out what is overcharged in the data on which it is founded.It leads to a conclusion of the very highest importance, and which bears with overwhelming force upon the history of the Revolution; for it shows that the French people, when that con- vulsion broke out, were far within the limits of their possible and comfortable increase; and consequently that the whole suffering which had preceded, and crimes which followed it, are nowise chargeable on Providence, but are to be exclusively ascribed to the selfishness, the vices, and the corruption of man."Another peculiarity in the physical situation of France, both before the Revolution and at this time, is very remarkable, and de- serves to be noted, both from its important bearing on economical principles, and from rendering the dreadful devastation of the Revolution the more surprising.The agricultural population at the former period was 16,500,000, and it furnished food for 8,500,000 persons living in cities, or engaged in trade or manufactures; at this time 22,000,000 of agriculturists, in round numbers, are engaged in raising food for 11,000,000 persons engaged in pursuits unconnected with the productive soila quarter of grain being the average consumption of a human being for a year.This is leaving 92,000,000 acres for the support of horses, and for raising wood, vines, and butcher-meat for the use of man.If we suppose that 30,000,000 of the 76,000,000 arable acres in France are cultivated in potatoes, each acre will yield, ac- cording to M'CuUoch (Commercial Diet., art.Potatoes), food for twoaccording to Arthur Young and Newenham, for threeindividuals.Take it at the lowest estimate of two individuals, these 30,000,000 acres would maintain 60,000,000 more persons, or 140,000,- 000 in all; still leaving 62,000,000 acres for luxuries, roads, canals, cattle, horses, etc., for this immense population."^Lest exaggeration be seen in such a statement, the writer would lay the following figures before the reader.It is a well- substantiated fact that the population of England was never in excess of 2,500,000, and was often less, down to the end of the sixteenth centurythe Wars of the Roses having exterminated immense numbers of men who were only slowly replaced.Assum- ing that at the end of the sixteenth century the rest of the British contains in round numbers 1,700 million people (and possibly more), and that by the end of the present century, should the present rate of increase be maintained, that number will have grown to some 4,000 millions, the time has plainly come when the study of vital statistics and general population-movements.Isles contained 1,500,000 persons, the total population may be then set at 4,000,000.At the present moment the members of the English race may be reckoned as followsaccepting as "assimilated" all sub-races in British territory such as the French in Canada and the Dutch in South Africa : -(i) British Isles 45,000,000(2) Canada 8,000,000(3) Australasia 6,000,000(4) South Africa 1,500,000(5) Britis (white) in Asia, in Africa, in Atlantic islands and elsewhere scattered 1,500,000 (6) Descendants of Britons in United States (American estimates) 40,000,000 Total 102,000,000We know that in 1752 the population of Ireland was 2,373,000:in 1 841 it had grown to 8,195,000, or nearly a four-fold increase in 90 years.The Celtic race has thus proved that it can breed much faster than the Anglo-Saxon.The mixing of these two racesmaking what may be called in a non-political sense Britonspro- duces the happiest results.* This is a very simple but justifiable calculation.It may be assumed that whites, yellows, browns, and blacks, in the aggregate, now increase at such a rate that the world's population doubles every 70 years.Thus by 1980 the earth should contain 3,400 millions, and twenty years later 4,000 millions.It is this vast and constant growth in populations, just as much as the rise in the standard of living, which is stimulating commerce and industry so remarkably.From now on the trade of the world should increase by leaps and bounds.over the world; but nowhere more than in the country in question -Russiawhere the breeding of men is going on at such a prodigious rate that, in the end, it instance, of course, is the Irish emigration to America succeeding the potato famine of 1848.Accurate statistics show that between 1851 and 1907 no fewer than 4,103,015 Irish emigrated abroad.The second and more interesting instance is that of Germany.Two generations ago hundreds of thousands of Germans began to stream across the Atlantic to the El Dorado of the United States, until it looked as if this movement would Teutonise the American Republic.But no sooner had the good effects of the Franco- Prussian War become apparent than the movement slackened.As Germany's industrialism, from the 'eighties onwards, grew by leaps and bounds, the emigration of her sons fell off more and more, until to-day it amounts to no more than some 30,000 per annum.It remains to be seen whether there is any real limit to den- sity of population in industrial countries.In agricultural regions the highest density is about 1,200 persons per square mile.This has been attained in three totally different regionsin the West Indian island of Barbados; in Bengal; and in the Chengtu plain in the Chinese province of Szechuan.Every rood may yet have its man I 33,000,000; Spain and Portugal, 21,000,000; Turkey in Europe, 15,500,000; Hungary, Dalmatia, and Bosnia, 17,250,000; Turkey in
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