NOTEBOOK “ON MARXISM AND IMPERIALISM”

P. DEHN, GERMAN COLONIAL AND WORLD POLICY

German Colonial and World Policy , by Paul Dehn. (Second edition, Berlin, 1907.)

“There are on the seas at the present time, naval vessels excluded, about 40,000 large merchant ships, under steam or sail, with a net registered tonnage of 25,000,000 metric tons and a carrying capacity of 61,000,000 metric tons” (p. 37).

“It [1] yields the British more than 180 million marks annually, the Germans (with 220 steam fishing vessels) about 25 million and the French about 10 million marks” (p. 39).

“The length of Germany’s sea coast is only 1,270 km., only a quarter of her land frontiers, whereas France faces the sea on three sides and her coasts stretch 3,175 km.” (p. 41).

“According to the calculations of Professor Dr. Eckert, in his The Maritime Interests of the Rhineland and Westphalia (1906), a third of all Germany’s imports by sea, and considerably more than a fifth of her total exports by sea, pass through Dutch or Belgian ports” (p. 42).

“At the beginning of 1907 the ‘Veritas’ business agency made a census of 14,656 steamships totalling 18.9 million registered tons. Of these, Great Britain had 6,249 with 9.8 million tons, Germany 1,351 with 2.1, the United States 885 with 1.2, and France 586 with 0.7 million tons. Of the sailing vessels, too, totalling 26,579 with 7.5 million registered tons, Great Britain had the largest share—6,338 ships and 1.8 million tons. Next came the United States of America with 3,695 ships and 1.5 million tons, followed by France with 1,356 and Germany with 991 ships, each with 0.5 million registered tons. In the period 1882-1905 the tonnage of British ships passing through the Suez Canal increased 103 per cent, while the German figure increased 1,561 per cent!” (p. 43).

“According to American statistical data, the total world area of coalfields amounts to about 1,500,000 square kilometres. Of this figure, 520,000 sq. km. fall to China, 500,000 to the United States, 169,000 to Canada, 91,000 to British India, 62,000 to New South Wales, 52,000 to Russia, 31,000 to Great Britain, 14,000 to Spain, 13,000 to Japan, 5,400 to France, and 4,600 each to Austria, Hungary and Germany, and 1,300 to Belgium. Exploitation depends on the depth, quality and location of the coal deposits.

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“According to British data, about 840 million tons of coal, valued at approximately 6,000 million marks, was mined in 1905.

World Coal Output, 1905 “The three big coal-producing countries accounted for 83 per cent of total output” (pp. 46-47).

“In the period 1883- 1903, coal consumption increased 24 per cent in Britain, 102 per cent in Germany and 129 per cent in the United States” (p. 47).

“Almost three-quarters of British coal exports go to continental Europe and the Mediterranean area” (p. 55).

“The British have accumulated big stocks of coal at all their naval bases, of which there are about forty in all parts of the globe” (pp. 56-57).

“These coal stocks total millions of tons. Peez once called them signal posts of British maritime supremacy” (p. 57).

“If the freight cost of British coal exports to various countries is reckoned at an average of only five marks per ton, the total export of 58 million tons in 1906 must have yielded British shipping an annual income of some 300 million marks” (pp. 57-58).

“Unfortunately, it has so far been impossible to oust British coal from the North Sea and Baltic regions. Berlin itself still obtains a sixth of its requirements (mostly coking coal) from Great Britain” (p. 62).

“The difficult position of German industry in regard to supplies of cotton has been statistically shown by State Secretary Dernburg. A price increase of four pfennigs per pound increases the cost of the world’s cotton consumption by 320 million marks. The price increases since 1899 have involved thousands of millions! In 1905, Germany consumed 1.6 million bales. In the recent period she paid annually, depending on the price fluctuations engineered by the New York speculators in anticipation of a rise, 150-200 million marks more [2] than she did previously, that is to say, five to seven times her annual subsidies to the colonies. She must free herself of this tax, this foreign tribute.

“In order to avoid the effects of Stock Exchange speculation, British merchants and manufacturers more and more frequently visit the Southern States and buy what they need on the spot. British manufacturers have bought large tracts of land in Texas to grow cotton there themselves or to lease the fields” (p. 81).

“The number of spindles in the United States increased from 14.6 million in 1890 to 23.2 million in 1906” (p. 82).

“United States’ consumption in 1906 was 4.8 million bales (as against 3.6 million bales in Great Britain and 1.6 million in Germany). At the beginning of the 1860s, the United States consumed 20 per cent of its harvest, in the eighties—32 per cent, in the nineties—35 per cent, and since 1900—up to 40 per cent” (p. 82).

“If the United States has no longer to seek foreign markets for the major part of its cotton crop, supplying the world market with cotton becomes a power problem” (p. 83).

“Being in control of the cotton market, the United States has an unusually sharp weapon against Europe, its export tariff. The European states must at all costs free themselves of this sword of Damocles. No sacrifice can be too great, for in the last resort it is a question of power, which, however, can be resolved through peaceful effort” (pp. 87-88).

“After the excesses of the 1903 New York cotton speculation, on the initiative of the Colonial Economy Committee, there were international congresses of the European cotton industry—in mid-1904 in Zurich, in April 1905 in Brussels, in June 1906 in Manchester, and in May 1907 in Vienna—to devise counter-measures” (p. 88).

“The promotion of cotton growing under the German flag is one of the most important tasks of German colonial . economy and colonial policy. That was already appreciated by Bismarck” (p. 90).

“Encouraging cotton cultivation in the colonies will not only ensure for Germany the supply of this indispensable raw material, but also facilitate lasting prosperity of the colonies themselves, which will then develop as purchasers of German industrial goods.

“The Social-Democrat Calwer anticipates advantages for the German workers, too, from cotton cultivation in the German colonies” ... ( Sozialistische Monatshefte , 1907, No. 3) (pp. 96-97).

“Great Britain controls 18,369 km. of railway line in Africa, France 5,657, Germany 1,398, Portugal 1,173, Italy 115, and the Congo state 642” (p. 104).

“Apart from the Social-Democrat nihilists, the opponents of colonies, in spite of all their calculations, have nevertheless avoided drawing the final conclusion—they have hesitated to declare that possessions requiring such high subsidies are of no value, they have refrained from demanding abandonment of these possessions—and they were very wise not to have done so, for this ultimate conclusion would show up the fallacy of their whole argument” (pp. 113-14).

“The Social-Democrat agitators and press organs waged an especially furious campaign against German colonial policy shortly before the 1907 elections. The central organ wrote of colonial policy: It ‘wants to establish a new German slave state at the cost of the goods and blood of the German proletariat:’ This policy should be dealt a ‘crushing defeat’.

“Despite all this, there have been voices in favour of colonies also in the Social-Democratic camp, repudiating those who confine themselves to deriding the German colonies as worthless deserts.

“The former Social-Democratic deputy Calwer, writing in the Sozialistische Monatshefte early in 1907, argued against the sharply negative Social-Democratic attitude towards German colonial policy” (p. 121).

“Comrade Calwer showed he was alive to the needs of the international situation when, writing in the Sozialistische Monatshefte of March 1907, he criticised the Social Democratic Party leadership for its hostility to the navy” (p. 130).

“Calwer justifiably ridicules those comrades who believe wages in Germany could at once be raised to the British or North American level without building up our position in the colonies and on the world market” (p. 132).

“In 1905-06 Persia’s imports were valued at approximately 140 million marks. Of these the share of Russia was 70 million, of Britain 30, of British India 16, of France 8, of Austria-Hungary 5, and of Germany hardly 3 million marks” (pp. 148-49).

“If the Baghdad railway is actually to be built one day under German auspices, and the British do not renounce their proclaimed aims, the Persian Gulf, now an out-of-the-way area, can become a storm centre of world politics” (p. 158).

“As a result of the Monroe Doctrine, the colonial powers, above all Great Britain, but also France, Holland and Denmark, will before long have to reckon with the possibility of losing their colonies” (p. 196).

“According to semi-official data, German capital invested in real estate, industry, railways and trade at the end of 1904 amounted to 5,000-6,000 million marks for America as a whole, and to 2,800-3,400 million marks for Central and South America alone” (p. 229).

“It is estimated that more than 2,000 million marks of United States capital have been invested in Canadian real estate and factories.

“According to semi-official data for mid-1907, United States investments in Mexico amounted to approximately 3,500-4,000 million marks” (pp. 232-33).

“The two biggest electric companies of Europe and America—the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft in Berlin and the General Electric Company in New York—have an agreement on division of the world market into two spheres of interests. The American company was able to secure for its exclusive exploitation also Central and South America” (p. 249).

“Preferential tariffs, where they have been introduced, have proved inadequate to oust foreign commercial interests. Such preferential tariffs will always be imposed only to a very limited degree, since local interests, especially those of rising industries, and also those of declining agriculture, demand not merely a certain protection but also the exclusion of all foreign monopolies. The resistance is so strong that it will frustrate the efforts of British imperial and pan-American tariff supporters to attain their final goal—the creation of a completely closed customs union.

“Both these formations were contrary to the general economic development of the recent period with its urge for the expansion of international trade by overcoming artificial barriers, with the need of the strong states to gain a free sphere for economic activity beyond their own frontiers, indeed beyond their own continent. As a matter of fact, the drive for large, self- sufficient customs unions has abated” (pp. 254-55).

“There is no struggle for supremacy in Europe. Should it be provoked by Great Britain, it is by no means bound to lead to war. As long as the Liberal government remains in power, peace will be ensured, for among its most loyal supporters are precisely the British friends of world peace, who are not at all actuated by ill-will towards Germany” (p. 329).

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Notes:
[1] Sea fishing.— Ed .

[2] Dehn’s italics.— Ed .