Imperialism & Social Problems – J.H. Dillard, 3/3/1904

Republished from our predecessor publication Lucifer the Light Bearer

There seem to be many who have failed to recognize any practical connection between imperialism and the internal
social problems of a country. We are apt to think of imperialism as affecting only the foreign policy of the nation, and
thus we fail to see its relation to home affairs, except, of course, as it increases government expenditures. If we seek
to get below the surface of vanity and hurrah, and try seriously to discover the real philosophy of the imperialistic
movement, what, let us ask, is the impelling motive? Think of what England has added to her territory since 1870:
an area of 4,754,000 square miles and an estimated population of 88,000,000! Why this immense expansion? What
strong forces are back of it? “Manifest destiny” and “Anglo-Saxon push” are words; what is the thing? Mr. Hobson,
an English writer, in his book Imperialism: A Study, has given the answer: “It is not too much to say that the modern
foreign policy of Great Britain is primarily a struggle for profitable markets of investment. To a larger extent every
year Great Britain is becoming a nation living upon tribute from abroad, and the classes who enjoy this tribute
have an ever-increasing incentive to employ the public policy, the public purse, and the public force to extend
the field of their private investments and to safeguard and improve their existing investments.” In other words, it
is in the growth of concentrated capital and the consequent desire for profitable foreign trade and investment that
we find the explanation of colonial expansion. It is for foreign markets and the exploitation of weaker peoples that
battleships are multiplied, taxes increased, expenditures quadrupled, lives sacrificed, and principles trampled
underfoot. It is for extending trade influence at the behest of financial rulers that the natural spread of civilization
and self-government is disregarded and a domineering tyranny established over unwilling subjects. All this has
become as true of America as of England.

We have not an equal necessity of looking abroad because of our larger home market, but we are looking abroad.
It may be that the home market of America still takes 96 percent of all manufactured articles, only 4 percent going
to foreign markets; but already we find that the extension of foreign trade and the competition in foreign markets
are begetting and fostering our imperialism. At the same time, as has been the case in England, they are beginning
to be used as an argument for resisting the demands of laborers for better pay and shorter hours. This argument
is being dinned into the ears of British workingmen, and in due time it will be dinned more and more into the ears
of American workingmen. Furthermore, the same argument is used to excuse the monopolistic methods of trusts.
In an article, for example, in one of the current reviews, a writer concludes a lengthy discussion of the Standard
Oil Company by telling how this company sells about 90 percent of the oil exported, how its power at home enables
it to compete in foreign fields, and how it sells abroad at a lower price than at home only where it comes into
competition with Russia in the eastern market. But in a still more intimate way the purpose and methods of imperialism
connect themselves with social problems at home. Readers of The Public may, perhaps, remember a book on
Poverty reviewed some time since in these columns. It was a minute study of the English city of York, in which
place the author found that over 40 percent of the population were virtually paupers. Now, suppose England,
instead of overwhelming the Boers, had given her thought and effort to enabling these people to become purchasers
of her goods! Well does Mr. Hobson speak of the “absurdity of spending half our financial resources in fighting to
secure foreign markets at a time when hungry mouths, ill-clad backs, and ill-furnished houses indicate countless
unsatisfied material wants among our own population.”

Imperialism turns its back on these conditions in the home market. It does not seek to increase this market by a
better distribution of wealth at home. It goes about, at the cost of the nation’s revenue and lives, seeking foreign
markets and foreign investments. Imperialism talks much about the spread of civilization. When we shall have
attended better to social conditions at home, then and then only shall we have a civilization worthy to spread.
But imperialists do not think so; the present civilization is good enough for them, and they want more of the
same kind. So the great financial forces that in both England and America, through the Tory and Republican
parties, are whistling patriotism and prosperity to the neglect of the conditions of ill-distributed wealth at home,
are the same forces that are backing the policy of imperialism. Let us recognize the fact that there are many
good men in these parties who have not considered the full purport of this policy. There are others who have
been carried along by the impulse of a mistaken patriotism, or by the force of cleverly manipulated public
opinion. To all these we must appeal to pause and think how false the policy of imperialism is, both in spirit
and in method. Its spirit is driving us to acts of cruelty and to the sacrifice of the optimistic principles of democratic
government. Its method is to divert attention from the betterment of social conditions at home, while it seeks
new fields to exploit abroad.