Imperialism; J. Chamberlain

316 A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK Imperialism by John Chamberlain I mperialism-or "neo-colonialism" as they prefer to call it-is, with 'most modem liberals, a dirty word. To them it connotes military or economic subjugation, cultural repression, and all the economic woes connected with capitalism. To the Commu nists, capitalism must die a violent death once it can find no new overseas opportunities to in vest the "surplus capital" generated by capi talist expropriation of the' 'surplus value" cre ated by the labor of subsistence-level workers in the home territory. To Lewis Feuer, author of Imperialism and the Anti-Imperialist Mind (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 265 pp., $22.95), both the liberals and the Communists have made the mistake of substituting an "axiom of indict ment" for a careful reading of history. The fact is that imperialism's economic consequences were, from the viewpoint of colonized nations, mixed. There can be "regressive" imperi alisms in which predatory conquerors work their captive populations to death. There can, however, be "progressive" imperialisms which, while admittedly resting upon suspect moral beliefs suggesting that cultural and eco nomic superiority justifies coercive interference in the affairs of other peoples, confer real eco nomic and social benefits upon colonized na tions.

The Mongols, in the early phase of their eruption from inner Asia, were regressive in their attitudes. The Spaniards, who used an en slaved Indian manpower to work the gold and silver mines of Mexico and Peru, were not only regressive in their New World Colonies but, in failing to develop the skills of their citizens at home, they could find no successors to Cortez and Pizarro capable of running an empire. Hitler, at a much later date, was entirely re gressive: He drove Jewish scientists who might have given him the A-bomb to other countries, and he quickly lost the allegiance of the Ukrai nians who were initially disposed to welcome him as a savior. By contrast, the Romans were progressive imperialists. In granting Roman citizenship to minorities the Romans, in Feuer's words, liber ated "energies for the advancement of civiliza tion and creative activity." The British, French, and Dutch, in their phases of imperial expansion, were careful to provide opportunity for the development of talents. When it came to benefiting from the export of capital, the British, French, and Dutch were quite willing to take their dividends, but they were not hog gish about it. They left somethfng over for local expansion, and they even welcomed the com petition of local capitalists.

Feuer lets figures speak for themselves. In Dutch Java, for example, the population rose from 3.5 million in 1800 to some 9.5 million in 1850. Fifteen years later the population had jumped astonishingly to 14,168,000. Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of natural selection, found the Ja vanese to be "well-fed and decently clothed" and "on the whole contented and happy. " The leftist ecologist Barry Commoner writes that "the Dutch apparently fostered the increase in the Indonesian population in order to increase the labor forces that they needed to exploit the natural resources." But whatever the motive involved in building up the country, the Dutch left Indonesia in good shape. A Different View The story of the British in India and Africa, as recounted by Feuer, is quite different from the popular stereotyped version. "Dependency theory" might explain the early-day importa tion of Lancashire textiles to India. The Sas soons, a Jewish family that had migrated to Bombay from Baghdad in 1833, were fol lowing an approved course. But the Sassoons showed little respect for Lancashire when, with the help of machinery imported from England, they started the Jacob Sassoon Mill, with its 100,000 spindles and 2,000 looms. In another plant in Bombay the Sassoons combined all operations from the processing of raw cotton to the decoration of the textiles. The family capped its independence by founding a bank to serve its needs, thus completing an evolution from trading capitalism to "finance capi talism. "

In Africa other Jews served with one eye on the establishment of British hegemony and the other on making a good life possible for the black populations. There was Eduard Schnitzer, a Prussian Jew from Silesia, who, under the adopted name of Emin Pasha, com mended himself to "Chinese" Gordon as a likely man to rule the vast primitive province of Equatoria as a benevolently scientific governor. Emin Bey, as he became known, banished the slave traders from his domain. When, after the Mahdist victory at Khartoum over Gordon had cut' 'Equatoria" off from the British in Egypt, the legendary Henry Stanley was sent to bring Emin home. But the obdurate man refused to budge. He not only had his grateful Negroes to care for, he had his ornithological collections to complete. It was Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg, the descendant of a Polish Jew who had escaped across the Russian frontier to avoid conscrip tion in the czar's army, who became famous for his humane work in governing the British Af rican colony of Nigeria. Guggisberg's grandfa ther was the local butcher of Preston, Ontario; his father was the town's drygoods merchant.

317 Disdaining the shopkeeping vocations of his forebears, Guggisberg went to the Royal Mili tary Academy and was commissioned in the Royal Engineers. He found his way to the Gold Coast in Africa as a surveyor-general. As a di rector of surveys Guggisberg compiled a hand book of model instructions for the governing of a colony. His rules precluded unpaid labor, and they stipulated that all goods bought from local farmers and workers must be paid for at the market price. As a governor Guggisberg was, as Feuer de scribes him, "a builder akin to the old Roman imperialists. " He "constructed a new system of roads, a new harbor, and the first college in the Gold Coast. He also brought to completion the magnificent African hospital at Korle Bu. He could truthfully claim that 'thanks to the new roads, I have been the first Governor to enter many important towns in the Col ony ... ' " But more important because of the new transport, "the prices for cocoa paid to the farmer rose between 50 and 100 percent. ' , By some terrible irony Nkrumah, the Marxist dictator who was to undo much of Guggis berg's good work, was a student at Guggis berg's college. Guggisberg might have become cynical by the tum in events, but he never did.

He revealed his inmost emotions to his friend and co-worker Colonel J. H. Levey. "Re member," he said to Levey, "that the blood of an oppressed people runs in my veins. I never forgot it. I understood the people of the Gold Coast. " Feuer's complaint about the "good imperial ists" is that they decided to get out of the busi ness. In turning over various colonies to so cialists of one stripe or another they have left the gates open to the ascendant imperialism of the moment, the one that is directed from Moscow. It is to be regretted that Feuer does not raise or discuss the question as to whether one can morally justify the primary assumption of those defending imperialism, from Pericles to Marx - namely, the assumption that cultural or economic superiority justifies or even de mands coercive intervention in the affairs of other nations and peoples. Many defenders of the freedom philosophy thus will find them selves concerned by Feuer's hope that "cumu lative crises [might] finally compel the United 318 THE FREEMAN. AUGUST 1987 States to assume the power and responsibility"