Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Síða 21

THE BALANCE OF WORLD ECONOMY

repercussions also on agriculture and other natural branches of
production. Now the broad masses of the middle classes and the
labourers in Europe also acquired purchasing power; capital was
accumulated, banks were founded and credit economy developed,
perhaps more than was desirable, at any rate if there were to be
a slackening of the unique pace of expansion which characterised
Europe of the i9th century; and we advanced to the Europe we
know, as it crossed the threshhold of the 2oth century. —
Now that we have dealt with the West we must turn to
the East which at the present time it is from an economic and
political point of view rather more important to understand than
the West. For it is from the East that the unrest comes, it is there
that the fatal hour of the West will strike. And whatever may
happen in the present iron struggle it will settle nothing for
Europe or the West as a whole. Strange as it may sound when we
think of the sacrifice of human life and happiness, of the phan-
tastic sacrifices of capital produced by human labour, of the
standard of living and culture created by the material develop-
ment of the West; strange as it may sound when we recall all
this, the present gigantic struggle is but the prelude to the solut-
ion of the real world problem which faces our generation. For,
as it has been truly said, in our age we must think in continents
and not in countries, and the continent which is now awakening,
which has armed and stepped into the arena, embraces more
than half the human race. About 1180 million human beings
now stand in the East ready to solve this problem in accordance
with their own interests. They are not a few redskins who may
be trodden down; they are intelligent people instilled with an-
cient culture, the religious or philosophical ideas of which may
mdeed for centuries have kept them in a state of passivity, but
who have now learnt from Europeans and Americans at any
rate how material progress is made, and who can now look after
themselves, transplanting the Monroe doctrine across the Pacific
from America and demanding: “Asia for the Asiatics”.
We have already pointed out that the human material of
the emigration from Europe to the East was entirely different
from that which went West. In the first place the numbers were
insignificant compáred with the numbers of the western emigrat-
íon. In the second place it was not manual labourers, but mer-
chants, organisers, administrators, engineers and later officials
etc. They bought or conquered, they governed either directly bv