, France, Belgium,
Holland, Germany and even the United States entered the field. The
source from which capital could be obtained widened with the increase
in the number of wealthy industrial nations, and the volume of
investment expanded rapidly. The foreign investments of the United
Kingdom, according to an estimate made by Dr. Bowley, amounted in 1854
to two and three-quarter billions of dollars. For 1914, sixty years
later, these holdings were estimated at seventeen and one-half
billions. It is believed that the French have invested some eight
billions of dollars and the Germans four billions.[5] The entire
foreign investment of capital by the industrial nations of Europe
cannot have amounted (in 1914) to less than thirty-two or thirty-five
billions of dollars.[6]

If this great investment were made solely in countries with a highly
developed capitalism, with stable political conditions and strong
economic ambitions, no imperialistic policy would be necessary.
England need not "own" the United States in order to invest here safely
or for purposes of trade. Nor is she under an economic compulsion to
rule Canada or Australasia. Were these British colonies quite
independent politically, Canadians and Australians would {84} still
endeavour to sell wheat and mutton to Europe and to attract and protect
European capital. Their own self-interest, not any outside compulsion,
makes them serve European, in serving their own interests. In Morocco,
on the other hand, and in Tunis, Persia, Jamaica, Senegal and the
Congo, the situation is different. The natives of these lands lack
most of the elements which make for the ordered economic development
demanded by Europe. Under native rule there is governmental
incompetence and venality, disorder, revolt, apathy and economic
conservatism. Foreign investment is impossible and trade precarious.
It is here where the industrial system of Western Europe impinges upon
the backward countries that economic expansion merges into modern
imperialism.

[1] "Letters from a Chinese Official. Being an Eastern View of Western
Civilisation." New York (McClure, Phillips & Co.), 1903, p. 13.

[2] See "Handwoerterbuch der Staatswissenschaften," II, pp. 992, 993,
Third edition, Jena, 1909-1911. Western Europe here includes all of
Europe except Russia, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Balkan
States and Turkey.

[3] The absolute increase in the population of western Europe is its