The Winds of War,
Land Wars That Is

Joseph Dana Miller

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, May-June, 1935]

Japan wants more room, which means more land. Hence the danger of war. We are told by Prof. Jesse Holmes of Swarthmore College that Japan is "terribly overcrowded, terribly poor." But who is crowding her? There is no question that any country, Japan included, with equality of land distribution, is able to support its existing population. Japan is in the position of being out-distanced in the business of land gambling "a belated bandit," Prof. Holmes calls her. But if nobody were crowding her she would not be giving the impression of being overcrowded, and that is true of every country. Landowners are doing the crowding. Prof. Holmes calls all nations "bandits," which is a pretty accurate description, though he does not quite sense the reason for it all.

The curious misunderstanding about "overcrowded" nations is very persistent, despite the fact that it has no basis in fact or arithmetic. Even Frank H. Simonds, who has done some clear thinking on international questions, says that the way to avoid war would be for the nations rich in natural resources to divide up in order to live in peace in a normal world. He sees that it is hunger for land that causes war. He is not very clear about it. He does not see that what is the matter with "overcrowded nations" is that land owners are doing the crowding. If a nation has not enough of the things it needs it can share in the natural resources of the world by letting down the barriers to freedom of exchange.

INTERNATIONAL wars and civil wars alike most of them have their basis in land or tariffs. They are shooting down peasants in Spain, of whom there are some three million, because the promise of agrarian reforms were not kept. The peasants who were shot down were called "anarchists" a convenient term. Men who protest against conditions will always be called anarchists or communists. What do their crazy theories matter? The only dreadful fact that is obvious enough is that men are hungry and that they will revolt and fight to satisfy their hunger. They are divorced from the land and that is the sole reason they are hungry. They have no place to work and land is a place to work.

Look where we will the conflict is the same. Paraguay is fighting to secure the petroleum fields of Bolivia. The Chaco war is a fight for land oil fields are land. Not that it really matters to the native Paraguayan worker who owns the petroleum fields; he never will. And that is one of the mysteries of the matter explainable only by the unfathomable ignorance of man. Paraguayans and Bolivians hate each other, kill each other, over land they will never have any right to own. If they were going to get the land for themselves there would be some sense in it. But whoever owns the oil-fields, Paraguayans and Bolivians will work for the owners as miserable slaves, as they always did.

The Ukraine is a great wheat country and produces more iron and coal than all of France. Germany has long cast envious eyes upon it. Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, hints at the seizure of the Ukraine. Germany would gladly go to war to secure it. Land again as the urge to war. Italian imperalism rushes more and definitely into Ethiopia where there are vast natural resources.

IT is always land or tariffs that are the cause of war.

It is news that has not yet got into the news that West Australia is anxious to secede from the Australian Commonwealth because of the high tariff taxation of the Canberra Government. It is even hinted that West Australia with half a million people is willing to take up arms to enforce its demand if it should be refused. King George and the British Parliament have been petitioned for permission to secede. If the petition is not granted a peaceful withdrawal is to be put to a referendum of the people of West Australia. Either the tariff must be abolished or greatly lowered. In the San Francisco News its correspondent Sam Ewing has interviewed one of the leading business men of Perth, West Australia, who said:

"I do not mean to predict in advance what the vote will be. But it is a matter of life and death with us. My state is agricultural. It sells products in the world market. The eastern Australian states have the power to enforce a high protective tariff for the protection of their infant industries. The tax is too much of a burden on our farming community."

This presents a very interesting situation. And it can easily lead to civil war. Again let it be said, and it cannot be said too often, that the two causes of war -- one a primary and the other a secondary cause -- are the private ownership of natural resources and hostile tariffs.