Dudley Stamp and the<i>Zeitschrift für Geopolitik</i>

Abstract Changes in World Trade Flows: Atlantic or Pacific Ocean? There are already many people today who claim that in a not too distant future the Pacific Ocean will have surpassed the Atlantic with regard to economic significance. It is pointed out that the main routes of world sea traffic are being transferred more and more from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is, thus, almost generally expected that there will be a shift in status similar to that which has taken place between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Before the discovery of America, the Mediterranean was the world's central sea. The great empires and the important trading nations of the antique world, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Carthage – later Italy and Spain – made up its shores. However, this picture changed immediately after the discovery of America, and those countries which lined the Atlantic Ocean – i.e., Holland, Great Britain, Spain and Portugal on one side, the United States, Canada and the Argentine on the other – enjoyed an undreamt-of economic upswing. The countries round the Mediterranean lost a great deal of their importance in world economy, and only the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 brought back stronger trade flows. Are we to expect a similar development today? This question has considerable practical significance, as it will have great influence on the future formation of international relations, not only economically but also in a political perspective. A number of indicators suggest greater prominence of the Pacific Ocean in world trade. On the American side we have seen the astonishing upswing of the entire West Coast of the United States. California with its wonderful climate must already be called the world's greatest orchard. It is also likely to emerge more and more as a great exporter of grain. It has the largest oil fields of the Union and should have the prospect of an influential future through its mineral resources alone. The Rocky Mountains and their well-nigh inexhaustible riches in minerals are much nearer to the Pacific than the Atlantic. In a world with, after all, a limited supply of timber, the state of Washington and the province of British Columbia with their immense reserves of first-class timber are of crucial importance. British Columbia, moreover, has large mineral deposits. Somewhat further to the north lies Alaska, one of the world's largest fishing regions. Further to the south we find the extremely valuable coffee and cocoa producing areas of Central and tropical South America. The yet unexploited regions of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia are of as great importance to world economy as the neighbouring areas of Chile. The Panama Canal, so important to world traffic, and the numerous transcontinental railway links – half a dozen or more in North America and already one in South America – allow for close trade connections between the West Coast of America on the Pacific Ocean and the great American industrial centres along the coast of the Atlantic. How about the other side of the Pacific Ocean? The astonishing rise of Japan as one of the world's leading industrial nations is just a foretaste of the immense possibilities of the considerably larger China, equipped with far richer natural resources. The tropical regions of the East Indian islands are hitherto only exploited to an insignificant degree, although the important production of rubber in the Malay states Java and Sumatra already hints at the future path of development. A great role for trade in these distant parts is also played by Australia, a continent the size of the United States but with only one eighteenth of their population; also by New Zealand, almost the size of Great Britain, but with only a thirtieth of her population. Finally a number of smaller islands in the Pacific must be mentioned, e.g., Hawaii with its lovely resorts and its pineapple fields, but even more important as a bunker port for refuelling. Despite these apparent advantages, the Pacific has many disadvantages compared to the Atlantic Ocean. To start with, its immense size. Along the equator, the Pacific spans more than a third of the circumference of the earth. Despite advances in naval technology, long journeys across oceans without a sufficient number of bunker ports on the way are not really conducive to the expansion of trade flows. Ships must carry massive stocks of fuel, thus reducing the payload. Bunker coal and oil for the ships must be transported to the Pacific islands from far away and therefore at high cost. But even by its very nature trading across the Atlantic Ocean is not likely to suffer through the development of the Pacific. The densely populated regions of Europe depend to a considerable degree on the countries on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean, the United States, Canada and the Argentine in particular, for their supply of foodstuffs and industrial raw materials – mainly meat, grain, cotton, copper and petroleum. As long as the Old World still needs to be fed with provisions from the New World, and as long as North and South America and Africa are exporting foodstuffs and industrial raw materials for this purpose, trading between these three continents will predominantly be via the Atlantic Ocean. It may be argued that Australia's rise as a grain exporting country will stimulate trans-Pacific trade, but the route from Australia to Europe via the Suez Canal is still the shortest, and even if shipping goes via the Panama Canal the Atlantic Ocean still has to be crossed in order to reach Europe. The enormous growth of shipping through the Panama Canal has often enough been used as evidence of the increase of trading across the Pacific Ocean. However, this evidence is by no means conclusive. If the tonnage passing through the Panama Canal during the past few years has surpassed that of the Suez Canal, one should bear in mind that out of the total 16,500,000 tons passing through the Panama Canal in 1925, by far the greatest part concerned coastal traffic between the West and the East coasts of America. Only approx. 615,000 tons, i.e., less than one twentieth of the total tonnage, came from far away regions of the Pacific Ocean. And less than one sixth of the tonnage was destined for Australia or the Far East. Looking at the total trade volume of the United States, one finds that in the year 1926 approximately 21 million tons of goods were shipped over the Atlantic to Europe, and less than 5 million tons to Australia and the Far East. A considerable part of this latter amount was not shipped over the Pacific but went over the Atlantic and then through the Suez Canal. The consolidation of China which will certainly come about sooner or later and the economic opening of the great Asian prairie lands in Manchuria and Mongolia will certainly offer a considerable impulse to transpacific trade. But this upswing will complement the existing trans-Atlantic trade rather than replace it. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are grateful to Suzanne Hepple for permission to publish Les's work in this form. Notes 1. R. Sprengel, Kritik der Geopolitik. Ein deutscher Diskurs 1914–1944 (Berlin: Academic Verlag 1996) p. 226. 2. L. D. Stamp, 'Wandlungen in Welthandelsverkehr: Atlantischer oder Stiller Ozean?', Zeitschrift für Geopolitik 4/12 (1927) pp. 64–66. 3. J. Chibnall, 'Bibliography of publications by Sir Dudley Stamp', in C. Embleton and J. T. Coppock (eds.), Land Use and Resources: Studies in Applied Geography. A Memorial Volume to Sir Dudley Stamp (London: Institute of British Geographers, Special Publication 1, 1968) pp. 71–84. 4. The only conjunction of Dudley Stamp and geopolitics that I can find is his brief review of Griffith Taylor's pamphlet titled Canada's Role in Geopolitics in International Affairs 20 (1944) pp. 124–125. 5. Almost none, but there was some knowledge. The Royal Geographical Society was receiving some German geopolitical publications and in 1925 'G.G.C.' [G. G. Chisholm, the economic geographer] reviewed Zur Geopolitik der Selbstbestimmung by Karl Haushofer and J. Marz in Geographical Journal 65 (1925) p. 543, and in 1927 'G.R.C.' [G. R. Crone, the RGS librarian and historian of cartography] reviewed Erich Obst's England, Europa und die Welt in Geographical Journal 65 (1925) p. 180. Crone subsequently reviewed a number of other German geopolitics books in the Geographical Journal. 6. A. Gyorgy, Geopolitics, the New German Science (Berkeley: University of California Press 1944) pp. 239–240. 7. K.-H. Harbeck, Die 'Zeitschrift für Geopolitik' 1924–1944. Unpublished PhD thesis, Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel. 8. Ibid., pp.22–25. 9. [Note that Paterson equates the Zeitschrift with magazines like the Geographical Magazine rather than academic journals. J. H. Paterson, 'German Geopolitics Reassessed', Political Geography Quarterly 6 (1987) p. 111. See also H. Heske, 'Karl Haushofer: His Role in German Geopolitics and Nazi Politics', Political Geography Quarterly 6 (1987) pp. 135–144. This footnote is not in Hepple's original.] 10. J. Stamp, 'Der wahre Sinn des Wirtschaftsmanifestes', Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, 4/1 (1927) pp. 35–37. 11. On Josiah Stamp see W. Beveridge (revised by Jose Harris), 'Stamp, Josiah Charles, first Baron Stamp (1880–1941)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004), available at <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36237>. [ See also, not referenced in Hepple's original manuscript, J. H. Jones, Josiah Stamp: Public Servant. The Life of the First Baron Stamp of Shortlands (London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons Ltd. 1964).] 12. On Dudley Stamp see M. J. Wise, 'Stamp, Sir (Laurence) Dudley (1898–1966)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004), available at <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36238>. [See also, not referenced in Hepple's original manuscript, W. E. Pilfold, Sir Laurence Dudley Stamp (1898–1966), Geographer and Public Servant: a Critical Biography. PhD thesis (Brighton: University of Sussex 2005).] 13. It might just be possible to try and suggest that G. G. Chisholm was the link: he knew some of the German geopolitical literature – evidenced by his 1925 review in the Geographical Journal – and his enormously successful Handbook of Commercial Geography was taken over and revised by Dudley Stamp in 1928, so the two were in contact. However, there is no evidence of any correspondence between Chisholm and Haushofer, and in any case Stamp's essay appeared in Ball's W&W section. [On Chisholm, see E. Baigent, 'Chisholm, George Goudie (1850–1930)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004), available at <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/51478?docPos=2>.] 14. One obvious explanation is that Dudley Stamp may have been embarrassed by this publication in later life especially in the aftermath of the defeat of Nazi Germany. 15. Jones (note 11). 16. K. Haushofer, Geopolitik des PazifischenOzeans. Studien über die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Geographie und Geschichte (Heidelberg: Vowinckel 1924). [This book was translated by E. J. Brehm and edited by L. A. Tambs, as An English Translation and Analysis of Major General Karl Ernst Haushofer's Geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean: Studies on the Relationship between Geography and History (Lewiston NY: Edwin Mellen Press 2002). On Haushofer, see H. Heske and R. Wesche, 'Karl Haushofer (1868–1946)' Geographers: Biobibliographic Studies 12 (1988) pp. 95–106.]

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