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K 46
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
THE
75387
CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
BY
BENJAMİN KUD
BENJAMIN KIDD
AUTHOR OF "SOCIAL EVOLUTION"
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1898
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1898,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mabe. U.S.A.
PREFACE
At the present time the two leading sections
of the English-speaking world, and particularly
the American people, are, in their relations to
the tropical regions of the earth, passing through
a period of development which, in the result,
is likely to profoundly influence the history of
the world in the twentieth century.
If the writer's estimate of the forces control-
ling this development is correct, there is one
condition upon which alone permanent suc-
cess can be expected for any scheme of policy
which may be devised or followed in the future:
it must be a scheme of policy in accordance
with, and proceeding from, the principles which
have governed in the past, and which are still
governing, the development of these peoples
themselves at home.
TY
2
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la site 8-29-31 41A,
PREFACE
The aim of the following pages is to bring
into clearer view the relationship of these
deeper forces to the situation with which the
English-speaking world is now confronted in
the tropics.
SEPTEMBER, 1898.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS:
PART II
PART I .
PART II .
PART III.
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. 46
PART III
APPENDIX:
THE PRINCIPLES OF THE RELATIONS OF OUR CIVILI-
ZATION TO THE TROPICS . . . . . 61
ZATION TO THE TROPICS
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
1 AT
UV
11
At the present time the foremost subject
occupying the attention of the American peo-
ple is one which involves the question of the
future government of two of the richest por-
tions of the tropical regions of the earth. In
England, at the same time, the public mind is
engaged with many serious international ques-
tions. It is curious to reflect that nearly all
of them, as well as the majority of those which
have recently been under discussion, also re-
late, either directly or indirectly, to the future
government of tropical or sub-tropical regions
of the earth. Siam, Burma, East Africa, the
Niger territories, Egypt, and we may include
China, have all provided questions which come
under this head.
At the end of the eighteenth century there
was drawing to a close a vast rivalry of the
2
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
THE CONTD
-
1
1
Western Powers of Europe. The statesmen
and soldiers who took part therein seemed to
themselves to be occupied over and above
everything else with questions of thrones, and
dynasties, and adjustment of the map of Eu-
rope. How comparatively trivial such ques-
tions look now, and to what still more dwarfed
proportions are they almost certainly destined
to shrink in the future, beside the vast world-
shaping rivalry which lay behind them all —
the struggle of the Western races for the
larger inheritance of the future. It is not in
adjustments of the map of Europe, however
important they may have seemed at the time,
that we have had the significant historical
events of the last two centuries. The events
of real importance, those which are destined to
shape and control the tendencies of history
into the distant future, are those connected
with the struggle for, and the occupation by
the winning sections of the Western peoples 11
of, those regions of the world where the white
races can live permanently and work.
At the end of the nineteenth century we are
in the midst of another epoch of instinctive
n
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
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rivalry. It is not improbable that to a future
observer one of the most curious features of
our time will appear to be the same prevail-
ing unconsciousness of the real nature of the
issues in the midst of which we are living.
The great rivalry of the past has been deter-
mined -decided on the whole overwhelmingly
in favour of the English-speaking peoples. It
has been for the inheritance of the white man's
land of the world. The great rivalry of the
future is already upon us. It is for the inheri-
tance of the tropics, not indeed for possession
in the ordinary sense of the word, for that is
an idea beyond which the advanced peoples of
the world have moved, but for the control of
these regions according to certain standards.
Why there is no longer room for the old belief
— never perhaps on the whole seriously enter-
tained — that the tropics may, or even must,
be left to take care of themselves, we shall
have to discuss further on. Let us in the first
place endeavour to fix attention on certain
salient and striking facts the significance of
which has as yet scarcely been grasped by the
general mind.
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TICUL
In the midst of the great controversy which
for the last fifty years has raged round the
question of free trade, as stated by the English
school of economists, there is one aspect of the
matter which, though of the first importance,
has hitherto, for the most part, remained out
of sight. Stated in its simplest and truest
form, the central doctrine, upon which the
entire English theory of free trade rests, is
that it is of the highest advantage that each
country should devote itself to those forms
of production in which it has a comparative
advantage, and that there should be free
exchange of all products. As the forces
of industrial rivalry have, however, developed
themselves among the leading Western na-
tions, as transport and communication have
become cheaper and more rapid, and technical
knowledge has been more widely distributed
and more easily conveyed, rival industries may
be seen flourishing in different countries and
under varying conditions. The fact has, in
short, begun to make itself more and more
distinctly felt that the competing nations in
most cases possess but little advantage one
YA
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS 5
over the other, and that the probable tendency
is for even this to become less. There re-
mains, however, in the background one im-
mense sphere of commercial activity, in which
the great natural principle that lies at the base
of the free-trade theory must remain always
operative on a vast scale. It is in the inter-
change of products between the tropics and
the temperate regions. If present indications
are not entirely misleading, we are about to
witness an international rivalry for the control
of the trade of the tropics on a far vaster scale
than any which has hitherto been imagined.
It is remarkable that in the midst of other
matters which hold the public mind, but the
importance of which is trivial in comparison,
the large issues which are involved under this
head should have as yet occupied so little
attention.
If we turn at the present time to the import
lists of the world and regard them carefully, it
will soon become apparent to what a large ex-
tent our civilization already draws its supplies
from the tropics. Of recent years we have
been largely occupied in discussing questions
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THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
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affecting the conditions of our own industrial
production. Yet it is curious to reflect to
what a large extent our complex, highly organ-
ized modern life rests on the work and produc-
tion of a region of the world to which our
relations are either indefinite or entirely cas-
ual; a region which has, it must be remem-
bered, hitherto produced no example of native
government successful in the European sense,
but towards which, nevertheless, no political
party and no school of thought have so far set
forth any scheme of policy, either consistent in
itself or possessing the merit even of being
generally accepted in principle. Looking at
first down the British list of imports, and tak-
ing the articles of tropical produce as they
come in alphabetical order, the first important
staple which catches the eye is that of caout-
chouc, or india-rubber. It is well known that
in recent years several of the most important
and expanding industries have been dependent
on the regular supply of this material, the de-
mand for which is likely to continue to in-
crease. The imports in 1882 were valued at
£2,700,000; in 1896 they were valued at some
YY
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
7
£5,000,000. The next article is cocoa, of
which the consumption is also increasing. The
British imports in 1896 were 38,000,000 lb.,
valued at £1,053,962. Of coffee some 80,000,-
000 lb. were imported, valued at £3,558,746.
On the next article, raw cotton, imported to
the value of some £ 36,000,000, rests the staple
British industry. It is to some extent also a
tropical product. The main supply at the
beginning of the century came from the East
and West Indies. But the skill, energy, and
invention which it has been possible to apply
to its cultivation within the territory of the
United States have, when added to other
opportunities, caused a gradual but continual
shrinkage to comparatively small proportions
of the supply which now comes from the trop-
ics. Of drugs and dyestuffs, mostly from
tropical countries, the imports were valued
at £5,300,000. Of gum, gutta-percha, and
palm oils the imports were valued at some
£ 3,400,000. Of jute imported the value was
£4,167,992. Of sugar, of which, despite the
artificial disturbance caused by the bonuses
given by Continental Governments on the ex-
1
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
-
port of the beetroot product, the large propor-
tion still comes from the tropics, the imports
were valued at over £ 19,000,000. Of tea the
imports were valued at £10,562,773, nearly
nine-tenths of the total quantity imported
coming from India and Ceylon. Of tobacco
the total imports were valued at £4,352,031.
These were the leading staples; but there is
a long list of miscellaneous articles of tropical
produce which only fall short of these in im-
portance, amongst which may be mentioned
teak, mahogany, and other woods, rice, paper-
making materials, silk, hides, various minerals,
and many foods, including fruit.
The impression which may thus be roughly
obtained of the importance of the existing
trade with the tropics may be readily supple-
mented by other methods of analysis. If we
take the tropical and sub-tropical regions of
the world as embraced in the belt of territory
on each side of the equator within the parallels
of 30° north and 30° south, we shall have a
clearly defined zone. Outside of it will lie, in
the northern hemisphere, practically the whole
of the territory of the United States and of
YTT
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
9
Europe, and the greater part of Asia, includ-
ing Japan. In the southern hemisphere we
may take Cape Colony and Natal as excluded,
the Argentine Republic and Chile, and the
whole of the Australian colonies of Great Brit-
ain excepting Queensland. If we turn now
to the list of British exports for the year 1896,
it will be found that the total value reached,
in round figures, a sum of £ 296,000,000. If
we go through the list and endeavour to dis-
tinguish the exports to this tropical belt, esti-
mating in some cases where it is not possible
to obtain the exact figures in the case of
China taking 35 per cent of the whole as tropi-
cal), it will be found that they amount to a
total which may be put roughly in the neigh-
bourhood of £73,000,000, or about one-fourth
of the whole. We may carry the analysis fur-
ther with more striking results. We have
heard from time to time recently a great deal
of discussion concerning the trade of the
United Kingdom with the British colonies
and dependencies. The total of this trade
(exports and imports) for the year 1896
amounted, if we include Egypt, to some
17h
1
11
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
SON
1
£ 197,000,000. It is somewhat startling, when
we come to analyze the figures, to find that
some £102,000,000 of it was trade between
the United Kingdom and the British regions
of this tropical belt. This is all the more
remarkable, too, when it is remembered that
for a long period in the past the indetermi-
nate tone of home policy with regard to ques-
tions affecting the interests of settlements in
various tropical parts has not been such as
to encourage enterprise or the investment of
capital in those regions. Throughout the
greater part of the British tropics the condi-
tions of free trade prevail. Throughout a
considerable proportion of the remaining tropi-
cal regions imports of British produce are
taxed; the whole British trade with the re-
maining tropical regions of the world amount-
ing to only some £ 36,000,000.
If we consider now the trade of the United
Kingdom at the end of the nineteenth century
in relation to the historical movements men-
tioned at the outset, we may regard it as falling
into three great divisions as follows:-
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
Trade of the United Kingdom in 1896 with
the tropics . . . . . . . . . . £138,000,000
With the English-speaking world (not in-
cluding British tropics) ...... 233,000,000
Total with the tropics and English-
speaking world · · · · · · £371,000,000
With the rest of the world. ..... 367,000,000
Gross total. .......· £738,000,000
NA
But it may be said that Great Britain is
exceptionally situated as regards the currents
of its trade and the nature of its imports and
exports. If, however, we turn to the United
States of America, it is only to find the same
lesson more strongly emphasized. Looking
down the import list for 1895 and taking the
fifteen heads under which the largest values
have been imported, we find that they include
some two-thirds of the total imports of the
United States. A glance at the principal
commodities is sufficient to show to what an
enormous extent the produce of the tropics is
represented. Here the two items which stand
at the top of the list are coffee and sugar, of
which the imports were valued at respectively
$96,000,000 and $76,000,000. The value of
LV
12
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
the imports of these two articles alone does
not fall very far short of one-fourth of the total
value of the imports of the United States for
the year in question. If we add to it the
values under three other heads — viz., (1) india-
rubber, (2) tobacco, and (3) tea, we have a total
of some $221,000,000. If we endeavour to deal
with the whole import list on the principle
followed in the case of Great Britain, and seek
to distinguish what proportion of the total
imports of the United States comes from the
region embraced between latitude 30° north
and 30° south of the equator, we get a total
value of approximately $250,000,000 from trop-
ical regions. This is over one-third of the en-
tire imports of the United States, the total for
the year from all sources being $731,000,000.
In the case of the exports of the United States
the currents of trade are somewhat different,
some 47 per cent of the entire export trade
being with the United Kingdom. But of the
remainder the export trade to the tropics forms
a large proportion, amounting in all to approxi-
mately $96,000,000.
Adding together, therefore, the exports and
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS 13
imports of the United States, we have a re-
markable analysis of the entire trade of the
country as follows:-
$346,000,000
Tradle of the United States in 1895 with the
tropics . . . . . . . . . . .
With the English-speaking world (not in-
cluding British tropics) . . . . . .
657,000,000
Total with the tropics and English-
speaking world ..... . $1,003,000,000
With the rest of the world . . . . . . 535,000,000
Gross total. ....... . $1,538,000,000
As regards Great Britain and the United
States together, we may now present the sum
of the whole matter in a striking light. The
writer, with the sources of information at his
disposal, in order to obtain a closer analysis,
has had to deal with the figures for 1895 in the
case of the United States, while for the United
Kingdom the figures taken have been for 1896.
Allowing for possible variation between the
years in question, we get the following results
in English currency if we add the figures for
the two countries together:-
IT
14
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
United Kingdom trade with the tropics . £138,000,000
United States trade with the tropics ... 70,000,000
Total. .......... £208,000,000
Combined trade of United Kingdom and
United States with the remainder of the
world outside English-speaking lands. . 473,000,000
7
If we thus get rid of the obscuring factor
of the large trade which the English-speaking
world transacts within its own borders, the
enormous interest which the two leading sec-
tions of it have in the tropics becomes apparent.
Their combined trade with the tropics actually
amounts to approximately some 44 per cent
of their total trade with all the rest of the
world. However rough and imperfect the idea
that may be obtained from these figures of the
nature of our existing relation to the tropics,
it is at least sufficient to impress us with a very
real sense of its importance. In the immense
regions concerned there are embraced some of
the richest territories on the earth's surface.
But they are territories as yet, for the greater
part, practically undeveloped. Yet it must be
remembered that it is in an interchange of
commodities between these regions and those
..
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THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
15
at present occupied by the European peoples
that it is possible to have permanently opera-
tive, on the largest scale upon which it could
be made operative in the world, the great
natural principle underlying all trade, i.e.,
that the interchange of products between
peoples and regions possessing different natu-
ral capacities tends to be mutually advanta-
geous. No serious attempt, at least no
attempt of the kind which the importance of
the subject appears to deserve, has so far
been made to set forth the principles which
should underlie our future relations with the
tropical regions of the world. Over a con->
siderable proportion of these regions at pres-
ent we have existing a state either of anarchy,
or of primitive savagery, pure and simple, in
which no attempt is made or can be made
to develop the natural resources lying ready
to hand. Over a portion of the remainder
European Powers hold control. In some of
these cases this control is maintained on prin-
ciples beyond the exercise of which the ad-
vanced peoples have certainly moved, and
upon the practice of which no scheme of
1
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L.
LALU'
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re...
16
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
policy towards these regions could ever again
be successfully submitted for public approval
amongst ourselves. In England, at the pres-
ent time, the feeling is probably instinctive
that our relations with the tropics are likely
to be extended rather than restricted in the
near future. But, although we appear to be
dimly conscious that we are living in a
period of new and higher standards of na-
tional duty in such relations, although we
even at times appear to catch sight of the
high and important responsibility which the
conscientious discharge of a national duty in
these relations may involve in the period
upon which we are entering, nowhere is there
to be found any whole-hearted and consistent
attempt either to justify the political relations
which already exist, or to define the principles
of any relations which ought to exist in the
future.
1
II
The two leading facts, which it has been the
endeavour, so far, to present in a clear light, are
therefore: First, that the complex life of the
modern world rests upon the production of the
tropics to an extent which is scarcely realized
by the average mind; and, second, that the
trade of the United Kingdom and the United
States with the tropics is already a very large
proportion of the total commerce of both coun-
tries. We have seen that, taking the trade of
the United Kingdom with all the British
colonies and dependencies, the trade with the
British tropics considerably exceeds that with
all the non-tropical colonies and dependencies
of Great Britain, including, it must be remem-
bered, the great self-governing territories of
Canada, the Cape, Natal, New Zealand, and all
the Australian colonies with the exception of
Queensland. Taking the English-speaking
17
18
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
1
1
world as a whole, and excluding from con-
sideration all trade within its own borders, we
found that its trade with the tropics amounted
in such circumstances to some 38 per cent of
its total trade with all the rest of the world. In
the same circumstances, we found that the
trade of the United States with the tropics
actually amounted to 65 per cent of its total
trade with the remainder of the world; the
combined trade of the two countries with the
tropics, averaging, in this case, some 44 per
cent of their total trade with all the rest of the
world outside English-speaking lands. The
importance of these facts will be evident. But
they would have a far deeper significance than
any which appears at the surface.
During the nineteenth century a large part
of the energies of the Western peoples have
been absorbed in the development of vast
territories in the temperate regions recently
added to our civilization. It is obvious that
neither the conditions of commerce nor of
industry under which this development has
hitherto proceeded can be expected to con-
tinue. In all probability we are destined to
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
19
7
1TTO
witness in the near future the extension over
a large part of these regions of conditions of
population tending to gradually approach Eu-
ropean standards. From all present indịca-
tions these conditions of populations are likely
to be accompanied, both in Europe and in the
countries themselves, by a further development
of industrialism, a largely increased capacity
for output, and a tendency to keener competi-
tion with diminishing profits. There can be
little doubt that in these circumstances the
more advanced peoples, driven to seek new
outlooks for their activities, will be subject to
a gradually increasing pressure to turn their
attention to the great natural field of enterprise
which still remains in the development of the
tropics. Let us see, therefore, what are the
present principles which govern our relation-
ships to these regions of the earth.
If we regard the tropics at the present day,
we have in view what is surely one of the most
extraordinary spectacles which the world pre-
sents in the closing years of the nineteenth
century. Looking round at these regions of
the world, it may be perceived, after a little
Y
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20 THE CONTROL OF THE TTT
TY
TROPICS
reflection, that the existing relations of all
civilized nations thereto may be resolved into
three types. In each of these there may be
distinguished to be a fundamental conception
or ruling idea underlying the prevailing rela-
tionship and governing the general scheme of
policy which arises out of it. Yet of every
one of these conceptions it must be said that
it represents an anachronism. If existing
indications of the direction in which the forces
at present at work are carrying us are not
absolutely misleading, it appears impossible to
resist the conviction that upon none of them is
it possible to base any policy of our future
relations towards the tropical regions of the
earth, likely in 'time to come to receive the
support of public opinion. Let us consider
each briefly.
Of the first type of relationship existing
between a civilized Power and a tropical pos-
session we may take as examples the Dutch
territories in the East and the Spanish pos-
sessions in the East and West Indies. The
general idea underlying the relationship here
is very simple; it is practically the same as
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS 21
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that which prevailed regarding British settle-
ments in tropical countries in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. The tropical ter-
ritory is regarded simply as an estate –
a “Plantation” or a “Possession ” — to be
worked for the largest profit it will bring
in, mainly irrespective of other considera-
tions. This system found the natural con-
ditions suitable to it under the institution
of slavery, and at the period of its highest
development, its successful working largely
depended on this relationship of capital to
labour. With the abolition of slavery, it has
undergone many modifications. At the pres-
ent day, one of the most successful examples
of its working under modern conditions is to
be found in the Dutch East Indies. In Java
of the present day, for instance, the greater
part of the land is claimed by Government,
and has been largely worked under what is
known as the “culture system” instituted in
1832. Many of the details of this system
have been recently modified, but in outline
the system as a whole survives. A leading
feature of it has been forced native labour
VA
22
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
YA
In
employed in the raising for Government of
produce to be sold in the Netherlands and
in the colonial markets. At the present time,
the labour of the natives appears to be re-
quired only in the production of coffee, of
which a great quantity is produced, to be
sold in the Netherlands. It is a curious feat-
ure of our time to find, for example, in the
Budget of 1898 the following estimated sales
of Government produce (the value being set
forth in guilders): To be sold in the Nether-
lands — coffee, 21,600,000; cinchona, 122,000;
tin, 6,700,000: to be sold in India - opium,
17,200,000; coffee, 8,200,000. There is one
fact which immediately compels attention here,
though the significance of it is little under-
stood at the present day. The large dimen-
sion of the trade of those tropical regions in
which the plantation system has been con-
sistently worked is very remarkable. For in-
stance, the trade of the Dutch East Indies in
1895 reached the total of some $160,000,000.
In like manner the trade of Cuba, notwith-
standing all drawbacks, must, down to a few.
years ago, be considered to have been rela-
VV
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
23
TI
T
tively, enormous; it has probably exceeded
that of any other tropical area of its size
in the world. Even the trade of the Philip-
pines is comparatively large, being estimated
to have been about $31,500,000 in 1896. It
is also a remarkable fact in this connection,
even allowing for all explanations which lie
ready to hand, that the British trade with
the West Indies, British Honduras, and Brit-
ish Guiana reached in 1815 the very large
total (especially when the volume of trade
at the time is considered) of $78,500,000.
As against this it had shrunk in 1896 to
$29,500,000.
Under all varying outward forms, the two
essential characteristics of this first type of
relationship between a civilized Power and
a tropical dependency which may be distin.
guished are (1) the placing in the foreground
as a prime consideration that the occupying
territory is to be worked like an estate in the
interests of the country whose “ Possession”
it is supposed to be, and (2) the complete
subordination of the native interests to those
of the occupying Power. However this type
-+
+
:.'.1
:
L
-
.
-
Pia..51
V
24
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
of relationship may be modified, the fact must
be clearly recognized that the main idea un-
derlying it is incompatible both with the
spirit and the forms of modern civilization.
No body of opinion could be expected now-
adays to permanently support either in Eng-
land or in the United States any scheme of
political policy towards tropical dependencies
admittedly founded on such a principle. But
we appear, nevertheless, to be confronted with
the fact that given the conditions which al-
lowed of capital being invested and of labour
being applied to tropical regions, even under
this system there are unmistakable proofs of
a large production and of a large resulting
volume of trade.
If we turn now to the second type of re-
lationship, we have in the conception upon
which it is based the ruling idea that has
been behind the policy of vigorous expan-
sion in tropical lands initiated by several of
the Continental Powers of Europe in recent
years. To understand the nature of the ex-
traordinary misconception, as it presents itself
to the writer, which lies at the root of this
-
.
.
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
25
policy, we must look principally to France.
The moving cause underlying the consistency
and persistency with which France has de-
voted herself for a considerable time in the
past to extending her sway over vast terri-
tories in the tropics is little understood in
England. Where the history of that develop-
ment has excited interest in England, it has
generally been followed with a kind of puz-
zled surprise. For why should France, it is
asked, - a country which has of necessity
given up the rivalry for colonies in the true
sense in temperate regions, - devote herself
to this policy of adventure in distant terri-
tories in the tropics ? To get the answer to
this question, we must step for a moment
outside the more superficial currents of pub-
lic life and public opinion at the present time.
During the greater part of the nineteenth
century, the Continental Powers of Western
Europe have in reality given little attention
to questions outside of their own immediate
environment. Occupied within the narrow
horizon of their own immediate political and
social affairs, they have taken no view of the
U
...
,
:
1
26
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
Y
1
1
wider importance of the future towards which
the world, mainly under the influences of the
expansive forces at work amongst the English-
speaking peoples, has been travelling. Towards
the end of the century, however, these powers
have become vaguely conscious of the trans-
formation which, in the meantime, has been
in progress in the world outside of Europe.
Many of the more thinking minds on the
Continent of Europe have already a very
clear conception of the significance of this
transformation, and of its bearing on the future.
It is probably true, however strange it may
appear to say so, that, at the present day, the
far-reaching effects of the part which the Eng-
lish-speaking peoples are probably destined to
play in the future, are not so much thought of,
or even so clearly perceived, either in England
or in America, as they are by some of the
more far-seeing minds in France and Germany.
It is to this cause that we may trace a very pro-
nounced tendency of which the effects have
been very distinctly felt in England of late
years. More than one of these thinkers, per-
ceiving the vast future consequences of that
2
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
27
OT
TT
V
1
expansion of the English-speaking peoples,
towards which the entire drift of policy and
events amongst these peoples for the last 200
years has tended, has become convinced also
that it is necessary that his own nation should
embark, before it is too late, in a policy of
expansion. More clearly than either in Eng-
land or in America, is it perceived that, as
the result of existing developments, the world
outside of Europe tends in the future to be
controlled in the main by only two sets of
forces, those which proceed from the peoples
who speak English, and those which proceed
from the peoples who speak Russian. The
temperate regions, it is seen, have already been
occupied. But there remain the tropics.
For a considerable period in the past, the
tendency in England has been to treat this
new disposition of the Continental Powers of
Europe as one to which no serious attention
need be paid. But there is a fixed idea and
a very clear determination underlying it all.
The group of politicians, with Jules Ferry
at their head, who embarked in the French
policy of expansion in Tongking, had, apart
28
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
1
from all questions of mere expediency, a very
definite idea as to the future value to France
of the territories upon which such an unpopu-
lar expenditure of lives and treasure took place.
It would come as a surprise, also, to many in
England, to find from what serious minds the
advocacy of the present French policy of ex-
pansion in Africa proceeds. There are, for
instance, few French writers better acquainted
with the deeper needs of modern France, and
none whose opinion is received with more
respect outside of France, than the political
economist, M. Paul Leroy Beaulieu. Looking
round at the world, this writer foresees that,
at the commencement of the twentieth cen-
tury, France will have on one side of her 120
millions of Russians about to expand into the
temperate regions of Siberia, and on the other
side of her 120 millions of the English-speaking
peoples about to expand into a vast inheritance
in the temperate regions elsewhere in the world.
“ Therefore,” he says, “ colonization is for France
a question of life and death, — either France
must become a great African Power, or she
will be in a century or two but a secondary
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
29
European Power: she will count in the world
scarcely more than Greece or Rumania counts
in Europe."
In this sentence, and in particular in the
words which have here been placed in italics,
we have the key to the infatuation which has
possessed the minds of the Continental Powers
of Western Europe at the close of the nine-
teenth century. The writer has spoken of the
extraordinary misconception which underlies
it. It is the idea that the history of Eng-
land, which in the past has put forth vigorous
reproductions of herself in the white man's
lands of the world, can be reproduced in the
twentieth century in tropical Africa and simi-
lar regions of the earth. In the countries
which have followed the lead of France we
may distinguish everywhere the same idea
under different forms. In the German Press,
M. Paul Leroy Beaulieu's idea may be seen
reproduced daily in perfect good faith by
writers on behalf of their own country, where
the phrase “Greater Germany," in imitation
of Greater Britain, is continually applied to
so-called colonies where there are no colo-
su
VY
O
TTY
30
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
---
-
-
nists, where Germany is represented only by
officials, and where there will never be any
white colonists in the true sense. In France,
in connection with this subject, a literature
in itself has gradually arisen dealing with
the acclimatization of the white man in the
tropics. Yet, any one who endeavours to fol-
low it for himself, and who has been able to
approach it with an open mind, will probably
find himself possessed, sooner or later, of an
overmastering conviction of the innate un-
naturalness of the whole idea of acclimatiza-
tion in the tropics, and of every attempt
arising out of it to reverse by any effort
within human range the long, slow process
of evolution which has produced such a pro-
found dividing line between the inhabitants
of the tropics and those of the temperate
regions. To scarcely any of the facts com-
monly adduced in favour of the idea will it
be found possible to attach any real weight
on analysis. The unusual triviality of the
facts on the one side, and the apparently
massive and overwhelming character of the
evidence on the other, will probably bring
ST
1
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
31
SA
most unbiassed minds to feel that it is a
matter upon which in the end there, can
hardly be room for any real or important
difference of opinion.
But the serious aspect of this matter re-
mains. During the last two decades of the
nineteenth century nearly five millions of
square miles of the tropical regions of the
world, or an area considerably greater than
that of the whole of Europe, has been brought
under the control of Continental Powers of
Europe under this conception of “colonial” |
expansion. These regions continue to wait
for the white colonists who will never come.
But, in the meantime, the ruling instinct of
the occupying Power seems everywhere to be
simply to fall back on the old idea of them
Factory or of the Plantation — the estate to
be worked for the profit of those who have
taken possession. It is one of the gloomiest
spectacles at the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury, this railing off of immense regions in
the tropics under the policy which has sug-
gested their acquirement, regions tending, in
the absence of white colonists, to simply re-
TY
11
32
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
w
-
-
- -
---
-
-
T
=
1 -
-
YO
TT
TT
vert to the type of States worked for gain,
and slowly but surely surrounding themselves
with a wall of laws and tariffs operating in
favour of the European Power in possession,
to the exclusion of the interests of the rest
of the world.
We come now at last to the third standard ·
of relationship between civilization and the
tropics. It is that which prevails throughout
practically the whole. English-speaking world,
using this term deliberately as including the
United States. For, although the rule of the
United States has not hitherto extended into
the tropics, it is the prevalence of certain
standards of opinion in that country, equally
with England, which is mainly responsible for
what will probably be regarded in the future
as one of the most extraordinary political
situations which the world has ever seen.
We can best understand the position if we
look first to England. In the British Colo-
nial Department at the present day we have
presented a spectacle of which we have, in
reality, the key to the idea underlying the ex-
traordinary position to which reference has
1
O
CO
.
THE CONTROL I
33
OF THE TROPICS
just been made. If we inquire what the
colonies are with which the British Colonial
Office is concerned, we shall have presented
to view a curious list. At the head of it
come the great self-governing States like
Canada, Victoria, New South Wales, South
Australia, the Cape, Natal, New Zealand, and
others, all colonies in the true sense of the
word, offshoots of England in temperate re-
gions of the world, many of them engaged in
the practical solution of some of the most
advanced political and social problems which
occupy the attention of the modern world.
If we look further down the list, we have a
strange medley. Vast territories in tropical
lands, acquired at various dates in the course
of war and trade; countries inhabited by dif-
ferent races and governed under a variety of
constitutions; regions representing every type
of administrative problem - questions of war,
of defence, of finance, which raise the whole
modern policy of the Empire, questions of
responsibility to weaker races, of the relations
of the governing power to great systems of
native jurisprudence and religion, which take
34
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
-..
-
OT
«
n
.-.
-.irim..
us back to the very childhood of the world,
and in which the first principle of successful
policy is that we are dealing, as it were, with
children, are all grouped together as “colonies,”
in common with those modern self-governing
States, the reproductions of England in tem-
perate regions.
At first sight it is as if in England we had here
simply reached the position of the Continental
Powers of Europe, in that we have, in theory,
a tropical dependency treated as a colony.
Nothing of the kind, however. In England
we have got far beyond this — into a position
only one degree less absurd, but greatly more
potent for evil, because of the immense scale
upon which its effects have begun to influence
the world. The prevailing idea of a colony
among the Continental Powers of Europe (that
which even List aided in popularizing in Ger-
many) is the one which has been abandoned
for a century throughout the English-speaking
world — the idea that it is an estate to be
worked for the exclusive profit of the Power
whose possession it is. The prevailing idea
of a colony in England is that which governs
-
-.
-
C
T
1
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS 35
the relations of England to Canada and Aus-
tralia, where England is dealing practically
..
.
--
.!.....
--
--
which all the forces resident in our civilization
are operative. But it is the underlying con-
ception in the mind of the whole English-
speaking world, notwithstanding all facts to
the contrary, that settlements of European
Powers in the tropics are “colonies " in this
latter sense, which is responsible for the devel-
opment of one of the most remarkable situa-
tions in history. After the abolition by Great
Britain of slavery in the tropics, and the frank
abandonment thenceforward of the factory and
plantation systems, the idea became general
in England that the British tropics were to
be gradually left to themselves, after the model
of the British colonies in temperate regions.
They were already seen, in imagination, with
all the expansive forces of Western civilization
in full swing therein, developing their own
resources under native auspices as if they had
been parts of the world like the United States
or Australia! They were, in short, expected
to develop into modern States. Throughout
esa
36
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
IT
S
1
the middle decades of the nineteenth century
this idea was in the ascendant in the minds
of a large advanced party in England. The
West Indian settlements were to be allowed,
if they chose, to become independent; their
resources, it was held, would be exploited under
native direction; they would develop into mod-
ern States. In India, and elsewhere, the same
idea prevailed, in modified form. Down to
the present day in India, as in Egypt, some
of the most uphill, the most difficult, the most
discouraging, and yet, on the whole, the most
successful work which has ever been done in
the name of civilization has been performed,
and is still being performed, only under the
fiction that the Power which represents civili-
zation is in occupation only temporarily.
If any one should think all this to be mere
Pharisaism, he would have little insight into
the working of the British mind during the
nineteenth century. Let him look at the list
of British possessions in tropical countries, and
he will see that from the close of the Napole-
onic wars, down practically to the date of the
modern scramble for Africa, the acquisitions
ITI
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
37
of England in tropical regions had practically
ceased. When at length England, driven by
that deep instinct which leads a people in a
crisis to feel beyond the present into the future,
joined - the last European Power to do so
in the modern rush for territory in tropical
Africa, the idea which had held the mind of
the English-speaking world for a century, that
idea under which we had waited for the British
tropics to become modern States, and under
which we had, in the meantime, seen the trade
of the British West Indies and Guiana dwin-
dle from £15,000,000 to £6,000,000, reached
an extraordinary culmination in England. The
feeling had at last become instinctive that the
conception which had applied to the govern-
ment of the tropics the ideas and standards of .
our Western democracies was a mistake. But
there had as yet arisen in England no party
and no school of thought which had provided
any formula by which the expansion, and even
the encroachment of the Continental Powers
of Europe in Africa, and elsewhere in the
tropics, could be consistently met by Great
Britain. We had, 'therefore, to witness the
.
38
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
.
.
..
.
.
---
..
:
.
.
.
..
..
. strange spectacle of the revival in England, at
the end of the nineteenth century, of the oldest,
the most indefensible, and in theory the most
reprehensible of all forms of government in the
tropics — government by chartered company.
It was as if successive Governments in Eng-
land had shirked the national responsibility —
as if they had said: “We admit the error of
the old idea about the tropics, but we do not
know where we are. Let any authority under-
take the work. Only take the responsibility"
off our hands." This was the extraordinary
spectacle presented in England in the closing
years of the nineteenth century.
But it is when we carry our view now
to the western hemisphere that we have this
same conception producing its results on the
largest scale. During the century in which
we are living immense tropical regions in
South and Central America have become
independent of the influences of Spain and
Portugal. One of the principal causes be-
hind the events which have brought about the
existing political conditions in these regions
has undoubtedly been the character of ideas
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
39
prevailing in the English-speaking world and
the influence and moral support in conse-
quence of both the United States and Great
Britain. Throughout the whole series of these
events one ruling conception has occupied the
public mind in both countries; namely, that
these tropical regions, given the control of
their own destinies, would forthwith begin
to exploit their resources and develop into
modern States. Yet if we look at the result
to-day, it is hard to draw a picture which
will do any justice to a condition of things
so altogether deplorable. If we take first the
case of Brazil, one of the best examples among
these States, we have presented to view a
gloomy spectacle. We have in this country a
territory considerably larger than the United
States; the region most richly endowed by
nature on the face of the globe-a region
possessing capacities of production probably
beyond any that have yet been imagined.
At the present time it is said to support a
population of some 15,000,000 inhabitants, of
whom only a relatively small minority are of
European descent, these being concentrated
40
SK
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
principally in the seaport towns. The im-
mense territories in the background are largely
unexplored, almost out of the reach of civili-
zation, inhabited mostly by native Indians, im-
ported negroes, and mixed breeds. During a
considerable part of the nineteenth century
there has been witnessed in progress in that
country one of the most unnatural and unfortu- .
nate experiments of our time in nearly all its
surroundings-- the endeavour to people Brazil
with immigrants of European race. Numbers
of German, Austrian, Italian, Swiss, Irish, and
other immigrants, necessarily drawn from the
poorest and most helpless classes, have been
induced to leave their homes to settle in a
tropical land, amongst the strangest and most
unhealthy physical and moral conditions, as if
it had been simply a region like the United
States. If we extend our view to include the
Spanish Republics of northern South America,
and of Central America, we have altogether
a remarkable spectacle. Of the government
of these territories, when we strip off the
veneer of outward forms under which it is
carried on, it can only be said that it is, as
ve
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
In
.
.
I
must be every government of a tropical coun-
try in such circumstances, simply and frankly
the government of a large native population
by a permanent European caste, cut off from -
the influence of the political and ethical con-
ditions from which the European has sprung.
Disorder and bankruptcy seem to hang con-
tinually over the affairs of public finance. All
large public undertakings appear to tend in
the same direction, with irresponsible foreign
corporations and foreign syndicates standing
behind the seats of public authority and tend-
ing to the control of public affairs. A blight
seems to hang over the whole region. There
are only two words which adequately repre-
sent the condition of the immense territories
included — anarchy and bankruptcy. In a
recent issue of the Forum Professor Moore
printed a dreary list of political events in
the Central American Republics for the last
quarter of a century. Insurrection, revolution,
outrage, and the incidents of military Dictator-
ships appear therefrom to constitute the nor-
mal events of history; the author of the list
might have greatly extended it, and brought
1
.
CV
42
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
out the full significance of the phenomenon
he was regarding if he had embraced in his
review the history of all the neighbouring
tropical Republics of northern South America.
Another writer, describing about the same
time the social and political life of the Central
American Republics, gives his facts with un-
usual force and bluntness. To this writer
(Mr. Richard Harding Davis in Harper's
Magazine) the outward forms are mere hollow
pretence: “the Republics of Central America
are Republics in name only." Their real con-
dition is that of " disorganized military camps
called free Republics,” where government has
neither continuity nor prestige, and where the
only representatives of the ethics of civiliza-
tion are the foreign trading firms. To the
native:-
"His country, no matter what her name may
be, is ruled by a firm of coffee-merchants in
New York city, or by a German railroad com-
pany, or by a line of coasting steamers, or by
a great trading house, with headquarters in
Berlin, or London, or Bordeaux. ... When
we were in Nicaragua one little English bank-
TT
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
43
ing house was fighting the Minister of Fi-
nance and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and
the President and the entire Government, and
while the notes issued by the bank were ac-
cepted at their face value, those of the Govern-
ment were taken only in the presence of a
policeman or a soldier, who was there to see
that you did take them. You find this con-
dition of affairs all through Central America,
and you are not long in a Republic before you
learn which merchant or which bank or which
railroad company controls it, and you soon
grow to look upon a mule loaded with boxes
bearing the trademark of a certain business
house with more respect than upon a soldier
who wears the linen ribbon of the Govern-
ment. For you know that at a word the
soldier will tear the ribbon from his straw
sombrero, and replace it with another upon
which is printed “Viva Dr. Somebody Else.'”
Because these regions have taken to them-
selves the outward forms of civilized States,
and in particular those of Republican govern-
ment, the deeper truth that Democracy is not
simply a form of government but a stage of
TITI
44
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
w
TYT
human evolution, seems with regard to them
to have been lost sight of for half a century
throughout the whole English-speaking world.
In the meantime the resources which their
inhabitants have in charge remain undevel-
oped, and practically beyond the reach of
civilization. Says the writer already quoted:-
“Away from the coasts, where there is fever,
Central America is a wonderful country, rich
and beautiful, and burdened with plenty, but
its people make it a nuisance and an affront to
other nations. ... The Central Americans
are like a lot of semi-barbarians in a beauti-
fully furnished house, of which they can under-,
stand neither its possibilities of comfort nor its
use. ... Nature has given to their country
great pasture lands, wonderful forests of rare
woods and fruits, treasures of silver and gold,
and iron, and soil rich enough to supply the
world with coffee, and it only wants an honest
effort to make it the natural highway of traffic
from every portion of the globe. ... Nature
has done so much that there is little left for
man to do, but it will have to be some other
man than a native-born Central American who
is to do it."
In
Y
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
45
Y
The problem, which the writer of the pas-
sages here quoted is struggling with, is that
which confronts the United States in the
period upon which we are entering. It is that
which already confronts under a hundred forms
in various parts of the world every thinking
administrator of Great Britain whose duty lies
within the tropics. The first step towards any
successful solution of it is to look it fairly in
the face and frankly recognize its nature. It
is not a question of the relative merits of any
form of government; it is not even a question
of the relative merits of any race amongst
civilized peoples; it is simply and purely the
question of the ultimate relation of the white
man to the tropics. This is the question to
the solution of which the English-speaking
world must, by force of circumstances, address
itself in the time which is upon us. Let us
see how far we have got in evolving the an-
swer to such a problem from the teaching of
past and current events.
III
-
-
-
--
We have to recognize at the outset, as a first
principle of the situation, the utter futility of
any policy based on the conception that it will
be possible in the future to hold our hands
and stand aloof from the tropics. There can
be no choice in this matter. With the filling
up of the temperate regions and the continued
development of industrialism throughout the
civilized world the rivalry and struggle for the
trade of the tropics will, beyond doubt, be
the permanent underlying fact in the foreign
relations of the Western nations in the twenti-
eth century. This anticipation must be based,
in the first place, on the fact of the enormous
extent to which our civilization already rests
on the productions of the tropics, and, in the
second place, on the fact that the principle,
underlying all trade --- that exchange of prod-
ucts between regions and peoples of different
46
YYTY
-.
.-
--
....
JI
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS 47
1
capacities tends to be mutually profitable -
finds in commerce between ourselves and these
regions its most natural expression. So
deeply fixed in the minds of most civilized
peoples is this instinct of the future impor-
tance of the tropics that, as we have seen, a
large part of the attention of our time is
already occupied with questions and events
arising out of the relations between our civiliza-
tion and these regions. It has driven the
British people to reverse, even under the sur-
prising circumstances to which reference has
been made, a policy which has been in the
ascendant in the English mind for three gen-
erations. It is not even to be expected that
existing nations will, in the future, continue to
acknowledge any rights in the tropics which
are not based both on the intention and the
ability to develop these regions. It is a re-
markable fact, significant as indicating the
current drift of opinion on the subject, that
in a recent article from the pen of Baron von
Lüttwitz, of which a translation was printed in
England in the Journal of the Royal United
Service Institution, the writer frankly mentions
IT
W
ITH
48 THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
1
TTT
the prevailing conditions in China and the
unstable condition in many South American
States as offering opportunities for German
expansion in these regions. If the English-
speaking world is to face the duty which lies
before it in the period upon which we have
entered, if it is to raise the rivalry for the con-
trol of the tropics above the sordid level at
which it has hitherto been carried on, it must
be able to meet the subsequent verdict of his-
tory with a higher sense of responsibility and
a clearer faith in the deep importance of the
ideas and forces of which it is the representa-
tive, than is to be distinguished in its relations
to the tropics either in the past or in the
present. It would seem that any future policy
of our relations to the tropics, to be perma-
nently successful, must be based on the frank
recognition of the following facts :-
In the first place, the attempt to acclimatize
the white man in the tropics must be recog-
nized to be a blunder of the first magnitude.
All experiments based upon the idea are mere ,
idle and empty enterprises foredoomed to fail-
ure. Excepting only the deportation of the
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
49
African races under the institution of slavery,
probably no other idea which has held the
mind of our civilization during the last 300
years has led to so much physical and moral
suffering and degradation, or has strewn the
world with the wrecks of so many gigantic
enterprises. In the second place, the question
of exploiting any tropical region by regarding
it primarily as an estate to be worked for gain !
must be abandoned. The endeavour of the
Continental nations of Europe to base the
relationship of the occupying Power to such
territories and their inhabitants on the prin-
ciple of profit, surrounding the regions with
laws and tariffs operating in the exclusive in-
terest of the Power in possession, must be re-
garded as merely a return in modified form to
the old Plantation system. Such a system is
incompatible with the underlying spirit which
is governing the development of the English-
speaking peoples themselves, and it could,
therefore, never have behind it that larger
ethical conception which alone could obtain
for it any measure of support as a permanent
policy among these people. There will proba-
1
-
IX
05
50
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
bly be no large measure of dissent from either
of those propositions in England, where they
have already practically passed into the realm of
established truths. Yet, if we are able to give
assent to them, it would seem that there must
come the conviction that we must also go fur-
ther. If the white man cannot be permanently
acclimatized in the tropics, even where for the
time being he has become relatively numerous,
under the effects of evil conditions of the past,
the government of all such regions must, if the
ideas and standards which have prevailed in
the past be allowed to continue, tend ultimately
in one direction. It must tend to become the
government of a large native population by a
permanently resident European caste cut off
from the moral, ethical, political, and physical
conditions, which have produced the European.
This is the real problem in many States in the
tropical parts of central and northern South
America. We cannot look for good govern- -
ment under such conditions; we have no right
to expect it. In climatic conditions which are
a burden to him; in the midst of races in a
different and lower stage of development;
.---.
..
-' ...
..
.
...
.'
,'
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.
.-
-
1111
THE CONTROL OF THE 11
51
TROPICS
A
TA
TIT
divorced from the influences which have pro-
duced him, from the moral and political en-
vironment from which he sprang, the white
man does not in the end, in such circum-
stances, tend so much to raise the level of
the races amongst whom he has made his
unnatural home, as he tends himself to sink
slowly to the level around him.
The next principle, which it seems must be
no less clearly recognized, is one which carries
us a great stride forward from the past as soon
as we begin to perceive the nature of the con-
sequences which follow from its admission. It
is that, nevertheless, there never has been, and
there never will be, within any time with which
we are practically concerned, such a thing as
good government, in the European sense, of
the tropics by the natives of these regions.
The ultimate fact underlying all the relations
of the white man to the tropics is one which
really goes to the root of the whole question
of the evolution which the race itself has
undergone. The human race reached its
earliest development where the conditions of
life were easiest; namely, in the tropics. But
1
IT
YE
52
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
S
A-
.
throughout the whole period of human history,
the development of the race has taken place
outwards from the tropics. Slowly but surely
we see the seat of empire and authority moving
like the advancing tide northward. The evo-
lution in character which the race has under-
gone has been northwards from the tropics.
The first step to the solution of the problem
before us is simply to acquire the principle
that in dealing with the natural inhabitants of
the tropics we are dealing with peoples who
represent the same stage in the history of the
development of the race that the child does in
the history of the development of the individ-
ual. The tropics will not, therefore, be de-
veloped by the natives themselves. However
we may be inclined to hesitate before reaching
this view, it is hard to see how assent to it can
be withheld in the face of the consistent verdict
of history in the past, and the unvarying support
given to it by facts in the present. If there is
any one inclined to challenge it, let him reflect
for a moment on the evidence on the one side
and the difficulty that will present itself to him
of producing any serious facts on the other
I
-.-.
;
!!
...
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
53
side. If we look to the native social systems
of the tropical East, to the primitive savagery
of Central Africa, to the West Indian Islands
in the past in process of being assisted into
the position of modern States by Great Britain,
to the Black Republic Hayti in the present, or
to modern Liberia in the future, the lesson
seems everywhere the same; it is that there
will be no development of the resources of the
tropics under native government.
We come, therefore, to a clearly defined
position. If we have to meet the fact that
by force of circumstances the tropics must
be developed, and if the evidence is equally
emphatic that such a development can only
take place under the influence of the white
man, we are confronted with a larger issue
than any mere question of commercial policy
or of national selfishness. The tropics in
such circumstances can only be governed as
a trust for civilization, and with a full sense
of the responsibility which such a trust in-
volves. The first principle of success in
undertaking such a duty seems to the writer
to be a clear recognition of the cardinal fact
a
TIT
-.-..-
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.-
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54
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
..
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visn. Die
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W
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-run
-
.
that in the tropics the white man lives and
works only as a diver lives and works under
water. Alike in a moral, in an ethical, and in
a political sense, the atmosphere he breathes
must be that of another region, that which
produced him, and to which he belongs.
Neither physically, morally, nor politically, can
he be acclimatized in the tropics. The people
among whom he lives and works are often
separated from him by thousands of years of
development; he cannot, therefore, be allowed
to administer government from any local and
lower standard he may develop. If he has
any right there at all, he is there in the name
of civilization; if our civilization has any
right there at all, it is because it represents
higher ideals of humanity, a higher type of
social order. This is the lesson which, slowly
and painfully, and with many a temporary
reversion to older ideas, the British peoples
have been learning in India for the last fifty
years, and which has recently been applied
in other circumstances to the government of
Egypt. Under a multitude of outward aspects,
the one principle which separates the new era
:
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111
cir
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THE CONTROL OF THE 55
T TT
X
TROPICS
TITY
Y
*
TY
--1-
1-A
-...
.
r
from the old in India, a principle the influence
of which has come to extend even to the
habits and dress of the governing class, is the
recognition of the fact that the standards
according to which India must be governed
have been developed and are nourished else-
where. The one consistent idea which,
through all outward forms, has in late years
been behind the institution of the higher
Indian Civil Service on existing lines is that,
even where it is equally open to natives with
Europeans through competitive examination,
entrance to it shall be made through an Eng-
lish University. In other words, it is the best
and most distinctive product which England
can give, the higher ideals and standards of
her Universities, which is made to feed the
inner life from which the British administration
of India proceeds. It is but the application of
the same principle which we have in the recog-
nition of the fact that no violent hands must
be laid on native institutions, or native rights,
or native systems of religion, or even on native
independence, so far as respect for existing
forms is compatible with the efficient adminis-
.
TTT
TTC
Y
"
:37,"7":
"
H
V
*
;
.
...
56
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
I
.
...
.
..
..
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.
tration of the government. It is but another
form of the recognition of the fact that we are
in the midst of habits and institutions from
which our civilization is separated by a long
interval of development, where progress up-
wards must be a long, slow process, must pro-
ceed on native lines, and must be the effect of
the example and prestige of higher standards
rather than the result of ruder methods. It
is on a like principle that the development of
the tropical region occupied must be held to
be the fulfilment of a trust undertaken in the
name of civilization, a duty which allows the
occupying country to surround her own posi-
tion therein with no laws or tariffs operating
in her own interests, and which allows her to
retain to herself no exclusive advantage in the
markets which she has assisted in creating.
In the case of regions whose inhabitants have
made little progress towards the development
of any social organization of their own, the
government for the time being must be pre-
pared for duties and responsibilities of a dif-
ferent kind to those undertaken amongst
ourselves; for not even under the protection
IT
1
1
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
577
of a civilized government can it be expected
that in such cases the natives will develop the
resources they have in charge under the princi-
ples of our Western individualism. But in
this, as in all other matters, the one under-
lying principle of success in any future re-
lationship to the tropics is to keep those who
administer the government which represents
our civilization in direct and intimate con-
tact with the standards of that civilization at
its best; and to keep the acts of the govern-
ment itself within the closest range of that
influence, often irksome, sometimes even mis-
leading, but always absolutely vital, - the con-
tinual scrutiny of the public mind at home.
No deeper, no more enduring responsibility
has ever been laid upon the peoples of the whole
English-speaking world, than that which pre-
sents itself in the situation with which they are
confronted, at the end of the nineteenth century,
in this matter of our future relations to the
tropics. To the writer there seems to be no
room here for small-minded comparisons be-
tween the different merits of civilized races
and peoples. The subject goes far deeper
n
1
LIC
TOO
58
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
.-
7
.
W
E
than this. There are in reality only two
policies before the world. On the one side
there is that pursued by the Continental
Powers of Western Europe. Reduced to its
simplest terms it represents the conception
of the relationship to be adopted to territories
beyond sea which prevailed throughout Europe
more than a hundred years ago and before
the secession of the United States. On the
other side there is the policy, slowly and pain-
fully learnt after a century of larger experience
— the policy which the standards of the Eng-
lish-speaking, peoples now represent and of
which the logical outcome is the holding of
the tropics as a trust for civilization. Every
square mile of tropical territory which has
been occupied within the last few decades
under the first policy rather than under the
second has been in part lost to us as a trust
to civilization, it has passed definitely back-
ward into the shadow of another century.
What it is necessary to remember is that it
is idle and useless to trust to any declaration
of intentions, however honestly meant, on the
acquisition of such territory. Policies in such
TTTT
1 V1
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
59
ON
circumstances grow out of the life of a people
and are not permanently regulated by existing
intentions. The Congo State was declared
neutral and free to the trade of all nations in
1885. It is no longer either neutral or free to
trade as at the date of the Declaration; Bel-
gium has acquired the right of annexation and
France of preëmption. France undertook the
administration of Algeria with many under-
standings which were doubtless honestly meant
at the time but which no longer exist. In
1893 she had obtained the consent of the
Powers to confine even the carrying trade
between herself and Algeria to French vessels,
all foreign Powers, including Great Britain,
having given up their right to participate in it.
In Madagascar, her latest acquisition, the pres-
ent trend of policy appears to be in the same
direction. A policy in such relations is a
matter beyond the control even of govern-
ments; it is ultimately regulated only by the
development of a people, by standards which
are the slow growth of time. If the English-
speaking peoples do not mean to shirk the
grave responsibility which lies upon them in
YA
ST
1
11
60
R
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
this matter, they must act at once, with clear
purpose and with courage. Neither the pur-
pose nor the courage should be wanting to
those who possess a conviction of the far-
reaching importance in the future of the ideas
and principles for which these peoples now
stand in the world.
TITY
APPENDIX
THE PRINCIPLES OF THE RELATIONS OF OUR
CIVILIZATION TO THE TROPICS
(Reprinted from Chapter X of the author's
SOCIAL EVOLUTION)
APPENDIX
In any forecast of the future of our civiliza-
tion, one of the most important of the questions
presenting themselves for consideration is that
of the future relationship of the European
peoples to what are called the lower races.
Probably one of the most remarkable features
of the world-wide expansion the European
peoples are undergoing will be the change that
this relationship is destined to undergo in the
near future. In estimates which have been
hitherto made of our coming relations to the
coloured races, a factor which will in all proba-
bility completely dominate the situation in the
future has received scarcely any attention.
The relationships of the Western peoples to
the inferior races, with which they have come
into contact in the course of the expansion they
have undergone, is one of the most interesting
subjects in history. Confused though these
1
63
64
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
relationships may appear, it may be distin-
guished that they have passed through certain
well-marked stages of development. We must
set aside, as being outside our present field of
vision, those races which have inhabited coun-
tries suitable for European colonization. The
fate of all races occupying territories of this
kind has been identical. Whether wars of
extermination have been waged against them,
or whether they have been well treated and
admitted to citizenship, they have always
tended to disappear before the more vigorous
incoming race. It is with the inhabitants of
regions unsuitable for European settlement,
and mostly outside the temperate zone, that
we are concerned.
The alteration observable in our relations to
these races since the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries has been very gradual, but its general
character is unmistakable. During the six-
teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, a
great part of the richest regions in the tropical
countries of the earth passed under the domin-
ion of the four great sea powers of Western
Europe -- Spain, Holland, France, and Eng-
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
65
WAIT
land have successively engaged in the keenest
rivalry for the possession of vast regions of this
kind, unsuitable for permanent colonization,
but possessing rich natural resources. The
general idea which lay behind this extension of
dominion was in the main that of military con-
quest. The territories of the weaker peoples
were invaded, taken possession of, and exploited
for the benefit of the more vigorous invader.
The interests of the original occupiers were
little, if at all, regarded. The main end in view
was the immediate profit and advantage of the
conquerors. In the West India Islands the na-
tive population was worked in the mines and
the plantations until it became in great part
extinct, and the Spaniards began to introduce
negroes from Africa. Operations were con-
ducted on so great a scale that in the 20 years
before the opening of the eighteenth century
300,000 slaves were exported from Africa by
the English, and in the 80 years which fol-
lowed, over 600,000 slaves were landed in the
Island of Jamaica alone. Slave labour was
employed to an enormous extent in most of the
countries of which possession was obtained.
66
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
nor
The natural resources of the territories occu-
pied were, however, developed to a consid-
erable degree. The enormous wealth which
Spain drew from her conquests and undertak-
ings in tropical America was long a very
powerful factor in the wars and politics of
Europe : Holland, France, and England also
enriched themselves both directly and indi-
rectly. In the Spanish, Dutch, and English
settlements and plantations in the eastern
hemisphere, and in those in the West Indies
and South America, under Spanish, Dutch,
French, and English rule, great enterprises in
trade, agriculture, and mining were successfully
undertaken. Order and government were in-
troduced, and large cities sprung up rivalling
European cities in size and magnificence.
This first period was one of feverish activity,
and of universal desire on the part of the in-
vaders to quickly enrich themselves. There
was much cruelty to weaker races, and although
all the powers were not equally guilty in this
respect, none, at least, were innocent. But
looking at the period as a whole, and regarding
the enterprises undertaken in their true light,
7
(un
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
67
-
– namely, as an attempt to develop, by forced
coloured labour under European supervision,
the resources of countries not suitable for
European settlement, --a certain degree of
success must be admitted to have been at-
tained, and the enterprises undoubtedly contrib-
uted to increase, for the time being, the
material wealth and resources of the powers
concerned.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century
the tendency of the change that was taking
place began to be visible. It had become
clear that the European peoples could not
hope to settle permanently in the tropical
lands they had occupied, and that, if the re-
sources were to be developed, it must be by
native labour under their supervision. Already,
however, the effects of the altruistic develop-
ment which had been so long in progress were
becoming generally evident, and before the
opening of the nineteenth century men had
glimpses of the nature of the social revolution
it was eventually to accomplish in our civiliza-
tion. The institution of slavery in tropical
lands under European auspices was clearly
68
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
doomed. So also, to the more far-reaching
minds, seemed another institution upon which
depended, to all appearance, the continued
maintenance of European enterprise and Euro-
pean authority in lands not suitable for the
permanent settlement of the Western races.
The right of occupation and government in
virtue of conquest or force tended, it was felt,
to become an anachronism; it was antagonis-
tic to, and it involved a denial of, the spirit
which constituted the mainspring of that on-
ward movement which was taking place in our
civilization, and which was slowly bringing the
people into the rivalry of life on conditions of
equality. Although almost every European
people, that had attained to any consciousness
of national strength, had in the past en-
deavoured to imitate the military ideals of the
ancient empires, and to extend their rule by
conquest over other peoples of equal civiliza-
tion, they had done so with ever-diminishing
success. The growth of influences and condi-
tions tending to render the realization of such
aims more and more difficult was unmistaka-
ble. Any nation which would embark upon
L
)
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
69
A
such an enterprise, on a great scale and
against a European people, would, it was felt,
find in the near future forces arrayed against
it of which the ancient world had no experi-
ence, and which no military skill, however
great, and no national strength and resolution,
however concentrated and prolonged, could
entirely subdue. To keep in subjection, there-
fore, by purely military force a people of even
greatly lower development must, it was felt,
become correspondingly difficult; and this, not
so much because of the fear of effective resist-
ance in a military sense, but because of the
lack of moral force on the part of the stronger
peoples to initiate an effort involving a prin-
ciple antagonistic to the spirit governing the
development which these peoples were them-
selves undergoing.
Throughout the early and middle decades
of the nineteenth century we have, there-
fore, to watch the development of this spirit
and the effects it produced. Before the close of
the eighteenth century the agitation against
the slave-trade in the colonies had assumed
large proportions. In England a motion was
1
70
LL
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
I
carried in the House of Commons in 1792,
providing for the gradual abolition of the
traffic. In 1794 the French Convention de-
creed that all slaves throughout the French
colonies should be admitted to the rights of
French citizens; and, although slavery did not
cease in the French dominions for some fifty
years after, the Convention in this as in other
matters only anticipated the future. The agi-
tation in England against the slave-trade hav-
ing been largely successful, the feeling against
the employment of slaves continued to grow
in strength until an Act was at length obtained
in 1834, finally abolishing slavery in the British
settlements, the slave-owners being awarded
£20,000,000 as indemnification. The negroes
in the French settlements were emancipated
in 1848, those in the Dutch colonies in 1863;
while the slaves in the Southern States of the
American Union obtained their freedom as
the result of the Civil War of 1862–65.
Meanwhile the growth of the other influence
tending to undermine the position of the Euro-
pean races in the tropical countries they had
occupied had continued. By the end of the
111
11
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
71
V
eighteenth century the coloured races of Hayti,
under the influence of the ideas of the French
Revolution, had thrown off the rule of France.
Before the first quarter of the nineteenth cen-
tury had passed away the Spanish territories
of Central and South America - often still
spoken of as if they were inhabited by Euro-
peans, although in most of which, it must be
remembered, the vast bulk of the population
consists of native Indians, imported negroes,
and mixed races -- had, one after another,
declared their independence of European rule.
It came to be looked uponas only natural and
inevitable that it should be so; and it was
held to be only a question of time for the
Dutch possessions and the remaining Spanish
settlements to follow suit. The English set-
tlements in the West Indies, it was supposed,
would become independent too. They came
to be regarded as being as good as gone. We
have Mr. Froude's word for it that he had it
on high official authority, about 1860, that
all preparations for the transition had been
already made. “A decision had been irrevo-
cably taken. The troops were to be with-
72
.
THE CONTROL T
TROPICS
T
OF THE IL
drawn from the Islands, and Jamaica, Trini-
dad, and the English Antilles were to be
masters of their own destiny."1 The with-
drawal did not take place, but the general feel-
ing in the minds of politicians in England at
the time was undoubtedly such as might have
prompted such a decision.
If we turn now to the condition of affairs
accompanying these events in the countries
in question, we have presented to us what is
probably one of the most extraordinary spec-
tacles the world has beheld. The enterprise
that once attempted to develop the resources
of the countries concerned, has been to a
large extent interrupted. Regarding the West
Indies first, we have to note that their former
prosperity has waned. The black races under
the new order of things have multiplied ex-
ceedingly. Where left to themselves under
British rule, whether with or without the
political institutions of the advanced Euro-
pean peoples, they have not developed the
natural resources of the rich and fertile lands
they have inherited. Nor do they show any
1 The English in the West Indies, p. 6.
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
73
1971
TY
Y
0
V
TTT
y
desire to undertake the task. The descrip-
tions we have had presented to us for many
years past by writers and politicians of some
of the West India Islands read like accounts
of a former civilization. Decaying harbours,
once crowded with shipping; ruined wharves,
once busy with commerce; roofless ware-
houses; stately buildings falling to ruins and
overgrown with tropical creepers; deserted
mines and advancing forests, — these are some
of the signs of the change. In Hayti, where
the blacks have been independent of Euro-
pean control for the greater part of a century,
we have even a more gloomy picture. Revo-
lution has succeeded revolution, often accom-
panied by revolting crime; under the outward
forms of European government every form of
corruption and license has prevailed; its com-
merce has been more than once almost ex-
tinguished by its political revolutions; the
resources of the country remain undevel-
oped; intercourse with white races is not
encouraged, and the Black Republic, instead
of advancing, is said to be drifting slowly
backwards.
LUNU
11
74.
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
Turning to the mainland of Central Amer-
ica and the vast territories embraced in tropi-
cal South America, once under the rule of
the Spaniards and Portuguese, the spectacle
is in some respects more noteworthy. In this
expanse, which includes over three-fourths of
the entire continental area south of the ter-
ritory of the United States, we have one of
the richest regions of the earth. Under the
outward forms of European government it
appears, however, to be slowly drifting out
of our civilization. The habit has largely
obtained amongst us of thinking of these
countries as inhabited by European races and
as included in our Western civilization, - a
habit doubtless due to the tendency to regard
them as colonies of European powers which
have become independent after the manner
of the United States. As a matter of fact
this view has little to justify it. In the re-
publics comprising the territory in question,
considerably over three-fourths of the entire
population are descendants of the original
Indian inhabitants, or imported negroes, or
mixed races. The pure white population ap-
i
THE CONTROL 1
75
OF THE TROPICS
Y
TTY
pears to be unable to maintain itself for more
than a limited number of generations without
recruiting itself from the outside. It is a
gradually diminishing element, tending to ally
itself to an increasing degree with “colour.”
Both for climatic reasons, and in obedience
to the general law of population already
noticed, by which the upper strata of society
(to which the white population for the most
part belongs) are unable to maintain them-
selves apart for any considerable period, we
must, apparently, look forward to the time
when these territories will be almost exclu-
sively peopled by the Black and Indian races.
Meanwhile the resources of this large re-
gion remain almost undeveloped or run to
waste. During the past fifty years, the Euro-
pean powers may be said to have endeav-
oured to develop them in a manner that
apparently promised to be advantageous to
both parties, and not inconsistent with the
spirit of the new altruistic ideas which have
come to govern men's minds. Since the pe-
riod of their independence, immense sums
have been borrowed by the republics of cen-
ern
76
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
THE
tral and northern South America, with the
object of developing their resources, and large
amounts have also been invested by private
persons in public enterprises undertaken by
Europeans in these countries. But the gen-
eral prevalence of those qualities which dis-
tinguish peoples of low social efficiency has
been like a blight over the whole region. In
nearly all the republics in question, the his-
tory of government has been the same. Un-
der the outward forms of written laws and
constitutions of the most exemplary charac-
ter, they have displayed a general absence of
that sense of public and private duty which
has always distinguished peoples who have
reached a state of high social development.
Corruption in all departments of the govern-
ment, insolvency, bankruptcy, and political
revolutions succeeding each other at short
intervals have become almost the normal in-
cidents of public life— the accompanying feat-
ures being a permanent state of uncertainty,
lack of energy and enterprise amongst the
people, and general commercial stagnation.
Much of the territory occupied by these states
TIT
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THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS 77
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is amongst the richest in the world in natural
resources. Yet we seem to have reached a
stage in which the enterprise of the Western
races is almost as effectively excluded there-
from, or circumscribed therein, as in the case
of China. Not, however, through any spirit
of exclusiveness in the people or desire to
develop these resources themselves, but by,
on the one hand, the lack in the inhabitants
of qualities contributing to social efficiency,
and, on the other, by the ascendency in the
minds of the Western peoples of that altru-
istic spirit which, except in a clear case of
duty or necessity, deprives any attempt to
assume by force the government and admin-
istration of the resources of other peoples
of the moral force necessary to ensure its
success.
Now it would appear probable that we
have, in the present peculiar relationship of
the Western peoples to the coloured races,
the features of a transition of great interest
and importance, the nature of which is, as
yet, hardly understood. It is evident that,
despite the greater consideration now shown
.
..
.
.
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
1+ WESOM
for the rights of the lower races, there can
be no question as to the absolute ascendency
in the world to-day of the Western peoples
and of Western civilization. There has been
no period in history when this ascendency
has been so unquestionable and so complete
as in the time in which we are living. No
one can doubt that it is within the power
of the leading European peoples of to-day-
should they so desire - to parcel out the en-
tire equatorial regions of the earth into a
series of satrapies, and to administer their re-
sources, not as in the past by a permanently
resident population, but from the temperate
regions, and under the direction of a rela-
tively small European official population.
And this without any fear of effective resist-
ance from the inhabitants. Always, however,
assuming that there existed a clear call of
duty or necessity to provide the moral force
necessary for such action.
It is this last stipulation which it is all-
important to remember in any attempt which
is made to estimate the probable course of
events in the future. For it removes at once
TT
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THE CONTROL OF THE -
TROPICS 79
the centre of interest and observation to the
lands occupied by the European peoples. It
is, in short, in the development in progress
amongst these peoples, and not in the events
taking place to-day in lands occupied by the
black and coloured races, that we must seek
for the controlling factor in the immediate
future of the tropical regions of the world,
1 Mr. C. H. Pearson, in a prediction which has recently at-
tracted attention, has, it appears to the writer, made the serious
mistake of estimating the future by watching the course of events
outside the temperate regions, rather than by following the clue
to those events which we have in the development in progress
amongst the Western peoples. He accordingly ventures to fore-
tell that “The day will come, and perhaps is not far distant,
when the European observer will look round to see the globe
girdled with a continuous zone of the black and yellow races,
no longer too weak for aggression, or under tutelage, but in-
dependent, or practically so, in government, monopolizing the
trade of their own regions, and circumscribing the industry of
the European; when Chinamen and the nations of Hindostan,
the States of South America, by that time predominantly In-
dian, and it may be African nations of the Congo and the Zam-
besi, under a dominant caste of foreign rulers, are represented
by fleets in the European seas, invited to international confer-
ences, and welcomed as allies in the quarrels of the civilized
world. The citizens of these countries will then be taken up
into the social relations of the white races, will throng the Eng-
lish turf, or the salons of Paris, and will be admitted to inter-
marriage. It is idle to say that, if all this should come to pass,
our pride of place will not be humiliated. We were struggling
80 THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
ST
ce
Now, stress has been laid, in the preceding
chapters, on the fact that we have, in the altru-
istic development that has been slowly taking
place amongst the European peoples, the clue
to the efficiency of our civilization. It is this
development which — by its influence in break-
ing down an earlier organization of society,
and by its tendency to bring, for the first time
in the history of the race, all the people into
the rivalry of life on a footing of equality of
opportunity — has raised our Western civiliza-
tion to its present position of ascendency in
the world. It must be always remembered,
however, that a principal cause operating in
producing it has been the doctrine peculiar to
the ethical system upon which our civilization
is founded — the doctrine, steadfastly and un-
compromisingly held, of the native equality of
all men. So great has been the resistance to
amongst ourselves for supremacy in a world which we thought
of as destined to belong to the Aryan and to the Christian faith,
to the letters and arts and charm of social manners which we
have inherited from the best times in the past. We shall wake
to find ourselves elbowed and hustled, and perhaps even thrust
aside, by peoples whom we looked down upon as servile and
thought of as bound always to minister to our needs.” - National
Life and Character, chap. i.
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
be overcome, so exceptional in the history of
the race has been the nature of the process of
expansion through which we have passed, that
only a doctrine held as this has been, and sup-
ported by the tremendous sanctions behind it,
could have effected so great a social transfor-
mation. Of such importance has been the
character of this process, and so strong has
been the social instinct that has recognized
its vital significance to the Western peoples
themselves, that everything has gone down
before the doctrine which produced it. It is
this doctrine which has raised the negro in
the Southern States of North America to
the rank of citizen of the United States,
despite the incongruous position which he
now occupies in that country. It is before
this doctrine (because of its predominant im-
portance to ourselves), and not before the col-
oured races, that the European peoples have
retreated in those tropical lands which, being
unsuitable for colonization, could have been
ruled and developed only under a system of
military occupation.
* We must, therefore, in any attempt to esti-
82
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
TO
mate our future relationship to the coloured
races outside the temperate regions, keep
clearly in mind the hitherto supreme im-
portance to the Western peoples of this al-
truistic development, and, therefore, of the
doctrine of the native equality of men which
has accompanied it.
Now, there are two great events which will,
in all probability, fill a great part in the history
of the twentieth century. The first will be the
accomplishment, amongst the Western peoples,
of the last stage of that process of social devel-
opment which tends to bring all the people into
the rivalry of life on conditions of social equal-
ity. The other will be the final filling up, by
these peoples, of all those tracts in the temper-
ate regions of the earth suitable for perma-
nent occupation. As both these processes tend
towards completion, it would appear that we
must expect our present relationship towards
the coloured races occupying territories outside
the temperate zones to undergo further devel-
opment. With the completion of that process
of social evolution in which the doctrine of the
native equality of men has played so important
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
83
a part, - and, therefore, with the probable mod-
ification of that instinct which has hitherto
recognized the vital necessity to ourselves of
maintaining this doctrine in its most uncom-
promising form, - it seems probable that there
must arise a tendency to scrutinize more closely
the existing differences between ourselves and
the coloured races, as regards the qualities
contributing to social efficiency; this tendency
being accompanied by a disposition to relax
our hitherto prevalent opinion that the doctrine
of equality requires us to shut our eyes to those
differences where political relations are con-
cerned.
As the growth of this feeling will be coinci-
dent with the filling up to the full limit of the
remaining territories suitable for European
occupation, and the growing pressure of popu-
lation therein, it may be expected that the
inexpediency of allowing a great extent of ter-
ritory in the richest region of the globe -- that
comprised within the tropics—to remain unde-
veloped, with its resources running largely to
waste under the management of races of low
social efficiency, will be brought home, with
1
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84
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
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ever-growing force, to the minds of the West-
ern peoples. The day is probably not far dis-
tant when, with the advance science is making,
we shall recognize that it is in the tropics, and
not in the temperate zones, that we have the
greatest food-producing and material-produc-
ing regions of the earth; that the natural
highways of commerce in the world should
be those which run north and south; and that
we have the highest possible interest in the
proper development and efficient administration
of the tropical regions, and in an exchange of
products therewith on a far larger scale than
has been yet attempted or imagined.
The question that will, therefore, present
itself for solution will be: How is the develop-
ment and efficient administration of these
regions to be secured? The ethical develop-
ment that has taken place in our civilization
has rendered the experiment, once made to de-
velop their resources by forced native labour, no
longer possible, or permissible, even if possible.
We have already abandoned, under pressure of
experience, the idea, which at one time pre-
vailed, that the tropical regions might be occu-
TV
11
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
85
pied, and permanently colonized by European
races, as vast regions in the temperate climes
have been. Within a measurable period in
the future, and under pressure of experience,
we shall probably also have to abandon the
idea which has in like manner prevailed for
a time, that the coloured races left to them-
selves possess the qualities necessary to the
development of the rich resources of the lands
they have inherited. For, a clearer insight
into the laws that have shaped the course of
human evolution must bring us to see that
the process which has gradually developed the
energy, enterprise, and social efficiency of the
race northwards, and which has left less richly
endowed in this respect the peoples inhabiting
the regions where the conditions of life are
easiest, is no passing accident or the result of
circumstances changeable at will, but part of
the cosmic order of things which we have no
power to alter.
It would seem that the solution which must
develop itself under pressure of circumstances
in the future is, that the European races will
gradually come to realize that the tropics must
y
86
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
1.
е
DAY
be administered from the temperate regions.
There is no insurmountable difficulty in the
task. Even now all that is required to ensure
its success is a clearly defined conception of
moral necessity. This, it would seem, must
come under the conditions referred to, when
the energetic races of the world, having com-
pleted the colonization of the temperate
regions, are met with the spectacle of the re-
sources of the richest regions of the earth still
running largely to waste under inefficient
management.
In discussing the present condition of the
tropical regions of America no reference was
made to the experiment which, in the corre-
sponding regions of the eastern hemisphere,
has been taking place under British rule in
India. For the past half-century the relation-
ship existing between England and India has
been the cause of considerable heart-searching
and conflict of opinion amongst politicians of
the more advanced school in England. The
means whereby a footing was at first obtained
in that country had little to distinguish them
from those already mentioned which led the
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
87
1ST
European races at one time to occupy vast
territories in tropical regions. In the altruistic
development of the nineteenth century which
has so profoundly affected the relationships of
the European peoples to other races, it has
come to be felt by many politicians that the
position of Great Britain in India involved a
denial of the spirit actuating the advanced
peoples, and that it tended to become in
consequence morally indefensible. This was
undoubtedly the feeling in the minds of a con-
siderable section of persons in England at no
distant date in the past.
Nevertheless, as time has gone by, other
features of the position have pressed them-
selves with growing force upon the minds of
the British people. Exceptionally influenced
as the British nation has been by the altruistic
spirit underlying our civilization, its adminis-
tration of the Indian peninsula has never been
marked by those features which distinguished
Spanish rule in the American Continent.
English rule has tended more and more to in-
volve the conscientious discharge of the duties
of our position towards the native races. We
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THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
A
have respected their rights, their ideas, their
religions, and even their independence to the
utmost extent compatible with the efficient
administration of the government of the
country.
The result has been remarkable. There has
been for long in progress in India a steady
development of the resources of the country
which cannot be paralleled in any other tropi-
cal region of the world. Public works on the
most extensive scale and of the most perma-
nent character have been undertaken and com-
pleted; roads and bridges have been built;
mining and agriculture have been developed ;
irrigation works, which have added consider-
ably to the fertility and resources of large tracts
of country, have been constructed; even sani-
tary reform is beginning to make considerable
progress. European enterprise too, attracted
by security and integrity in the government,
has been active. Railways have been gradu-
ally extended over the Peninsula. Indian tea,
almost unknown a short time ago, has, through
the planting and cultivation of suitable dis-
tricts under European supervision, already
mi
LV
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS 89
come into serious competition with the Chinese
article in the markets of the world. The cot-
ton industry of India has already entered on
friendly rivalry with that of Lancashire. Other
industries, suited to the conditions of the coun-
try, are in like manner rising into prominence,
without any kind of artificial protection or en-
couragement; the only contribution of the rul-
ing powers to their welfare being the guarantee
of social order and the maintenance of the con-
ditions of efficiency and integrity in the
administration of the departments of gov-
ernment.
The commerce of the country has expanded
in a still more striking manner. In the largest
open market in the world, that which Great
Britain provides, India now stands third on
the list as contributor of produce, ranking
only below the United States and France, and
above Germany and all the British Australian
colonies together. She takes, too, as much as
she gives, for her exports to and imports from
the United Kingdom nearly balance each
other. In the character of importer she is,
indeed, the largest of all the customers of
/
90
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
Great Britain, the Australasian colonies and
the United States coming after her on the list.
This exchange of products has all the appear-
ance of being as profitable as it is creditable
to both parties concerned.
Very different, too, is the spirit animating
both sides in this development of the resources
of India as compared with that which prevailed
in past times. There is no question now of
the ruling race merely exploiting India to their
own selfish advantage. Great Britain desires
to share in the prosperity she has assisted in
creating, it is true; but, for the most part, she
shares indirectly and in participation with the
CS
CY
AT
British markets, but she is equally free to send
them elsewhere. As her development proceeds
she offers a larger market for the products of
British industries; but England has reserved
to herself no exclusive advantages in Indian
markets. Under the principle of free trade all
the rest of the world may compete with her on
equal terms in those markets. Her gain tends
to be a gain, not only to India, but to civiliza-
tion in general.
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
91
1
DT
The object-lesson that all this has afforded
has not been without its effect on English
public opinion - an effect which deepens as
the true nature of the relationship existing be-
tween the two countries is more generally under-
stood. Nor is there lack of similar experi-
ences elsewhere. The work undertaken by
France in Algeria and Tunis, although it has
differed in many important respects from that
performed by Great Britain in India, and al-
though it has been undoubtedly more directly
inspired by the thought of immediate benefit
to French interests, has been on the whole,
it must be frankly confessed, work done in
the cause of civilization in general. Within
111
1 For instance, the Times prints the following despatch from its
correspondent at Dunkirk, dated 4th August, 1893: “From ist
October the carrying trade between Algeria and France will be
exclusively confined to French vessels, all foreign Powers, in-
cluding Great Britain, having given up their right to participate
in it. This measure will chiefly affect British ships which held
the bulk of the trade. At this port alone the British tonnage
employed in trading with Algeria amounted in 1891 to 34,507 tons
net register, and in 1892 to 31,103 tons. Had any European
Power withheld its sanction the trade must, in virtue of existing
treaties, have remained open to all flags. None save England,
however, were sufficiently interested in it to oppose this new
concession to protection."
92
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
1
the past decade we have had a more strik-
ing lesson still in the case of Egypt. Some
seventeen years ago that country, although
within sight of, and in actual contact with,
European civilization, had reached a condition
of disaster through misgovernment, extrava-
gance, and oppression without example, as
a recent writer, who speaks with authority,
has insisted, “in the financial history of any
country from the remotest ages to the pres-
ent time."1 Within thirteen years the public
debt of a country of only 6,000,000 inhabi-
tants had been increased from 3,000,000 to
89,000,000, or nearly thirty-fold. With a
submissive population, a corrupt bureaucracy,
and a reckless, ambitious, and voluptuous
ruler, surrounded by adventurers of every
kind, we had all the elements of national
bankruptcy and ruin. Things drifted from
bad to worse, but it was felt that nothing
could be more at variance, theoretically, with
the principles of the Liberal party then in
1 England in Egypt, by Alfred Milner, late Under-Secretary
for Finance in Egypt, now Sir Alfred Milner, Governor of Cape
Colony and High Commissioner for South Africa. London, 1893.
2 Ibid.
T
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
93
power in England, than active interference
by the English people in the affairs of that
country. Yet within a few years circum-
stances had proved stronger than prevailing
views, and England found herself most un-
willingly compelled to interfere by force in
the government of Egypt; and obliged to
attempt, in the administration of its affairs,
what, in the peculiar conditions prevailing,
appeared to be one of the most hopeless, dif-
ficult, and thankless tasks ever undertaken by
a nation.
Yet the results have been most striking.
Within a few years the country had emerged
from a condition of chronic and apparently
hopeless bankruptcy, and attained to a posi-
tion of solvency, with a revenue tending to
outrun expenditure. Great improvements in
the administration of the state departments
had been effected. Public works which have
greatly contributed to the prosperity of the
country had been completed. The Kurbash
had been suppressed; the Corvée had been
reduced; the Barrage had been repaired; the
native administration of justice had been im-
1
94
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
proved. Under an improved system of irriga-
tion the area of land won from the desert for
cultivation was enormously increased. The
cotton crop, representing one-third of the
entire agricultural wealth of the country, had
increased 50 per cent in a few years. The for-
eign trade increased to the highest point it had
ever attained; and the credit of the country so
far improved that within nine years the price of
its Unified stock had risen from 59 to 98.
All these results were attained by simple
means; by the exercise of qualities which are
not usually counted either brilliant or intellect-
ual, but which nevertheless are, above all others,
characteristic of peoples capable of attaining
a high degree of social efficiency, and of those
peoples only. British influence in Egypt,
Mr. Milner maintains, “is not exercised to
impose an uncongenial foreign system upon a
reluctant people. It is a force making for the
triumph of the simplest ideas of honesty, hu-
manity, and justice, to the value of which Egyp-
tians are just as much alive as any one else.” 1
1 England in Egypt, by Alfred Milner, late Under-Secretary
for Finance in Egypt. London, 1893.
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
95
: Nor can it be said that Great Britain has
exploited Egypt in her own interest, or ob-
tained any exclusive advantage by the develop-
ment of the resources of the country. It is
true that she does benefit, and benefit consid-
erably, by the improvement which has followed.
But it is in the same manner as in India. For,
says Mr. Milner,“ the improvement of Egyptian
administration leads directly to the revival of
Egyptian trade, and in that increase, England,
who has more than half the trade of Egypt in
her hands, possesses a direct interest of the
most unmistakable kind. Our own country
does thus, after all, obtain a recompense, and a
recompense at once most substantial and most
honourable for any sacrifices she may make for
Egypt. She gains, not at the expense of
others, but along with others. If she is the
greatest gainer, it is simply because she is the
largest partner in the business."1 But“ neither
directly nor indirectly has Great Britain drawn
from her predominant position any profit at the
1
1 England in Egypt, by Alfred Milner, late Under-Secretary
for Finance in Egypt. London, 1893
96
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
i
V
1
expense of other nations." Her gain is there
also the gain of civilization.
It is to be expected that as time goes on,
and an approach is made to the conditions
before mentioned, such object-lessons as these
will not be without their effect on the minds
of the European races. It will probably come
to be recognized that experiments in develop-
ing the resources of regions unsuitable for
European colonization, such as that now in
progress in India, differ essentially both in
character and in spirit from all past attempts.
It will probably be made clear, and that at no
distant date, that the last thing our civilization
is likely to permanently tolerate is the wasting
of the resources of the richest regions of the
earth through the lack of the elementary quali-
ties of social efficiency in the races possessing
them. The right of those races to remain in
possession will be recognized; but it will be no
part of the future conditions of such recognition
that they shall be allowed to prevent the utili-
zation of the immense natural resources which
TYTU
1 England in Egypt, by Alfred Milner, late Under-Secretary
for Finance in Egypt. London, 1893.
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
97
AMA.UZ
they have in charge. At no remote date, with
the means at the disposal of our civilization,
the development of these resources must be-
come one of the most pressing and vital ques-
tions engaging the attention of the Western
races. The advanced societies have, to some
extent, already intuitively perceived the nature
of the coming change. We have evidence of a
general feeling, which recognizes the immense
future importance of the tropical regions of
the earth to the energetic races, in that parti-
tion of Africa amongst the European powers
which forms one of the most remarkable signs
of the times at the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury. The same feeling may be perceived even
in the United States, where the necessity for
the future predominance of the influence of the
English-speaking peoples over the American
Continents is already recognized by a kind of
national instinct that may be expected to find
clearer expression as time goes on.
Lastly, it will materially help towards the
solution of this and other difficult problems,
if we are in a position, as it appears we shall
be, to say with greater clearness in the future,
-
98
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
than we have been able to do in the past,
what it is constitutes superiority and inferi-
ority of race. We shall probably have to set
aside many of our old ideas on the subject.
Neither in respect alone of colour, nor of
descent, nor even of the possession of high
intellectual capacity, can science give us any
warrant for speaking of one race as superior
to another. The evolution which man is
undergoing is, over and above everything else,
a social evolution. There is, therefore, but
one absolute test of superiority. It is only the
race possessing in the highest degree the
qualities contributing to social efficiency that
can be recognized as having any claim to
superiority.
But these qualities are not as a rule of the
brilliant order, nor such as strike the imagina-
tion. Occupying a high place amongst them
are such characteristics as strength and energy
of character, humanity, probity and integrity,
and simple-minded devotion to conceptions
of duty in such circumstances as may arise.
Those who incline to attribute the very wide
influence which the English-speaking peoples
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THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
99
111
have come to exercise in the world to the
Machiavellian schemes of their rulers are often
very wide of the truth. This influence is, to
a large extent, due to qualities not at all of a
showy character. It is, for instance, a fact
of more than superficial significance, and one
worth remembering, that in the South Ameri-
can Republics, where the British peoples move
amongst a mixed crowd of many nationalities,
the quality which has come to be accepted as
distinctive of them is simply “the word of an
Englishman.” In like manner it is qualities
such as humanity, strength, and uprightness
of character, and devotion to the immediate
calls of duty without thought of brilliant ends
and ideal results, which have largely con-
tributed to render English rule in India suc-
cessful when similar experiments elsewhere
have been disastrous. It is to the exercise of
qualities of this class that we must also chiefly
attribute the success which has so far attended
the political experiment of extraordinary diffi-
culty which England has undertaken in Egypt.
And it is upon just the same qualities, and not
upon any ideal schemes for solving the social
L
WU
100
H
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
problem, that we must depend to carry us
safely through the social revolution which will
be upon us in the twentieth century, and which
will put to the most severe test which it has
yet had to endure, the social efficiency of the
various sections of the Western peoples.
It must be noticed that the conclusion here
emphasized is the same towards which the
historian with the methods hitherto at his
command has been already slowly feeling his
way. Said Mr. Lecky recently, speaking
of the prosperity of nations, and the causes
thereof as indicated by history: “ Its founda-
tion is laid in pure domestic life, in commercial
integrity, in a high standard of moral worth
and of public spirit, in simple habits, in cour-
age, uprightness, and a certain soundness and
moderation of judgment which springs quite
as much from character as from intellect. If
you would form a wise judgment of the future
of a nation, observe carefully whether these
qualities are increasing or decaying. Observe
especially what qualities count for most in
public life. Is character becoming of greater
or less importance? Are the men who obtain
LLLLLLL
1.
SWT
THE CONTROL OF THE TROPICS
101
TE
the highest posts in the nation, men of whom
in private life, and irrespective of party, compe-
tent judges speak with genuine respect? Are
they of sincere convictions, consistent lives,
indisputable integrity? ... It is by observing
this moral current that you can best cast the
horoscope of a nation.” 1
This is the utterance of that department of
knowledge which, sooner or later, when its true
foundations are perceived, must become the
greatest of all the sciences. It is but the still,
small voice which anticipates the verdict which
will be pronounced with larger knowledge, and
in more emphatic terms, by evolutionary sci-
ence, when at no distant date it must enable
us, as we have never been enabled before, “to
look beyond the smoke and turmoil of our
petty quarrels, and to detect, in the slow devel-
opments of the past, the great permanent forces
that are steadily bearing nations onward to
improvement or decay."
i The Political Value of History, by W. E. H. Lecky.
SOCIAL EVOLUTION.
By BENJAMIN KIDD.
NEW EDITION, REVISED, WITH A NEW PREFACE.
iamo, cloth, $1.50. Also cheap edition in paper covers, 25 cents.
" The name of Mr. Benjamin Kidd, author of a very striking work on Social
Evolution,' is, so far as we know, new to the literary world; but it is not often
that a new and unknown writer makes his first appearance with a work so novel
in conception, so fertile in suggestion, and on the whole so powerful in exposition
as Social Evolution' appears to us to be, ... a book which no serious thinker
should neglect, and no reader can study without recognizing it as the work of a
singularly penetrating and original mind.” - The Times (London).
T
“ It is a study of the whole development of humanity in a new light, and it is
sustained and strong and fresh throughout. ... It is a profound work which
invites the attention of our ablest minds, and which will reward those who give it
their careful and best thought. It marks out new lines of study, and is written in
that calm and resolute tone which secures the confidence of the reader. It is
undoubtedly the ablest book on social development that has been published for a
long time." — Boston Herald.
“Those who wish to follow the Bishop of Durham's advice to his clergy-'to
think over the questions of socialism, to discuss them with one another reverently
and patiently, but not to improvise hasty judgments ' - will find a most admira.
ble introduction in Mr. Kidd's book on social evolution. It is this because it not
merely contains a comprehensive view of the very wide field of human progress,
but is packed with suggestive thoughts for interpreting it aright. ... We hope
that the same clear and well-balanced judgment that has given us this helpful
essay will not stay here, but give us further guidance as to the principles which
ought to govern right thinking on this, the question of the day. We heartily
commend this really valuable study to every student of the perplexing problems
of socialism." - The Churchman.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
OUTLINES OF SOCIAL THEOLOGY.
By WM. DeWITT HYDE, D.D.,
President of Bowdoin College, and Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy.
12mo. Cloth. Pp. 260. Price $1.50.
Part I. Theological; II. Anthropological; III. Sociological.
“ It contains something more than commonly well worth reading. The keynote
of the volume, as we read it, is sounded in the first sentence of Chapter IV.: 'It
is impossible to separate God from man or man from God. They are correlative
terms. The author plants himself firmly on this social conception of theology and
holds it. The book is, all through, very much out of the ordinary line. It does not
fly in the face of settled convictions, nor contradict the traditional creeds. The sub-
for discussion in a different light and in new and delightiully suggestive
relations." - The Independent.
“ The message of a twentieth century man to the twentieth century. President
Hyde believes that the Christianity of Christ and His disciples was pre-eminently
a social movement, and that the emphasis hitherto of an individualistic aspect of
theology has been excessive, and disastrous to Christianity. This volume is in con-
sequence a contribution distinctively to social theology.
*Readers of the author's luminous articles in magazines will not be surprised to
find this book letting in new light from psychology and sociology upon some dark
places of theology. The origin of man, the doctrine of original sin, the scope of
prayer, the question of church unity, and the larger relations of theology to anthro-
pology and sociology are discussed with a freshness and frankness rarely found in
theological treatises. Not a page could be spared, and not a page should be passed
lightly over.” -- Philadelphia Citizen.
“We have to thank Dr. Hyde for a peculiarly original, interesting, and suggestive
study. Protestant Christianity is to be congratulated on possessing the allegiance of
so wise and earnest a scholar as the author of this book." - The Church Standard.
"A most welcome book. It is something far better and more desirable than its
title would indicate. We think he deserves credit for something more thorough
and lasting than he is willing to claim. At any rate, he traverses from end to end the
whole region of religion, on the side both of theory and of practice, and explores it
in the light of the science and thinking and spirit of our day. The author's gift
of telling utterance, his fine feeling, and lofty purpose seem never to fail him. He
shows that he has in rare degree the gifts of the preacher, and that these chapters
were first spoken as sermons. They lose in print none of their reality and practical
efficiency. It is a good omen that this first attempt at a thorough restatement of
Christian doctrine should command the service of the art to please and convince,
and partake both of the 'grace and truth which camc by Jesus Christ.'” - The
Congregationalist.
“ President Hyde has thus given us in this unpretentious little book, a stimulat-
ing restatement of old truth; a new starting-point for religious thought; an admi-
rable example of the modern passion for reality, ... No man who is endeavoring
to work his way through a traditional theology into the heart of Christian thought
can afford to miss reading this work.”- The Biblical World.
“It is a long time since we have read a volume which has so thoroughly interested
and pleased us. Our readers will do well to examine it for themselves if they wish
to become acquainted with some of the best and most advanced thought of the day
on the weighty subjects whereof it treats.” — The New-Church Review.
“ The dominating idea of Dr. Hyde's book is indicated by its title, Outlines of
Social Theology.' It is not sociology viewed theistically; it is theology viewed
socially. It does not, like Kidd's Social Evolution' or Drummond's Ascent of
Man,' contribute one notably new and crystallizing thought to a familiar discussion.
It is rather, as its title indicates, an' outline. But it is not a skeleton. It is full
of life, of blood, of nerves. In it the author reflects, in fresh and vital statements,
the latest, and what The Outlook regards as the best, theological thought of our
time. But this he does not as a mere reporter; he is a thinker who has felt the
influence of the Zeitgeist, and reproduces in remarkably clear statements truths
which lie in modern consciousness, either as undefined experiences or as individual
but not correlated truths." - The Outlook.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
THE
EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRY.
BY
HENRY DYER, C.E., M.A., D.Sc.
12mo. Cloth. $1.50.
I
“It is one of the most masterly of studies of all matters per-
taining to the industrial system that has ever been given to the
world. Trade unions, coöperation, municipal control, state con-
trol, industrial training, individual industry, and modern industrial
guilds are some of the subjects which the author considers freely,
intelligently, and conservatively. This is a book which every
scholar, every laboring man, every person who desires to be well
informed and to be possessed of knowledge that will apply in
daily life will provide himself with.” — New Haven Leader.
“ The closing chapters are conspicuously excellent."
– Boston Saturday Evening Gazette.
“Dr. Dyer might almost be called the Darwin of sociology.
His book is a clean and philosophical inquiry and a comment
upon every phase of the labor problem as it exists at present."
– Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY.
An Analysis of the Phenomena of Association
and of Social Organization.
By FRANKLIN HENRY GIDDINGS, M.A.,
Professor of Sociology in Columbia University, in the City of New York.
8vo. Cloth. $3.00, net.
“The book is especially valuable because of the clearness and fulness with
which it discusses the psychical elements in social evolution.
“Professor Giddings has done good service by his clear exposition of the pres-
ent stage of sociology, and he has made a distinct and valuable contribution to the
subject. The book is also timely, and will doubtless have wide reading and com-
mand the attention of all students of the subject, not only because of Professor
Giddings' acknowledged standing as a sociologist, but because of its intrinsic value.
The style is particularly lucid, and the tone of the book is judicial throughout."
- The Bookman.
“This is a book which has long been awaited with eager expectation by students
of sociology. We have a valuable treatise which will, we believe, for many years
to come be the text-book on this subject.
“Professor Giddings' work has in a high degree that most valuable character-
istic of a contribution to human thought, suggestiveness. His discussion of the
evolution of culture and tradition in his chapter on ‘Demogenic Association' is
especially rich in suggestion.
“Professor Giddings' book is highly stimulating. He is a vigorous thinker and
a strong writer, and he has a broad knowledge of his subject and its various affilia-
tions which is as refreshing as it is unusual in this day of scientific specialists and
non-scientific sociologists.
"The book is well indexed and is accompanied by a valuable classified bibliog-
raphy, — valuable, but by no means exhaustive." — The New Unity.
"The work is on an entirely new basis. There is nothing like it in literature.
A glance at the table of contents will convince any one that it is a model of method.
We feel convinced that as soon as it becomes known it will be accepted as an
authority; and its value, coming in all its completeness at this early stage of the
study of this science, cannot be exaggerated." -- Minneapolis Tribune,
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW. YORK.
MUNICIPAL HOME RULE.
A STUDY IN ADMINISTRATION.
By FRANK J. GOODNOW, A.M., LL.B.,
Professor of Administrative Law in Columbia University; Author of
“Comparative Administrative Law."
12mo. Cloth. $1.50.
CONTENTS.
Introduction. - American and European Municipal Government. - The
Public Character of American Municipal Corporations, and the Fail-
ure of the Legislature to set aside a Sphere of Municipal Home
Rule. - The Effect of the American System of protecting Private
porations. -- The Effects of the American Law as to Municipal
Powers on the Attitude of the Legislature towards Municipal Cor-
porations. - The Constitutional Limitations of the Power of the
Legislature over Municipal Affairs, _ The Means of delimiting the
Sphere of Private Action of Municipal Corporations in the American
Law.- What are Municipal Affairs from the Point of View of the
Liability of Municipal Corporations for Torts. - What are Munici-
pal Affairs from the Point of View of the Liability of Municipal
Corporations for their Management of Property. -- What Municipal
Property is protected by the Constitutional Provisions protecting
Private Property.-- What Municipal Property is Subject to Aliena-
tion.- What is the Sphere of Private Municipal Action recognized
by the American Law.-- European Methods of distinguishing and
securing the Sphere of Municipal Home Rule.
<
c
“This is a timely book and a valuable one." -- Boston Courier.
“ This volume is a valuable contribution to the discussion of municipal
matters." - Boston Journal.
“His conclusions are reached by a series of logical chapters that cannot fail
to impress the reader." - Boston Traveler.
“The questions are handled with scholarly skill, and, it is needless to say,
without a scintilla of partisanship. A fair, candid, historic treatment of a diffi-
cult problem is what we get, and when you lay the little volume down you feel
like offering your hand to the professor on the thoroughly impartial and dispas-
sionate manner in which he has done his work. We very seldom give unstinted
praise, but in the present instance we indulge in that privilege because the pro-
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
MUNICIPAL PROBLEMSDIAN
.
BY
FRANK J. GOODNOW, LL.D.,
Professor of Administrative Law, Columbia University, in the City of New York;
Author of "Municipal Home Rule," etc.
Cloth. 16mo. $1.50, net.
Contents:- History of Municipal Organization in the United States. -
The Position of the City, as it is, and as it should be. — The
Sphere of Municipal Activity. — The Relation of the City to the
State. — The Central Administrative Control over Cities in Europe.
– The Effects of the Central Administrative Control in England.
- Universal Suffrage. — Municipal Government and the National
Political Parties.-- The City Council. -- The City Executive. —
The Metropolitan City.
COMMENTS.
“Municipal Problems is a scholarly, thoughtful, and independent
criticism of municipal experiences and the plans now urged to better
municipal conditions. ... The volume is an exceptionally valuable
one to close students of municipal affairs." - The Outlook, New York.
“ This is one of the finest studies in administration that has ever
been offered to political students." - Inter-Ocean, Chicago.
“We doubt if any author has achieved such eminent success in the
solution of the different problems of city government as the author of
the present work." -- Times Union, Albány.
“We know of no single volume so helpful to the student of city gov-
ernments in the United States at the present time." - Times-Herald,
Chicago.
“A most useful and timely contribution to the science of municipal
government." - Review of Reviews.
« This is one of the most important contributions to the literature of
this subject heretofore issued." - Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia.
Published for The Columbia University Press by
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
THE THEORY OF be
SOCIALIZATION.
A Syllabus of the Principles of Sociology.
FOR THE USE OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY CLASSES.
By FRANKLIN HENRY GIDDINGS,
Professor of Sociology in Columbia University.
With References to “The Principles of Sociology" by
the same Author.
Pamphlet Form. 8vo. 60 cents, net.
“The Theory of Socialization” is intended for the use of college and
university classes. This book and “ The Principles of Sociology"
together constitute a text-book for the advanced student of the subject.
“ The Theory of Socialization” presents the chief theoretical principles
of sociology in a compact form and consecutive order, and illustrates
many of them with new examples. The consciousness of kind is fully
analyzed, and the modes of resemblance which underlie the conscious-
ness of kind are described in detail. The reaction of the consciousness
of kind upon the individualistic motives is explained, and it is shown
that it is through the modification of individualistic motives by the
consciousness of kind that the true social forces arise. The process by
which these social forces are developed into an organized social control
is fully treated, and a practical bearing is given to the whole philosophy
of the subject by an examination of its relation to the democratic pro-
gramme of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
Sources of the Constitution of the
United States.
Considered in Relation to Colonial and English History.
BY
C. ELLIS STEVENS, LL.D., D.C.L., F.S.A. (Edin.).
12mo. Cloth. $2.00.
NEW EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED.
WITH APPENDICES CONTAINING THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, THE CONSTITUTION
OF THE UNITED STATES, AND CITATIONS FROM THE EARLY STATE
CONSTITUTIONS AND BILLS OF RIGHTS.
FROM THE PRESS.
“ Among the leading authorities are De Tocqueville, Von Holst, and Bryce,
and to these must now be added C. Ellis Stevens." — Boston Advertiser.
“ A valuable contribution to the historical study of the origins of the Ameri-
can Constitution, which has made so many and such fruitful advances of recent
years." — London Times.
“Mr. Stevens is the first to present the subject in a complete and satisfactory
form. His treatment is scholarly and free from all narrow national bias. ...
A really important addition to our historical literature." - Annals of the
American Academy.
“He has touched political facts common to modern constitutional govern-
ments of Europe as well as America, and has thrown new light on some widely
discussed problems of contemporaneous civilization. ... The author's style
is characterized by much dignity, and possesses a lucidity and finish which give
a charming literary flavor to the whole. The reader will not lay the book
down till read through, and he will rise from its perusal with new and nobler
ideas of modern government." ---- Living Church.
11
11
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
PRACTICAL IDEALISM.
BY
WILLIAM DEWITT HYDE,
President of Bowdoin College, and Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy;
Author of " Outlines of Social Theology," etc.
Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.
*
Contents: - Part I. The Natural World: CHAP. I. The World of Sense
Perception. II. The World of Association. III. The World of Science.
IV. The World of Art.- PART II. The Spiritual World : CHAP. V.
The World of Persons. VI. The World of Institutions. VII. The World
of Morality. VIII. The World of Religion.
“A book of singular lucidity and of ethical vigor and practical philosophy,
utterly free from theological bias, wide in the outlook of keen thought and
warm feeling, and admirably interpreting the spiritual significance of every-
day life.'” - The Outlook, New York.
“ Full of much which is intellectually stimulating, and full, too, as its title sig-
nifies it was meant to be, of much that is practically helpful.” — Church Union.
“A stimulating, inspiring, progressive word of encouragement to twentieth
century people, clearly and plainly stated. ... Both the scholar and the
workingman will take the highest degree of pleasure in the perusal of this
work. It is full of noble suggestion and must stimulate its readers to the
pursuit and application of the moral it inculcates." — The Courier, Boston.
“Whoever reads this volume . . . will concede readily that it deserves
the highest commendation. Certainly we recall no other treatise upon its
topic which we consider its equal. It is exceedingly concise and compact.
It is characteristically candid and large minded. It outlines its subject with
proper concentration of attention upon essential points, and its interest in-
creases to the climax. Its style is unusually lucid and intelligible.” — The
Congregationalist.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
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YMINOY
ECONOMIC CLASSICS.
ONIUM
EDITED BY
W. J. ASHLEY, M.A.,
Professor of Economic History in Harvard University.
Limp cloth. Globe 8vo. 75 cents each.
Send for a Special Descriptive Circular.
ADAM SMITH. - Select Chapters and Passages from “The Wealth of
Nations.”
T. R. MALTHUS. -- Parallel Chapters from the first and second editions
of “An Essay on the Principles of Population."
RICARDO.---The first six Chapters of “The Principles of Political Economy.”
RICHARD JONES. – Peasant Rents. Being the first half of an essay on
the Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of Taxation.
THOMAS MUN.- England's Treasure by Foreign Trade. 1664.
GUSTAV SCHMOLLER.-The Mercantile System and Its Historical Sig.
nificance.
~ The Adam Smith' is perfectly done- just what was wanted for Scots students, who
have to study personal before political economy." — WILLIAM SMART, LL.D., Lecturer in
the University of Glasgow; Translator of Böhm-Bawerk.
"The little book in the Economic Classic Series on Thomas Mun is, in my judgment, one
of the most valuable of the numbers that have yet appeared. I hope that we shall be able to
use a number of that series next year." — JEREMIAH W. JENKS, Ph.D., Cornell University,
Ithaca, N. Y.
“They certainly are exceedingly valuable and will prove of great service in acquainting
the students of Political Economy with the best features of the Old Masters, a very essential
consideration in these times when there is a chance of their being thrust in the background on
account of such a mass of new material that crowds to the front."- FRANK W. BLACKMAR,
Ph.D., University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan.
“It would be hard, if not quite impossible, to speak too highly in praise of the idea which
conceived, or of the care and scholarship which has prepared, or the artistic and common
sense which has controlled, the manufacture of these volumes of the Economic Classics.'
There are few notes, and a short introduction gives the text and the author their place in
history. The manufacture of the books is all that the student could ask for. Flexible cover,
which will stand much use, a sensible binding, good type and paper -- it is hard to say what
could be wished different. Even the price is just low enough --- not so cheap that the owner
half loses the sense of value in his possession.” — Fournal of Education.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
TT
OUTLINES
4
OF
ECONOMIC THEORY.
BY
HERBERT JOSEPH DAVENPORT.
Cloth. 8vo. $2.00.
This was not primarily intended as a text-book, yet it is well adapted to
the pedagogical need. The feature which first attracts attention is the short
list of “suggestive questions” which open and close each chapter, serving in
part as a review of the text and in part to indicate the bearing of the theo-
retical discussions upon subjects of current and practical interest. The author
has found it serviceable in his own class-room work, and it can hardly fail to
be helpful to the independent reader. It is the work of a man thoroughly
alive to the problems and difficulties which present themselves to every think-
ing man of business and familiar with the solutions which have been offered
from time to time.
The book is in two parts, of which the first sets forth the theory of eco-
nomic science, but following the usual discussion of wealth, value, production,
wages, profits, rent, population, capital and interest, distribution, combina-
tions and monopolies, trades-unions, taxation, currency, bimetallism, interna-
tional trade and currency, commercial crises, the tariff, etc.; a second part is
introduced entitled Economics in Art. Its discussions are of great practical
value and are timely, touching on the competitive system, coöperation and
profit-sharing, state and municipal ownership, taxation, the eight-hour day,
the apprentice system, sweating shops, the labor of women and children, the
unemployed, the currency, free coinage of silver, etc., etc.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
OUTLINES OF ELEMENTARY ECONOMICS.
BY
HERBERT J. DAVENPORT,
Of the University of Chicago.
12mo. Cloth. Price, 80 cents, net.
"I recognize in this work an ideal presentation of the subject for High Schools,
Colleges, and evening classes alike. The treatment is singularly accurate, flexible,
suggestive, and stimulating. In the inductive method of handling the science one
would forgive an author's omitting the minor points of the modern theory, but this
book needs no leniency of the sort. It is broad, thorough, and logical in its subject-
matter as well as philosophical upon its pedagogical side. I shall use the book in
my own high school and shall be very glad to advise its use in similar conditions
elsewhere." - W. E. CHANCELLOR, Supt. of Schools, Bloomfield, N. 7.
“To schools, desirous of introducing a text-book on Economics, I can most
heartily recommend Mr. Davenport's work. Its suggestive questions are a most
valuable feature of the work."
-- Miss S. H. BUNDELL, Prin. Girls' H. S., Lancaster, Pa.
CS
THE STUDY OF CITY GOVERNMENT.
An Outline of the Problems of Municipal Functions,
Control, and Organization.
BY
DELOS F. WILCOX, A.M., Ph.D.
12mo. Cloth. pp. xiv + 268. Price, $1.50, net.
"A book of this kind, laying out the whole field of work in city government, has
long been needed, and Dr. Wilcox seems to have done his work well. I shall take
pleasure in recommending this work highly to my class in Political Institutions."
PROF. J. W. JENKS, Cornell University.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK,

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