400 COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION 



was no attempt to interfere with the interior social and political 

 arrangements of the native races, and only in India, where the British 

 were spurred onward in the course of empire by the ambitions of 

 the French conquerors, and in the Dutch possessions and other 

 plantation colonies, which were looked upon as estates waiting ex- 

 ploitation, was there any penetration of the interior regions. But 

 after the middle of the last century, the great advance made in the 

 rapidity and ease of communication revolutionized the entire move- 

 ment of colonial activity. Being brought so much nearer to the 

 European countries, the undeveloped regions in general became 

 looked upon as promising fields for the investment of capital in the 

 extractive and agricultural industries. This implied a far different 

 relation to internal affairs than had obtained before. While the 

 merchant was satisfied with small trading-stations or river-hulks, 

 the colonial entrepreneur looked to the interior regions for an invest- 

 ment of his capital. It was essential to him that these regions should 

 be made accessible, and that within them law and orderly conditions 

 should be established; that a steady labor-supply should be pro- 

 vided, and that so far as possible the mechanism of Western indus- 

 trial life should be introduced. The inevitable result of such changes 

 was the demand for political sovereignty over extensive tracts of 

 territory. The struggle for colonial possessions commenced, and 

 with great rapidity Africa was divided among the colonizing nations, 

 while preemption rights were claimed in other unoccupied regions. 

 Having thus forcibly seized upon large tracts of land and established 

 a claim of sovereignty over their inhabitants, the nations engaged 

 in this movement looked for some moral principle upon which this 

 procedure could be defended. At this juncture it was very natural 

 to fall back upon the earlier theories of the unity of mankind and of 

 the destiny of rational civilization to embrace the entire globe. The 

 missionary spirit was evoked, the duties of the civilized nations 

 towards the less fortunate were unfolded, and the whole movement 

 was represented as one of altruism and benevolence. 



This intermixture of economic forces and idealistic moral impulses 

 has brought great confusion into the entire political thought of our 

 period. So chaotic is its condition that many minds have despaired 

 of discovering in the entire movement of expansion any vestige of 

 the moral sense. They are ready to stamp the entire idealistic 

 theory as pure cant, consciously designed to veil a most selfish type 

 of aggression. They point out that while we preach the doctrine of 

 universal brotherly love, we look with disdain upon nations, no 

 matter how highly civilized, who differ from us in the least shade 

 of color; we abolish slavery, and under the pretext of providing 

 a moral education for the natives, introduce forced labor; we preach 

 peace while we are stirring up into warlike feelings societies that 



