PROBLEMS OF COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION 405 



eminently proper policy to favor the introduction of our own insti- 

 tutions among all the populations that come under our control. 

 Every nation considers its own institutions as the highest products 

 of social evolution, and no better destiny could be conceived for 

 other races than that they should be allowed to share in the benefits 

 which rational laws would bestow upon them. Moreover, it is ex- 

 ceedingly difficult to understand alien social systems and to judge 

 correctly the trend of their evolution. It would indeed require 

 the wisdom of a platonic philosopher to forecast properly the spon- 

 taneous development of such societies. With our own institutions 

 we are familiar. Their virtues we believe in. They seem simple 

 and rational; we can easily put them in the form of legal enactments 

 and thus bestow them upon our dependents as a complete and satis- 

 fying whole. Moreover, the general desire to set the impress of our 

 national genius upon the world finds no better expression than this 

 propaganda of institutions. In fact, to many people the entire 

 justification of the expansion movement lies in the promise of the 

 spread of better institutions of the European or American type. 

 When we, therefore, ask ourselves the question, Which is the better 

 policy, not to interfere with native customs and civilization, in fact 

 to foster their natural development, or to sweep away the customs 

 of backward races which so often seem but the bonds which hold 

 them in slavery and to put in their stead the liberal institutions 

 of our own society? the answer is most readily given in favor of the 

 latter alternative. 



And yet the policy of assimilation has thus far in practice proved 

 unsuccessful and at times even disastrous. Experience seems to 

 show that even those institutions which are by us considered the 

 very foundation of good government may have harmful results when 

 introduced into another society. The most striking example of this 

 is found in the experience of Great Britain in India. The English are 

 not an assimilating race. They have always had clearly in mind the 

 economic purposes of expansion, and have allowed the political 

 missionary spirit comparatively little sway. They have not been 

 filled with the desire of transforming native societies. Still, they 

 have introduced certain institutional reforms, which to them seemed 

 absolutely essential and not attended with any risk. Thus, who 

 would not agree that the impartial enforcement of contracts, the 

 system of judicial appeals, representative government, the institu- 

 tion of the jury system, a free press, and liberal education are things 

 about the usefulness of which among us there can be no two opinions? 

 The British introduced these institutions into India, with the best of 

 intentions, and yet with such results that their opponents can now 

 plausibly argue that they must have been animated with the sinister 

 purpose of disrupting and undermining Indian society. The most 



