president's address — SECTION F. 163 



loug as colour is the badge which distinguishes master and servant, 

 and so long as those economic relations continue which, it has 

 been said, "obscure and distort the apprehension of more deeply 

 human relations" (Olivier). 



It is probable that, as Lord Morley says, all mankind is becom- 

 ing one people for economic purposes, the backward races taking 

 the place of uu skilled labour, and, if so, the feeling which I have 

 3iientioned is mere likely to be intensified than to disappear. 



GerriKiii View of Xative Races. 



It has been said, especially since the war, by those who have 

 studied the subject, that the Germans in their colonies regarded 

 the natives merely as a means of developing the resources of the 

 country, and not as fellow men whose welfare should be promoted 

 apart altogether from the economic advantages which are likely 

 to C'Usue to the dominant race; and if you take this German 

 view — which is, in fact, the^ old Aristotelian view of the natural- 

 born slaves- — anthropology and ethnology can give you nO' assist- 

 ance in your administration, because your administration, in 

 that case, is based upon a denial of the principle on which those 

 sciences are founded — -the principle, that is, of the ultimate 

 unity of the human race. 



Bntish View. 



The British principle of native administration is, at any rate 

 in theory, very different; and in British books dealing with 

 such subjects you will find it laid down authoritatively that the 

 welfare of a native race is either the first or, at any rate, one 

 of the first objects of administration. This is regarded as a 

 "truism" by Sir F. D. Lugard in his recent report on the 

 amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria, and the same 

 principle has been laid down by the Commonwealth in relation 

 to the Territory of Papua, and it is, I suppose, accepted and 

 greeted with applause everywhere throughout the Empire, except 

 in those countries where it is supposed to be carried into effect; 

 for in those countries it is ]>robable that the theory will only be 

 tolerated so long as no attempt is made to put it into practice. 



Now this attitude towards native races, which I may call the 

 British attitude, may be quite wrong, and the true principle 

 may be that which is reflected in the Dred Scott decision already 

 mentioned, but it is the attitude to which the British adminis- 

 tration is definitely committed, and I venture to hope that it is 

 an attitude which will neven be abandoned, for it seems to me 

 to be the only one that is worthy of a civilized nation. And 

 further, and this is the point that is material for this paper, 

 it is the only attitude that can be regarded as scientific or as 

 in any way reconcilable with the principles of anthropology or 

 ethnology. 



