388 COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION 



to urge the leaving of each barbarian people to work out its own 

 progress independently. Such a policy then might have been 

 effective. There were few and imperfect means of communication. 

 There were strong prejudices holding one tribe or race aloof from 

 another. The commercial motive that leads civilized men to in- 

 vade every corner of the world was almost entirely wanting. 

 Then it might have been possible for a people to have a thousand 

 years of isolation in which either to stagnate or to develop its 

 institutions. 



All this is now changed. Modern means of communication have 

 drawn together the ends of the earth. They have made every 

 country contiguous to every other country. The representatives 

 of modern enlightenment have laid aside most of the barbarian's race 

 prejudices, and their commercial relations bring them into relations 

 with the inhabitants of every quarter of the world. No tribe or 

 nation, whether rude or civilized, can now maintain its isolation. 

 The view that a rude people should be permitted to develop its own 

 life without foreign interference may have involved a practicable 

 policy in the beginnings of social growth. As applied to the present, 

 it is Utopian. Dominated by notions founded on ancient traditions, 

 we may think that a policy involving this view ought to prevail; 

 but our opinions of what ought to be the attitude of one people to 

 another have no necessary relation to the facts in the case. The 

 curiosity of the civilized nations and their economic needs have 

 thrown down all partition walls. If there is any people now in the 

 state of barbarism with capacity for independent development under 

 long isolation, it is safe to affirm that it will not achieve such devel- 

 opment. The spirit of contemporary civilization is intolerant of 

 barbarian isolation. The peoples of the uncultivated races may not 

 now have the same time for independent development and the same 

 freedom from interference that they might have had in the earlier 

 ages of social progress. There is thus no vital question now be- 

 tween the independence of Java and Dutch control, or between the 

 independence of the Philippines and American control. The real 

 question in these and similar cases is between control by the present 

 superiors and control by other superiors. The present tendency in 

 the world politics is not to create new sovereign states, but to enlarge 

 the jurisdiction- of a few of those already existing. The continent of 

 Africa has been divided by lines of political demarkation without 

 calling into existence a single new sovereign; and some of the regions 

 that have hitherto been politically independent appear destined to 

 fall under foreign control. It would not be difficult to recognize 

 in such an event, particularly in the subjection of Morocco to the 

 government of France, a movement to advance the interests and 

 increase the realm of civilization. 



