THE PROBLEMS OF COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION 



BY PAUL S. REINSCH 



[Paul S. Reinsch, Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin, b. 

 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 10, 1869. A.B. University of Wisconsin, 1892; 

 LL.B. ibid. 1894; Ph.D. ibid. 1898; Post-graduate, Berlin, London, Paris, and 

 Rome. Member of American Historical Association; American Political 

 Science Association; American Economic Association. Author of The Common 

 Law in the American Colonies; World-Politics at the End of the Nineteenth 

 Century; Colonial Government; Colonial Administration.] 



FUTURE students of political evolution will note a strange simi- 

 larity between the theories which are now being advanced to defend 

 imperialistic expansion and that humanitarian optimism which ani- 

 mated the period of the French Revolution. The ideas through 

 which the French Revolution attempted to conquer the world were 

 based upon an intense and undoubting belief in the equality and 

 uniform virtue of human nature. Freed from the shackles w r hich 

 perverted forms of society had formed, humanity would again be 

 true to itself, would follow its rational impulses, and under sane in- 

 stitutions, inherit a millennium of peace and happiness. These hopes 

 of the young century were bitterly disappointed in its later years. 

 It became impossible to realize the unity of civilized mankind, and 

 the narrower feelings of nationalism and race antipathy took the 

 place of the earlier enthusiasms. But at present, when a new and 

 universal forward movement of civilized society is taking place, 

 the same ideals are again appealed to. Humanity is one, and the 

 members of the brotherhood who through barbarous customs and 

 irrational institutions are kept in a state of backwardness are to be 

 led out into the light of freedom and reason and endo\ved with the 

 multiform blessings of civilization. Many of the races embraced in 

 this ideal love are as little inclined to accept the dispensations of a 

 human providence as were the European nations who resisted the 

 spread of revolutionary ideas as interpreted by Napoleon. Their 

 resistance may, however, turn out to be less formidable, and so the 

 course of history may not repeat itself. The experiment may be 

 more successful this time than it was before, and a new era may 

 actually be dawning upon the outlying regions of the world. 



But if this forecast is to come true, it will be due primarily not to 

 the general ideas to which we have just referred, but to certain great 

 economic changes which have taken place during the last century 

 and which have laid a material foundation for a world-wide organiza- 

 tion of social life. The movement began a few centuries ago with the 

 creation of commercial stations along the coasts of distant conti- 

 nents. The basis of intercourse was then frankly commercial. There 



