PROBLEMS OF COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION 403 



economic life is the intensiveness of its methods, the attempt to 

 spread economic effort over larger areas would necessarily mean the 

 return to the barbarian system of exploitation. According to this 

 view we have to choose between the constantly more productive 

 intensive culture of a smaller territory and the extensive exploitation 

 of ever-widening areas. A real danger is here pointed out. If, on 

 account of the rapid and easy profits gained through a reckless ex- 

 ploitation of the natural wealth of new regions, our capital should 

 neglect the steady intensive improvement of industry at home, a 

 marked retrogression would soon set in. Our industrial supremacy 

 would be threatened and our social life corrupted, on the one hand 

 by a degeneration of industries at home, on the other hand by a 

 wealth too easily gained and by the consequent rigid stratification of 

 society. The lesson to be drawn from this objection, therefore, is 

 that by all means reckless exploitation in the new countries is to be 

 made impossible, not only in order to protect the inhabitants of these 

 regions, but also to prevent a very dangerous reaction upon our own 

 industrial and social life. But if a sane and rational policy of eco- 

 nomic development should be followed, it is difficult to see why it 

 is not justifiable to extend intensive methods to wider areas, and to 

 introduce a productive economy into regions where at the present 

 time barbarian exploitation alone holds sway. It has also been 

 urged that the present movement only emphasizes the nervous rest- 

 lessness of Western civilization. We have given, it is said, too much 

 attention to means, too little to the ends of life, and in the great 

 movement that we are now undertaking, we are striving simply for 

 new means, we are erecting a vast mechanism which will embrace 

 the entire world and crush it in a dreary uniformity. What result 

 are we aiming at in the construction of this vast machine? Who is 

 to be happier for it? How can it conceivably increase our happiness 

 or the happiness of the native populations who are turned from their 

 natural mode of existence, and forced to adopt a new and irksome 

 way of life? Questions like this are too general in their reach to 

 admit of a conclusive answer. We may grant that our civilization 

 is lacking in definiteness of aim, that its general tendencies are con- 

 fused and uncertain; but may it not be that in the contact with the 

 older civilizations of the Orient, it will be led to a new interpretation 

 of life? Such would seem to be the natural outcome. When once 

 the world has been organized as a system of civilized states and 

 future expansion becomes impossible, it will, of necessity, have to 

 seek satisfaction in static rather than in dynamic ideals. 



In contemporary thought the idea is often expressed, or at least 

 suggested, that our civilization is to be the ruling force in the future 

 in this sense, that all other civilizations are to be subservient to it, 

 and that the Western races are to form a privileged caste. A concep- 



