MEN OF THE TREES 



have been the animating impulses which led to European 

 colonization in Equatorial Africa, whether right or 

 wrong, it cannot be questioned that the contact of West- 

 ern civilization with the primitive methods of compara- 

 tive savagery, has resulted in a state of flux and change 

 for which the white man is responsible. 



East Africa, and in fact the whole of the tropical area 

 surrounding the Equator, may in time and with wise 

 guidance, become capable of self-government; but that 

 time has not yet come, and we who have aroused the 

 tremors of what was once a nation, cannot hold our- 

 selves guiltless until and unless, we have satisfied our own 

 consciences and wisely assisted to their legitimate end, 

 the aspirations of a people who are in the early stages of 

 a great awakening. 



That great Social Anthropologist, Professor Bronislaw 

 Malinowski, has said, "The clash of Western culture with 

 the older civilizations of mankind is the greatest drama 

 that history has ever chronicled." Improved means of 

 transportation and the advance of medical science have 

 opened up vast opportunities for development. Many 

 countries have been invaded by the white men in the 

 past, to the detriment of the aborigines, but here in Africa 

 the new invasion should result in a considerable increase 

 of the population by reason of the advancement of medi- 

 cal science. Whereas in the past there was sufficient virgin 

 soil in the forests to suffice for the sparse and shifting 

 population, this is no longer the case, and the little that 

 remains of the original forest must be conserved both in 



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