October 20, 1923] 



NA TURE 



595 



rule which runs diagonally across the meridians from 

 the Persian Gulf to the Amur, and includes the eastern 

 provinces of Persia at one end and Mongolia and 

 Manchuria at the other. This has for the most part a 

 light rainfall, but comprises much fine prairie country 

 and some good agricultural land, while in the more 

 arid tracts there are many great rivers fed from snow- 

 fields and glaciers which could be made to irrigate 

 large areas. 



Adjacent to the Indo-Chinese peninsula are the East 

 Indies, the climate of which is suited both to Indians 

 and Chinese, with great tracts of undeveloped land the 

 productivity of which is attested by luxuriant forest. 

 The sparsely peopled regions of Asia near to India, 

 China, and Japan by land and sea, and for the most 

 part connected with them by ties of civilisation, pro- 

 \ide an area for the overflow from these countries 

 which is more than twice as large as tropical Australia 

 and British Columbia, together with California, Washing- 

 ton, and Oregon, the American frontier provinces of 

 English-speaking labour. 



India includes one of the most important borderlands 

 within the Orient, that of the Mohammedan and Hindu 

 worlds. The Punjab, with its great rivers and plain, 

 is in such striking contrast to the mountains and 

 plateau of Iran that we are apt to lose sight of the fact 

 that, climatically, it more resembles the highland on 

 the west than the rainy valley of the Ganges on the 

 east. It is an eastern borderland of Islam, a religious 

 world which is mainly comprised in the belt of dry 

 country which stretches diagonally from the Atlantic 

 shore of Morocco to the Altai Mountains. Delhi, under 

 the Great Moghul, was an advanced capital of the 

 Mohammedan world just within the Ganges valley, 

 which is the headquarters of Hinduism. In this sub- 

 imperial capital the two antagonistic civilisations are 

 now linked to the government of Great Britain, and the 

 age-long wars between them have ceased. 



Up to the time of British predominance, India was 

 the terminal position of continental conquerors unused 

 to the sea, who did not develop the advantages of a 

 salient maritime position. The ports of India lie con- 

 veniently for a long stretch of coast-land on the great 

 gulf which forms the Indian Ocean, and now, owing to 

 the facilities provided by British shipping, much of 

 this coast-land has easier communication with India 

 than with its own continental interior. Several 

 British possessions in the parts of Africa adjacent to 

 the Indian Ocean are in the intermediate position 

 between the principal homelands of the black peoples 

 and the overflowing population of India, and nowhere 

 has the responsibility of our intermediate position 

 called for more careful examination of the rights and 

 interests of competing coloured races. The decision 

 with reference to Kenya which has just been given by 

 the Home Government recognises the main physical 

 regions in the coloured world as political divisions of 

 the Empire within which the established races have 

 special rights, which it is our duty to safeguard. 



From the foregoing facts it is clear that the British 

 piople, metropolitan and colonial, are in a greater 

 degree than any other nation the doorkeepers of the 

 world in respect of economic, strategic, and racial com- 

 munications. 



NO. 2816, VOL. 1 12] 



The Consolidation of the Position. 



The consolidation of the geographical position which 

 the British nation has won turns upon the future of 

 colonisation within the Empire. The ratio of white to 

 coloured people in the Empire is only about one to six. 

 The former are mostly of British stock. The latter are 

 of many stocks, differing physically from each other as 

 much as from the white people, and belonging to 

 diverse religions. Their numbers are steadily increasing 

 under British rule. Consequently, if the Empire is to 

 be guided by the British, the numbers of our race must 

 also increase. There is, however, a school which con- 

 siders that if our ideals of ethics and efficiency are once 

 accepted by the coloured peoples, the racial complexion 

 of the Empire will be unimportant, as public affairs will 

 be regulated by our principles. This proselytising 

 point of view does not take account of the contingency 

 that British ideals implanted in coloured stock may 

 receive alien development in future generations owing 

 to biological causes. Our confidence in Western 

 culture in general, and the British version of that 

 culture in particular, is based more upon the power of 

 adaptation which it has shown in our hands since the 

 Renaissance and the era of oceanic discovery than upon 

 any system of which we can hand over a written pre- 

 scription. It is only in our own national communities, 

 mainly composed of British stock, with minorities nearly 

 akin, that we can be confident that British ideals will 

 develop typically in the way of natural evolution. 

 Therefore in our own interests and in that of the 

 coloured races (who conflict among themselves) it is 

 desirable to maintain the present proportion of the 

 British stock, to whom the Empire owes the just ad- 

 ministration of law and a progressive physical science. 

 We have to note that the population of Great 

 Britain, which is now forty-three million, outnumbers 

 the combined population of Canada, Newfoundland, 

 South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand in the pro- 

 portion of two and a half to one, and increases more 

 rapidly than that of all these Dominions. Thus 

 the chief source available for the British peopling of 

 the Dominions is the metropolitan, not the colonial, 

 population. 



The number and density of the population of Canada 

 is exceeded in the proportion of about ten to one by the 

 white population of the United States, hence it is 

 inevitable that there should be a large flow of people 

 from the latter country to the Dominion. As it is 

 essential to unanimity in the Empire that the Canadians 

 should continue to be British in sentiment and not 

 become pan-Ameri< an, a large immigration from Great 

 Britain is required in Canada. Moreover, the population 

 of continental Europe outnumbers that of Great 

 Britain in the proportion of something like ten to one, 

 and as emigrants go to Canada from many European 

 countries there is a furtiier call for British immigrants 

 to maintain the British character of the Dominion. 



The co-operation of the Union of South Africa in the 

 War only became possible after the failure of an insurrec- 

 tion by part of the Boers. Since the number of persons 

 of Dutch and British stock is about ecjual, an influx of 

 British colonists is required in order to ensure unanimity 

 between South Africa and the rest of the Empire. 



