88 Hoiv to Pax for the War 



whilst the well-cared-for goose can, at the most, but 

 provide us with a simple meal. 



This being so, we anxiously turned over the pages of 

 M. Cureau's book, where he describes these typical 

 primitive races, the Fans, the Pavvan, and other Congo 

 tribes, hoping to learn something as to how we can pre- 

 serve these people, since the author tells us at the start 

 that : " For more than twenty years I studied their every 

 phase in all the districts of that vast territory which com- 

 prises the French Congo. I spoke their dialects, I lived 

 their lives, and was accordingly able to train myself to 

 think their thoughts, as far as could be done by a mind so 

 very different from their own." 



Such an experienced authority therefore deserves the 

 closest attention, and we trust that what he has to tell us 

 will be listened to, especially as he starts the book with a 

 sentence that hits out straight from the shoulder and 

 strikes us, i.e., anyone anxious to see the Tropics prosperous 

 and populous, right between the eyes, leaving us stunned 

 and doubtful as to whether we shall ever win in this fight 

 to secure "the Tropics for the tropical races" and their 

 products for the white race. 



" The last savage races are disappearing from the world's 

 stage," are the opening words of M. Cureau's introduction 

 and of the book, and we all know that this is true. But 

 why is it so, since we know that we cannot do without the 

 Tropics, and that the Tropics cannot continue to be 

 prosperous and productive without the natives ; not the 

 half-ecucated and half or quarter white native, for such 

 are no better, if as good, as the pure white. What we 

 cannot do without is the pure, primitive, unadulterated 

 native ; black, brown, or red. The cause of our inability 

 to stave off this wastage of labour in the past has been due, 

 we consider, to the needless ignorance on the part of our 

 rulers and their representatives in the Tropics of anthropo- 

 logy. This science teaches us what to look for in those 

 with whom we come into contact, when their peculiarities 

 will help and when they will hinder us in our endeavours to 

 rule them. Without such knowledge black and white will 

 never be able to understand each other in the future any 

 better than they have done in the past ; the result being 

 that the coloured race has had to suffer hitherto. Unless, 

 however, we can stem this tide of ignorance and indiffer- 

 ence that is surely, but none too slowly, washing away our 

 supplies of coloured labour, our day of suffering will also 

 come later on, and when it does it will be unpleasantly 



