48 Causes of its Success 



By others, who take a wider, cosmic view, the 

 argument has been put on the ground of "social 

 efficiency." "Human progress," so runs the 

 argument, "requires the maintenance of the race 

 struggle, in which the weakest races shall go under, 

 while the 'socially efficient' races survive and 

 flourish; we are the .socially efficient race; therefore 

 our nation must take up the 'white man's bur- 

 den' and enter upon an Imperialistic career." 

 The principle of social efficiency is described as 

 being "as indisputable as the law of gravita- 

 tion" by Edmund Demolins, who enunciates it as 

 follows : 



When one race shows itself superior to another in the 

 various externals of domestic life, it inevitably in the 

 long run gets the upper hand in public life and estab- 

 lishes its predominance. Whether this predominance 

 is asserted by peaceable means or feats of arms, it is 

 none the less, when the proper time comes, officially 

 established, and afterwards unreservedly acknow- 

 ledged. I have said that this law is the only thing 

 which accounts for the history of the human race 

 and the revolutions of empires, and that, moreover, 

 it explains and justifies the appropriation by Europeans 

 of territories in Asia, Africa, and Oceania, and the 

 whole of our colonial development. ^ 



The gospel of Imperialism, as embodied in the 

 career of Hubert Hervey of the British South 

 African Chartered Company, has been summed 

 up by his fellow-adventurer, Earl Grey, as follows : 



* Boers or British, p. 24. 



