TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 717 



of a type of government in Central America very different from that wbicli now 

 exists. 



It -would be easy to multiply indefinitely examples intended to prove the 



interdependence of commerce and political administration. The history of British 



rule in India might well he founded on that central idea ; and from the earliest 



. times European relations with China have been moulded by the failure of the 



Chinese political system to meet the necessities of European commerce. 



A brief survey of the history of tropical and sub-tropical countries during the 

 past four centuries confronts us with the fact that in three countries only — 

 Mexico, Peru, and India— did the first European travellers find native Govern- 

 ments possessing any serious elements of stabilit}', and that in each case the 

 government was in the form of a military despotism. Broadly speaking, we may 

 say that whatever degree of organised government exists to-day in Central and 

 South America, in the West Indies, in the whole of Africa, in Further India, and 

 in the Malay Archipelago is due to the intrusion of one or another of the 

 European Powers. These countries may be divided into two classes — one com- 

 prising those in which the administration is of direct European origin, the other 

 including those in which popular representation effectively throws the control of 

 affairs into the hands of the local inhabitants. If we accept India as representing 

 the former class, and the Central American Republics as representing the latter, 

 we cannot fail to be impressed by the fact that, although European influence in 

 Central America antedates British influence in India by a full century, the 

 argument on the facts is strongly against the applicability of representative 

 institutions to tropical countries. 



Briefly the question resolves itself into one of climatic discipline. In Europe 

 the extreme range of temperature demands variety of clothing, and to this 

 necessity we may attribute the growth of industry in early times. A winter 

 season, during which food cannot be obtained directly from the soil, involved an 

 excess of labour above the daily need during the season of crops, and from this we 

 adduce the development of thrift and foresight. To these two factors, and to 

 their innumerable and far-reaching corollaries, must be attributed the general 

 character of European civilisation. In the development of the tropical man 

 neither of these great agencies has been at work, nor, except in a few special 

 instances, can it be foreseen that they will come into operation. 



It is not asserted that the natives of the tropics are necessarily deficient in the 

 intellectual faculties. To propound such a theory, in view of the constant and 

 deserved success of East Indians and Negroes in our Universities and at the Bar, 

 would merely betray colour prejudice. But when we observe the tropical man as 

 a legislator or as a responsible administrator we find him, with very few excep- 

 tions, to be utterly unsuited to his task. I think that the available facts justify 

 the theory that the climatic conditions of the tropics have set an insuperable 

 barrier to the advancement of tropical peoples in the direction of popular govern- 

 ment. It seems to me that a great deal of futile experimenting would be saved if 

 we accepted the principle that in the heat-belt of the world administrative affairs 

 must rest in the hands of specially trained Europeans, guided by the advice of a 

 nominated council consisting of representatives of each class of the community. 



It is not because we would oppress the native, but because we would save him 

 from oppression and from the evil effects of rash and ill-considered legislation, that 

 we would take the administration of his country out of bis hands. 



6. Itineraries in Portuguese Congo. By Rev. Thomas Lewis, 



The ancient kingdom of Kongo discovered in the fifteenth century is so little 

 known at the beginning of the twentieth. In past generations the Portuguese 

 were more interested in their island plantations, and used their territories on the 

 mainland to supply them with slaves. The Government of to-day shows signs of 

 activity in opening up the country, and have established three military and fiscal 

 stations inland, the latest on the Kwangu Kiver, 



