E.— GEOGRAPHY. 103 



groups related in culture and language is also a geographical reality. 

 The ideal state from the geographical standpoint is one which neither 

 divides groups culturally related nor interferes with the flow of trade 

 along natural arteries and between regions economically interdependent. 

 It may be, although as yet the indications are not very hopeful, that the 

 urgent need of Europe for greater economic integration can be reconciled 

 with the desire of the small nationality groups for cultural and political 

 autonomy. It may be that economic federation or agreement among 

 small sovereign states within the framework of the League of Nations will 

 prove the only alternative to the ' Super-State ' solution of the problem 

 of European political geography propounded by Naumann in his Mittel 

 Europa. At any rate, nationality, considered apart from its geographical 

 setting, may be a very dangerous conception. 



The problems of political geography in other parts of the world are no 

 less interesting and important. Many of the political units of Africa, 

 carved out in the course of a hasty scramble for power, are essentially 

 arbitrary, and are far from representing natural integrations. It is, 

 however, a welcome sign of a new order that in the allocation of the 

 Mandates for Togoland and the Cameroons the cultural affinities and 

 groupings of the peoples, as well as the physical conditions, were 

 specifically recognised. Lord Lugard some time ago called attention to 

 the great importance of this aspect in the problem of regional self- 

 government in India, and the Simon Commission emphasises its 

 significance. Even in our own country we have analogous problems, such, 

 for example, as whether the county units, developed in relation to con- 

 ditions of physical and human geography which have largely passed away, 

 should be replaced or in part superseded by larger administrative entities 

 more in harmony with the modern economic regions of the country, a 

 subject discussed in a suggestive way by Prof. Fawcett in his Provinces 

 of England. 



I havfe tried to indicate the essential character of the principal asj^ects 

 of human geography, each of them from the standpoint of the adjustment 

 of human groups to their geographical environment. It is permissible 

 and desirable to pursue special studies of these various aspects of our 

 subject, but they find their fullest fruition when they are brought together 

 and inter-related in a full and comprehensive treatment of regions such 

 as Cjivic gives in his book La Peninsule Balkanique : Geographie Humaine. 

 We can never really appreciate the problems of such countries as India, 

 China and Russia until we have a comprehensive interpretation of their 

 human ecology, to use the expressive term employed by the American 

 geographer Barrows. In the future it is probable that geographical 

 specialism in the Universities will be less concerned with aspects (such as 

 geomorphology, climate and economic geography) — although this will 

 always have its place — and more concerned with regions (the 

 Mediterranean, Tropical Africa, the Far East, and so on). The geographer's 

 parish must indeed be the world, but it is too large a parish for all parts 

 of it to be studied in detail by any one man. He must, if he is entrusted 

 with a University department, delegate responsibility for as many regional 

 chapels-of-ease as he can find associates and colleagues to work them. 



Of historical geography there is no time, nor is this the occasion to 



