354 CHOICE OFFERED TO INFERIOR RACES. ch. xiv. 



However diverse the conditions and the ideas of the human 

 race, the primal requisites for social order are everywhere 

 the same. Security for person and property, the protec- 

 tion of the weak against the strong, tribunals before which 

 justice can be obtained without fear or favour — where 

 these do not exist, the Power, whatever it may be, that 

 confers them on a people is a beneficent one, and for the 

 sake of these any errors that it may commit in its govern- 

 ment will be condoned by posterity. 



These remarks apply with especial force to such a 

 country as Marocco, where, under the yoke of invaders, 

 the greater part of the population has been for centuries 

 constantly declining in material and mental condition. 



When all has been said, it must be felt that theoretical 

 considerations are little likely to prevail against that which 

 history declares to be the uniform condition of human 

 progress. As a general rule the most vigorous nations are 

 those in which the increase of population is most rapid, 

 and extension into new territories is their inevitable 

 destiny. Statesmen and rulers may to some extent guide 

 and control, but they are powerless to prevent the opera- 

 tion of natural laws. The choice, in regard to the in- 

 ferior races, seems to be whether they shall fall under the 

 rule of the stronger, and be gradually modified by the 

 influence of new ideas and institutions, or whether they 

 shall disappear altogether and give place to the new 

 comer. Where, as has too often happened, the latter 

 process is effected by injustice and violence, the evil 

 to the world arises not so much from the loss of a 

 race unfitted to bear the strain of competition, as from the 

 moral deterioration that ensues to the invaders. 



Amongst the opponents of the extension of European 

 rule over the adjacent continents must be reckoned those 

 who base their objections mainly on economic grounds. 

 If the question of the French occupation of Marocco 

 should arise in a practical shape, it is little likely that 

 French statesmen will be withheld by considerations which. 



