CH. XIV. ECONOMIC OBJECTIONS TO EUEOPEAN EULE. 355 



even in England, have not obtS-ined wide acceptance ; and 

 it would be out of place to discuss them here. It is, in- 

 deed, impossible to deny that there is a share of truth in 

 the views of those who hold that colonies and foreign pos- 

 sessions do not, as a general rule, directly add to the pros- 

 perity of a country. If the aim of any nation were 

 merely to attain a high level of material well-being, and 

 it could either restrain its citizens from intercourse with 

 less civilised people, or be content to forego the duty of 

 protecting them, it might be possible to avoid entering on 

 the path which inevitably leads to extension of territory. 

 Fortunately for the human race, such ideas never have 

 prevailed among those nations which have played any 

 important part in history. If the instinct of adventure, 

 that has brought the more advanced races into contact 

 with the barbarian aad the savage, has always been alloyed 

 by association with the baser passions of some, it has also 

 been ennobled by the higher aims of others. To lay, in 

 new regions, the foundations of civil society ; to establish, 

 more or less imperfectly, the reign of order and justice, 

 and to secure the protection of the weak against the strong — 

 these have been the tasks hitherto achieved by the ruling 

 races of the world ; and as knowledge has increased, as the 

 difficulties of social progress have become better under- 

 stood, and a stricter code of justice in dealing with the in- 

 ferior races is gradually becoming established, it is allowable 

 to hope that the inevitable changes may be accomplished 

 with less of human suffering and with better success. 



Eome might have been a happier State if its citizens 

 had confined their ambition to make it a commercial em- 

 porium for the neighbouring tribes of middle Italy, and, 

 content with self-defence, had refrained from all distant en- 

 terprise ; Carthage need not have tempted her fate, if she 

 had been satisfied with her own corner of Africa ; but 

 then the world would have had no history, and the series of 

 changes from which modern civilisation has been developed 

 would have been for ages, it may be for ever, delayed. 



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