CIVILIZATION IN AFRICA 
471 
civic officials who are actually doing it are, as a whole, 
entitled to the heartiest respect and the fullest support 
from their brothers who remain at home. 
At the outset there is one point upon which I wish to 
insist with all possible emphasis. The civilized nations 
who are conquering for civilization savage lands should 
work together in a spirit of hearty mutual goodwill. I 
listened with special interest to what Sir Joseph Dims- 
dale said about the blessing of peace and goodwill 
among nations. I agree with that in the abstract. Let 
us show by our actions and our words in specific cases 
that we agree with it also in the concrete. Ill-will 
between civilized nations is bad enough anywhere, but 
it is peculiarly harmful and contemptible when those 
actuated by it are engaged in the same task—a task of 
such far-reaching importance to the future of humanity 
—the task of subduing the savagery of wild man and 
wild nature, and of bringing abreast of our civilization 
those lands where there is an older civilization which 
has somehow gone crooked. Mankind, as a whole, has 
benefited by the noteworthy success that has attended 
the French occupation of Algiers and Tunis, just as 
mankind, as a whole, has benefited by what England 
has done in India; and each nation should be glad of 
the other nation’s achievements. In the same way it 
is of interest to all civilized men that a similar success 
shall attend alike the Britisher and the German as they 
work in East Africa ; exactly as it has been a benefit to 
everyone that America took possession of the Philip¬ 
pines. Those of you who know Lord Cromer’s excel¬ 
lent book, in which he compares modern and ancient 
Imperialism, need no words from me to prove that the 
dominion of modern civilized nations over the dark 
places of the earth has been fraught with widespread 
