20 
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF • 
ends, than of the economist for his, to take every practicable mea¬ 
sure for the improvement of the externa! condition of the natives 
of the Archipelago. We need not now suffer our minds to be 
disturbed by any misgivings as to the benefit derivable from Eu¬ 
ropean influence. in the first place, the influence hitherto has 
not been that of Europe in her noblest characteristics ; or the lower 
and more selfish have so much predominated that they have not 
yet dreamt of Europe in her earnest devotion to the bettering of 
humanity, her pure and deep love of all truth spiritual and 
physical, and her ever extending knowledge of the secret springs 
of nature. ' For, altough we fully appreciate the earnest and 
noble labours of the missionaries who are found in many of the 
islands, we cannot be blind to the fact, that their numbers and 
resources are, as yet, far too limited to make more than a slight 
impression on the great field which lies around them. In the 
second place we have no choice. We may deplore that some 
tribes, happy in their simplicity and guUelessness, should be roused 
from their repose of peace to pass through the turbulent period 
which separates man first awaking to a sense of new wants and 
setting out on his career of dissatisfaction and action, from man 
when civilization has thrown off its early vices arid evils, and is 
bringing all human wants and desires into harmony. But we cannot, 
if we would, arrest the march of events ; and as the necessities and 
enterprize of China and Europe are yearly more and more invading 
the recesses of the Archipelago, and the most secluded tribes must 
in a short time be brought within the circle of general economical 
intercourse, we must dismiss from our minds distrust and hesita¬ 
tion, and substitute in their place, the fact that Ibis intercourse 
is now most extensive, will soon be universal, and is a mighty 
agent for good as well as for evil. 
Unfortunately the Chinese, who are so rapidly spreading, can 
only corrupt and debase the natives. Living but for gain and 
merely physical enjoyment, and pursuing these objects with a com¬ 
bination of the most mature patience, laboriousness, duplicity, 
craft and often fraud, which is the more dangerous from the easy, 
open, plain and plausible manner with which it is accompanied, the 
Chinese flow into every opening which European powers effect 
whether by supplanting or weakening native governments. If every 
