278 
MADAGASCAR. 
forward. The intensity of her national aspira¬ 
tions cannot be restrained. So much progress 
in the past can point only to greater advances 
in the future, if time and opportunity are given 
to these people. 
But their one chance of prosperity lies in the 
preservation of their independence. To subju¬ 
gate them now would be to crush out their best 
energies, to frustrate their greatest hopes, and to 
paralyse the arm of power which is lifting them 
up and guiding them onward. As a conquered 
people their worst characteristics would most 
probably reappear, and become strengthened by 
the bitterness of soul engendered by a sense of 
the great and irremediable wrong done them. 
They are conscious of their defects, and are 
anxious to remedy them; they are aware of 
their present inferiority, and are doing what lies 
in their power to elevate themselves, and thus 
remove this inferiority. What more can be 
expected or demanded of them 1 They may be 
exterminated by a slow process of cruel oppres¬ 
sion, and they may be transformed into savages 
by inhuman and unholy invasion and sheer 
brutal conquest, but it is doubtful if modern 
ideas of international equity will permit this. 
We may safely say, I think, that this will not be. 
The commercial resources of the island, under 
a wise and well-ordered system of administration, 
