midst of the French Revolution. Con- have taken place? What may be said dorcet has been discussing the vast to account for this slump in the white number of obstacles put in the way of man's respect for other races? I human progress by the complicated think in the Middle Ages there was inheritances of old societies, in which no clear superiority in the strength prejudice and injustice are so deeply and material resources of the Western rooted that they cannot be removed nations as compared with the East. without a dangerous surgical operation. In science, indeed, the Arabs were He expatiates on the great possibilities definitely our superiors. When it of advance that there would be if came to a fight, the power of the West statesmen or educators, with the en- was by no means certain of victory. lightenment of the revolutionary age Even in the sixteenth century it is not in their minds, were to set to work certain who would have won the fight upon an unspoiled people in a state of if it had come. nature. And there, he says, is Africa What was it that chiefly altered the waiting! Let all the nations of Eu- balance between West and East, berope recognize their joint responsibil- tween the white Christian European ity. Let them take Africa as a sacred culture and that of the East of the trust for civilization and see what colored people, of the Moslem and the heights the backward, but unspoiled, pagan of Asia and Africa? Roughly natives can attain. He believes that speaking, it was mechanical invention it can and will be done. All that is and the industrial revolution. The necessary is firmly to exclude from wars of the last half of the eighteenth Africa the speculator, the trader, the century had a great effect. They soldier, and—I fear he also added—the showed how easily troops with Westpriest.

ern arms could beat those without. That is one side of the contrast; And by the end of the nineteenth it is the other is the history of Africa as it taken for granted that white troops has really been since Condorcet's day. with artillery and machine-guns can It is described, for instance, in Mr. deal with ten times their number of Leonard Woolf's "History of Empire colored troops who have not had acand Commerce in Africa." And Mr. cess to the arsenals of the West. Woolf, I should say, is a man who That is obvious; but I think it would almost entirely agrees with Condorcet's probably be true to conjecture that an general views. If ever

.

one were economic change had also taken place tempted to accept Mr. Balfour's de- as powerful in its effect as the change scription of the life history of the in military efficiency. Certainly in human race as "a brief and discredit- the eighteenth century and earlier it able episode in the life of one of the was a common experience for Western meaner planets," it would be when imaginations to be dazzled by the one reads of the dealings of the white riches of the East, and we know how races with the colored races.

the first generation or two of nabobs,

heavy with the spoils of the pagoda 83

tree, upset the course of politics in How shall we explain this puzzling England. Whereas at present it is and reactionary change that seems to the English or American traveler who dazzles the Eastern peoples with his element in the intercourse of West and rich apparatus and his power of draw- East, or of white man and colored. I ing checks. The wealth which im- am leaving out the work of missionaposes upon the imagination is not in ries, the work of independent philanthe East, but as far west as London or thropists, and, most important of all, even as New York or Chicago.

the work of good government servants. This change of proportion has been They have always checked and modibrought about chiefly by a process of fied this process; sometimes they adding to one side while leaving the have completely transformed it. I am other alone. But there has been also thinking for the moment of the process a definite depression of the trade of as it would be if these influences of the East.

conscience and reason were not workExcept in a few places the white man ing, or as it has been in places where of the late nineteenth century had they were not brought into play. reached a position of absolutely towering superiority over the colored man.

§ 4 A white man with a machine gun or a We have, then, two contrary tenbombing aëroplane cannot be expected dencies in the modern world. The one to take quite seriously the strongest is the economic exploitation of the and most skilful swordsman of Asia so helpless territories and nations by long as he has nothing but his sword, the strong ones, a process which has and a member of a big English or enormous historical impetus behind it American firm, with vast credits at and is at this particular moment stimuhis command, cannot help smiling at lated by the exceptional economic hundignified Eastern or African elders ger of the European world; the other whose whole fortune would not buy is that consciousness of the earth as the contents of the smallest suitcase “one great city,” and that acceptance that he takes for week-ends. And he of duty toward our fellow-man which, feels justified in his consciousness of if my opening observations were justisuperiority because, after all, the fied, may now be normally expected people are not Christians, and have no of a civilized and educated man. The bath-rooms or drains.

question is, which of these two contraIt is no longer a case of fighting, not ry tendencies, both greatly strengthof hard fighting or even of easy fight- ened by recent events, is going chiefly ing; it is a case of eating. It sometimes to prevail? seems as if the West, like some enor- I have not the smallest doubt that mous saurian, some alligator of ante- for some time there will be an attempt diluvian magnitude, had slowly gazed to run the two together. The deterupon the colored civilizations in vari- mined money-hunter, who forms an ous parts of Africa and the East till immensely powerful element in modern its slow brain gradually rose to the civilization, knows very well how to conception that it was hungry and gild with moral and religious phrases they were good to eat; then the great the projects that promise the largest masticators set to their work.

dividends. But that attempt cannot Of course in saying this I am leav- last. The conflict is too sharp between ing out of account a very important the two principles. Indeed, the lists are already set, and the issue is joined. that of trusteeship substituted; the

Out of that strange chaos of pas- well-being and even the development sions which possessed the world at the of the native races is recognized as a close of the Great War, producing at "sacred trust for civilization.” The the same time and through the same mandatory is debarred from making human agents the blockade of the ex- personal gain out of his trust. Not enemy powers in time of peace and the only the slave-trade, but even the trafcovenant of the League of Nations, the fic in arms and the liquor traffic, are most startling object which emerged forbidden; the military training of the was Article XXII of the covenant, natives, except for local police purthe article on mandates. It reminds poses, is forbidden.

poses, is forbidden. And by another me of a phrase used by Byzantine clause even' the trade and commerce bishops, in an excess of humility, to of the territories must be open on equal describe themselves as elevated to terms to all members of the league, their bishoprics not by divine Provi- which will probably include, if not the dence, but by “divine inadvertence.” whole world, at least the principal There must have been a good deal of trade rivals of the mandatory. To inadvertence, I will not say in heaven, clinch the matter, an annual report but perhaps on the earth and under must be sent to the League of Nations the earth when Article XXII slipped to show how each mandatory is carrythrough the peace conference. At a

At a ing out his trust, and submitted to moment when the appetite of our the scrutiny of a special mandates' great saurian was whetted to the ut- committee of the league. most, when the prey lay ready before Will this wonderful article be sinit to be devoured, Article XXII swept cerely and honestly carried out by all in like the harpies, and seemed to the mandatory powers?

Of course snatch the food out of its jaws.

not. The interested parties will exerAn agreement which might have cise overpowering pressure to prevent been drawn up by the most whole- anything of the sort. As a matter of hearted idealists in Great Britain, fact, the great powers, while remaining which might have been drafted in firmly in military possession of the Exeter Hall and corrected by the territories, have spent the last two Aborigines Protection Society, which years in refusing to accept any draft would not have had a ghost of a chance mandates proposed to them. The of passing into law in any British, league, disheartened, at last asked French, German, Italian, or American them to draw up their own mandates parliament, has been signed by the and submit them to it for approval. representatives of forty-two nations. This also they refused. And the and is part, we may almost say, of the league eventually asked them to draw statute law of the world. Of course up their own mandates and act upon it directly affects only the new terri- them without submitting them to tories transferred in consequence of the anybody, subject only to the annual war. It will act on the other terri- report. This they accepted, but did tories only by way of example. But not carry out.

not carry out. By the time the in the new territories the idea of assembly met, no draft mandates were possession is definitely abolished and ready.

Then came an unanswerable protest He stroked them together, he gave from America—a protest equally un- them food together, he took them answerable from Germany, an indig- together for exercise in the garden, nant series of letters from the man- and all went well, for the bulldog had dates' sub-committee of the assembly. a high sense of obedience and duty. Eventually, Great Britain has pro- But at the end, when it retired to its duced two mandates, for Palestine basket, it gazed miserably and long at and Mesopotamia; and France one, for the bear, with tears running in streams Syria, which were laid before the com- down its cheeks. It was so very hard mittee with the express stipulation not to kill him and eat him! That is that no public comment should be how our saurian will feel if the better made upon them! Evidently they are elements in the great powers, backed not documents of which their authors by all the disinterested opinion in the are proud.

. The public will know all rest of the world, succeed ultimately in about them in time, and then the fight imposing their will, like a bond of will come.

conscience, on the forces of unconThe interesting point of the situa- trolled and irresponsible covetousness tion is that the protest on behalf of which otherwise will plunder the world. the natives is no longer left to small For the geographer the interesting and uninfluential bodies, chiefly in point is that not merely are the great England and America, consisting of a powers, by means of their increased few missionaries and Quakers and ex- geographical discoveries, able to make, officials and stray philanthropists. indeed, forced to make, decisions about It is definitely taken up by the assem- the whole orbis terrarum; the orbis bly of the league, which has not only terrarum itself is meeting in committee, spoken a severe censure on the conduct and has enough mutual knowledge of the great powers, but has laid down among its parts to be able to make at unanimously two principles which the least a beginning of deciding about its powers were, and are, specially seeking own future. to evade: that no mandatory may use its position to acquire monopolies

§ 5 and special economic advantages, and There is a motive for which I do that no mandatory may increase its not know the exact psychological own military strength by means of its namelet us call it professional intermandated populations. The reports est—which is very powerful in human have to be sent in to the league before affairs. It is the motive which makes next September.

men or committees interested in the There are the lists set, there is the success of the job at which they are fight that is coming; I hope it will be working. If once a man becomes a de a handsome one. I once lived in Aus- tective, he will be eager to track down tralia in the house of a man who kept law-breakers. He may start with no a bulldog and who received a present ill will whatever against the particof a small native bear. I was present ular breach of the law concerned, or,

a at the scene of their introduction to indeed, against any breach of the law, each other. The owner explained but he will soon be working keenly at carefully that they must be friends. his chase. It is a common experience

ones.

in municipal and other bodies that a success on the continuous operation man who is dangerously energetic in of lofty motives are foredoomed to spending money if he is on a spending failure. Good government consists committee will often be a ferocious largely in so arranging matters that economizer if he is put in charge of the the great serried masses of ordinary accounts. Now, I venture to say that every-day motives reinforce the good no one can read the debates in the

In a well-governed society a recent assembly of the league at Ge certain decent level of social behavior neva without realizing that we have is generally maintained because things there, for the first time in history, a are deliberately so arranged that it is representative assembly of able men easier to maintain it than not, except drawn from all quarters of the globe when the pressure of passion or tempunited by a professional interest in the tation to the square inch is unusually welfare, concord, and wise guidance of great. the world as a whole. Some few per- Now, if the future treatment of sons may have seemed to have a sub- Africa and the East were merely decurrent of national feeling which they pendent on a struggle between two never forgot; but for the most part the forces, the desire of the exploiter to persons, speaking about typhus or exploit and the desire of disinterested the arms traffic, or the traffic in women third parties, on ideal grounds, that and children or the prevention of he should not do so, the outlook would various wars, really had their minds not be doubtful. The first is a fulldevoted to the thing they were talking blooded and intense passion, and the about. They were really thinking second a pale and ineffective one. But internationally, they were genuinely the struggle is not going to be so siminterested in the public good of the ple as that. world. And this not because they Now, it seems to me that under its were all more high-minded men than present constitution the league has are normally elected to national parlia succeeded to a remarkable degree in ments, but because the common good mobilizing for the cause of justice and of the world was the business on which good government a very strong phathey were employed, and had set up lanx of ordinary workaday motives, of in them the normal stimulus of pro- the kind that rule an ordinary man fessional interest. The same phe in daily life. It has its secretariate nomena can be detected, though not permanently sitting and professionally in such glaring colors, in the ordinary devoted to the cause in question. It work of the secretariate of the league. has the assembly, which is led by We have there, set up in the heart of every motive of professional interest Europe, a large body of able men and amour propre to see that it is not drawn from all nations, but united by made a fool of, and that the principles

. the fascination of a common cause and of the covenant, of which it is the a common professional interest, which supreme guardian, are carried out. is the securing of coöperation between And many a government which has the nations and the maintenance not hitherto been worried by strong prionly of peace, but of good-will. vate interests into conniving, against

All causes which depend for their its better instincts, in various methods