At the other end of the scale we have, as I said, peoples who are most probably or certainly educable. At a hazard one might instance the Thibetans and Siberian Mongolians, the Koreans, the Maoris and Polynesians, the Lapps (of the same blood as the Finns), and a large number of Asiatic and African peoples. We must keep in mind the high civilisation reached by the Amerinds of Peru, whereas their modern descendants, the Quichwas, seem so negligible. In Africa there is a vast amount of experiment and classification to do, and already the pure Bantu races are furnishing scores of men who are susceptible of a university education. I know several of them who are as competent and well-educated as the average English university man.
Has the white race a duty (“the white man’s burden”) to attempt to civilise the coloured races? I speak in general terms, of course. It is sheer insolence to regard the Chinese or Burmese—one must not mention the Japanese—as lower races. Now, speaking in the abstract, as a matter of general moral principle, the white has no clear duty to civilise the coloured races. The sentiment of brotherhood may inspire a feeling of duty in some, but one cannot build firmly on that phrase. It is, however, not an abstract ethical question. The white men have, in point of fact, spread over the globe, and they are in a fair way to occupy all the territory on which the coloured races (except the Chinese and Japanese and Burmese) were settled. Only an attitude of general unscrupulousness could ignore the obligation which this seizure of territory implies. England and Germany have, for instance, occupied the islands of the Pacific and made their inhabitants a “subject race.” They have done this, not only with a gross lack of discrimination between the Polynesian (who is certainly educable) and the much lower Melanesian, but with a quite cynical idea of the “civilising” process. The work has been left to sailors and travellers, who have decimated the population by spirits and syphilis, or to the crudities of Christian missionaries. The joy of native life has been killed, and the enforcement of clothing (which the natives naturally cast off in the cooler evening, when the sensitive European was not able to see them) has led to an appalling amount of pneumonia and phthisis. We have done much to turn a wonderfully happy and healthy people into a gin-drinking swaddled caricature of a Bank Holiday crowd.
But the lists of our crimes in dealing with the lower races need not be given here. If we white people are to go out among the more backward coloured races, and to profess that we are assuming the paternal function of administering their territory, we must act on some principle. It is rather late in the history of the world to send out civilising expeditions which consist of missionaries presenting copies of the Sermon on the Mount, and soldiers and merchants who, in flagrant contradiction to the Sermon on the Mount, exploit the natives and appropriate their soil. There must be a serious attempt to educate them, and then an elimination of the unfit. Africa will prove a formidable region for this discriminating work. The Mohammedans themselves have already proved that many of its peoples are capable of culture.
We have a special problem in our treatment of races which, like the Hindus and Egyptians, have already been drawn into the white system. Let us be quite candid with ourselves in this matter. We appropriated their territory for our advantage, not theirs, and our professed modern sentiments are compelling us to say that we are not in possession of their territory in their interest. We protect the Hindu from native despots, the Egyptian from a cruel Mahdi or Pacha, the retired official tells you. However, I do not propose that we should investigate the title-deeds of all our existing empires as regards their oversea possessions; nor do I in the least advocate the dismemberment of such large unities as the British Empire. But the principle on which some would stake our existence in India or Egypt, the maxim that “What we have we hold,”—which is often illustrated by a picture of a particularly stupid-looking bull-dog guarding the British flag,—is the first principle of the pickpocket and the burglar. Modern sentiment has to grant colonial empires a sort of “Bula de Composicion,” such as the Spanish Church, for a consideration, grants to pickpockets. The best compromise is that the peoples which are to-day linked in empires should remain linked; not as dominant and subject peoples, but as sister-nations working out the destiny of the race according to the highest standards. This implies that, as they assimilate Western culture (as the Hindus are quite rapidly doing), they shall be more and more entrusted with the administration of their own countries. The very different situation of colonies need not be discussed. When Australia and Canada find, if they ever do find, that it is to their interest to set up complete independence, they will not cut the cable: they will cast it off as calmly and confidently as they now cast off the cable of an Orient liner on the quays at Sydney.
Along these lines we may forecast the future, and very slow, drafting of the more backward peoples into the homogeneous family of the more civilised races. The unification of languages, coinage, etc., will be gradually extended to them. But it is not my purpose in this work to contemplate remote tasks and contingencies. A great and practicable reform lies at our doors. The overwhelming majority of the race are already incorporated in civilised nations, and the work of organisation amongst these is urgent and comparatively easy. I am not advocating a fantastic and lofty scheme for which one needs to be prepared by the acceptance of advanced humanitarian sentiments. What I am pleading for is the application to international life of our treasured maxims of common-sense and efficiency. Those simple and indisputable maxims condemn in the most stringent terms the patriotic shams which we suffer to perplex and burden our life. Let us run the planet on recognised business-principles.
CHAPTER IV.
POLITICAL SHAMS
The reforms I have so far advocated have one peculiar characteristic. They are urgent, easy to grasp, indisputable in principle, and enormously advantageous; but they need international co-operation, and we are only just beginning to form those friendly international contacts which may lead to agreement. Hence it is that, although very contentious reforms have already been realised, these linger, as we say, outside the range of practical politics. But this very phrase reminds us at once of another fundamental irregularity of our life. The man who thinks a proposal dismissed because it is not within the range of practical politics illustrates admirably the indolence of mind which I am assailing. If a useful and economical device were put before him in his business-capacity, and he were told that his business had no room for it, he would at once ask what was wrong with the business. I am contending all through for the application of this progressive spirit to larger concerns than stores or workshops. If our political system, to which we entrust these large concerns, absolutely ignores some of our finest chances of profit, there is something wrong with the system. Our servants are not doing what they are paid to do.
As I have already briefly contended, our recent experience furnishes a very ghastly confirmation of this suspicion. The British Empire will survive the dangers that beset it, though it will be deeply impaired economically, for two fundamental reasons: the Allies have double the population of the Central European Powers, and they have, including in this respect the United States, far larger ultimate resources in material and money. The fact that we do eventually muddle through will, one fears, content the majority of our people, but the thoughtful patriot will ask two questions. How many hundred millions has our slowness in mobilising our resources cost us, by protracting the war? And what is likely to be the fate of the British Empire if, with a similar slackness, it has at some later date to meet a numerically equal and far more alert enemy?
Let me briefly recount the facts which show that our national business has been grossly mismanaged. Can any person look back on all the facts which are now public property and say that our soldiers and statesmen were innocent in not perceiving the grave possibility of war with Germany at any time in the last three years? That, however, will scarcely be said: the readiness of our fleet is a sufficient reply. We know further that the general character of the war was foreseen. England was to help France and Belgium, on French or Belgian soil. England’s co-operation on land was, as events have shown, vitally necessary. Yet the unpreparedness of Britain for a great continental campaign was entirely scandalous. No doubt there would have been a risk in openly enlarging the army or creating great stores of material. Germany would, in its unamiable way, have asked questions. Tender-hearted Members of Parliament would have denounced our provocative proceedings. But a preparation of plans, a census of our resources, a scheme for the immediate enlistment of the business-ability of the country and the full use of all our industrial machinery—these and a dozen other most important measures could have been taken in this country as safely and secretly as they were in Germany. Not only were they not taken, but the military preparations were actually relaxed. It has transpired, and is not disputed, that our great Arsenal was only partially occupied; and Mr. A. Chamberlain has publicly stated that Kynochs had for the year 1914—the expected year of war—a Government order two-thirds less than they are capable of executing in a week, and do now execute in a week.
The second fact is the remarkable failure to forecast the conditions of the war. If it be urged that a layman cannot judge how far such a failure is culpable, the answer is prompt: the German authorities, who had had no more experience of war than we, did forecast the conditions. Their minute and energetic elaboration of the whole scheme of the war contrasts extraordinarily with the sluggish and conventional ease of our authorities.