posals in their moral development and in their ultimate evolution will give them both.”

Under these circumstances there is no reason to believe that the agitation for further concessions will cease, and the most disinterested observers think that the natives will win. "It is certain," says M. Chailley,81 "that this struggle must, in the long run, end in the victory of the natives, and that the English must one day be reduced to the occupation of a very small number of high appointments-a mere symbol of their rule. Stendhal has said that as the prisoner thinks more often of escape than the jailor of keeping him there the prisoner must in the end succeed. The Indian, too, will succeed-that is certain; but it is good for him and for India that he should not triumph prematurely."

Great Britain's real problem is the maintenance of her supremacy over a land as large as Europe west of the Vistula and with thirty million more people, full of ancient nations, of great cities, of varieties of civilization, of armies, nobilities, priesthoods, organizations for every conceivable purpose from the spreading of great religions down to systematic murder. It is a vast territory in which there are more Hindustanees than there are white men in the United States, more Bengalees than there are Frenchmen in Europe, more Maharattas than there are Spaniards in Spain; in which the number of fighting men under a military system such as is in force in Germany would place two and one-half million soldiers in barracks, add eight hundred thousand recruits thereto annually, and leave the reserves untouched.82

The difficulties presented by the government of such a country are almost inconceivable, and yet for more than a century India has been governed by a few thousand resolute detached Englishmen supported by a white army smaller than the regular army of Belgium. Of course British rule has rested on the prestige of moral and political superiority, and the people have acqui

81 Problems of British India, p. 526.

82 Townsend, Asia and Europe (1910), p. 84.

esced in that rule because they realized that under existing conditions it was for the good of India. It has given them peace, order and justice. Its withdrawal would probably mean an internecine struggle and invasion by some other great power.

The moral justification of Western rule over Eastern people rests on race superiority and the possession of a higher civilization-a civilization so superior as to justify its imposition upon the ancient system by force. Like the American rule in the Philippines, English rule in India is justified by the moral and political superiority of the rulers. It follows that when those conditions no longer exist the moral justification for the rule will be at an end. As Mr. Meredith Townsend says, "If the Englishman by virtue of the superior morale of his race has not a moral right to govern and administer India irrespective of the opinion of her people, then he has no right to remain there when she bids him go, no right of any kind to office if an Indian can beat him at the tests set up."

83

Whatever the final destiny of India, the work which England has done is permanent and will endure. As Lord Curzon so eloquently said, "The message is carved in granite, it is hewn out of the rock of doom-that our work is righteous and that it shall endure." It is for England to say when her work is finished. It is for her to determine when and to what extent the people of India are prepared to manage their own affairs. In the meantime she must resist the demands of the impracticable enthusiasts and grant concessions only as a reasonable proportion of the people are prepared for self-government. But the rapidly developing feeling of nationality should not and can not be suppressed. It should be cultivated and directed. Its worst features are the results of discontent and dissatisfaction; its best form will develop from the prosperity and well-being of the people. Agitation, a free press, Western literature and education all make for the same end. It is doubtful whether any Asiatic race will in the future willingly submit to the permanent rule of a white race. The white and yellow people may for a time occupy the same 83 Ibid., p. 116.

territory, cooperate in the same government, fight for the same cause and labor for the development of the same country, but if the white man is successful in his efforts to raise the yellow race to his own standards of efficiency and culture, he will have completed his political work. That time has already come in Japan, and it will come in China, in Java and in the Philippines. The recognition of the fact does not in the least detract from the usefulness or the dignity of the white man's work in the tropics. The master is responsible for those under his tutelage, and his honor and glory are in the success achieved by his pupils after they grow to manhood. The world's work must be done, and the East and the tropics must do their fair proportion. For the present it must be done under the direction of the white races. There is little in the history of the past to encourage the belief that the period of tutelage will be short. The issue rests with the natives themselves. If they have not the will or the capacity to develop on modern lines, the white man's control will be perma

nent.

The demand for some degree of self-government by the natives of tropical countries is general. Even the Javanese are feeling its impulse.85 Great Britain's constructive work in Egypt

84 "Self-government after the model of our self-governing colonies seems to be at present the ideal of every administrative unit of the Empire. Let it be so; but let us also bear in mind that the justification of that type of government depends on conditions that it may take generations, perhaps centuries, to realize. Ohne Hast ohne Rast (unhasting, unresting) must be our maxim; our spirit a spirit of caution in every procedure which has a tendency to bring into collision the usages and prejudices of communities, a spirit giving time for the slow and silent operation of desired improvements, with à constant conviction that every attempt to accelerate the end will be attended with the danger of defeat." Bruce, The Broad Stone of Empire, I, p. 35.

85 The nationalist movement there is not at present of much importance, There are, however, indications of an attempt at organization for the purpose of agitation.

Mr. Bernard Miall, in a preface to Cabaton's Java and the Dutch East Indies, p. 23, says: "The nationalist cry is only dangerous when it is a demand that a helpless and ignorant people shall be handed over to a horde of semiwesternized lawyers, agitators, bureaucrats and contractors. It is to be hoped that the Indies have once and for all passed the period of spoliation; and there is every indication that the wise and paternal rule of the Dutch, and the lack of enormous urban populations will forever be a safeguard against the poisonous growth of a spurious nationalism. But we can not be surprised if the Dutch, with India and Egypt before their eyes, prefer to proceed with the utmost caution,"

is greatly to her credit. She has rescued the country from bankruptcy, converted its deserts into cotton-fields, protected the common people from oppression by their native rulers and encouraged the people to expect self-government.86 She entered Egypt for financial purposes; she remained as a schoolmaster. Until the exigencies of a European war made the establishment of a protectorate necessary she exercised but denied sovereignty over the country. She promised that her occupation would be temporary, but conditions made it permanent. For twenty years she controlled the country through a strong skilful diplomat and administrator who masqueraded under the ostentatiously simple title of British agent. Lord Cromer, who ruled with a wise and firm hand, was succeeded by Sir Elden Gorst, who soon after his arrival in Cairo informed a gathering of British officials that "they were not there to govern Egypt indefinitely, but to teach the Egyptians to govern themselves." He weakened his government by too much talking, just as we have done in the Philippines.

Gorst's well-meant efforts at conciliation were interpreted by the nationalists as evidence of weakness,87 and for a time British. prestige suffered. "When," says Lord Cromer,88 "a very well intentioned but rather rash attempt was made to advance too rapidly in a liberal direction, the inevitable reaction, which was to have been foreseen, took place. Not merely Europeans, but also Egyptians called loudly for a halt, and, with the appointment of Lord Kitchener, they got what they wanted.”

The movement for nationality has probably been stronger and more aggressive in Egypt than in any other Eastern country. It

86 "Nothing that England has done in Asia, and Germany or France in Africa, has been so swift, so certain, so unquestionably beneficial to the world at large and to the populations immediately concerned." Low, Egypt in Transition (1914), p. 253.

87 Fyfe, The New Spirit in Egypt (1911), Chap. 16. This is an interesting but one-sided book. The author prefaces his chapter on "The Fruits of Sentimental Anarchism" with Ex-President Roosevelt's wise statement that: "There are foolish empiricists who believe that the granting of a paper constitution, especially if prefaced by some high-sounding declaration, can of itself confer the power of self-government upon a people. This is never so. Nobody can give a people self-government any more than it is possible to give an individual self-help.'

88 Political and Literary Essays, p. 255. See also Cromer's Abbas II, Preface (1915).

will nevertheless be many years before any real nationality can be developed from the congeries of races which inhabit that ancient land. Egypt presents scarcely a problem other than that of religion which is not duplicated in kind in the Philippines. Even the declared objects of the two governments were the same and there is a remarkable resemblance in the methods which have been adopted. The origin of British power in Egypt and American power in the Philippines and the original objects were very different. But in each country the primary purposes of the government were declared to be the education of the people and the material development of the country for the benefit of the natives with the hope and reasonable expectation that indirect and incidental benefits would accrue there from to the metropolitan power. In a recent book on Egypt, Mr. Henry Cunningham says: "It may be argued that the Philippine Islands are a colony whereas Egypt is an indefinable something which certain British politicians even hesitate to pronounce a protectorate, but the fact remains that the work of both powers is identical in principle-each has promised self-government when the people are considered to be fitted by education and training to receive it."

89

Nothing illustrates better the force of the general movement toward self-government than that, notwithstanding the fact that Lord Kitchener was sent to Egypt to "put a stop to the nonsense” which was being encouraged by Sir Elden Gorst, he found it advisable to grant the natives further participation in the legislative department of the government.90

Lord Dufferin, who, after the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, was sent to report on the situation in Egypt, recommended the institution of certain representative institutions which would give the educated natives some part in the government."1 The Organic Act

89 Cunningham, To-day in Egypt (1913), p. 48. 90 Lord Kitchener's Rept., Egypt, No. 1 (1913).

91 Sir Auckland Colvin (The Making of Modern Egypt, p. 31) says with reference to Lord Dufferin's recommendation of local government: "There was a feeling in England that as the Egyptian revolt had raised the cry of self-government, some measure of self-government should be accorded. A Liberal government looked with unction on such an issue; the British public,