or proconsul. Augustus divided the provinces into two classessenatorian and imperatorial. Whether a province belonged to one or the other of these classes was determined by the lex provincia under which it was organized. In the former class a governor appointed by the Roman Senate controlled civil affairs, while military functions were reserved to an officer appointed by the Emperor. Civil and military authority were thus separated. In the imperatorial province a lieutenant of the Emperor directed both civil and military affairs.11

The laws regulating the appointment, powers and rank of Roman governors were uniform throughout the provinces. In all other respects the greatest diversity prevailed. The policy of the conquering Romans was to make only such changes in local laws and customs as were necessary to reduce the place to subjection. Civil laws, religion and local customs usually remained untouched. The Romans seem indeed to have concerned themselves as little as possible with local affairs. Like some modern colonial powers, they were satisfied with military rule and the prompt payment of the tribute.12

The laws of a Roman province consisted of the formula which prescribed the terms upon which it was annexed, the acts of the supreme Roman legislature, the edicts of the provincial governor, and the native laws as they existed before the country became a Roman dependency. The revenues were collected by Roman officers who remitted to Rome what was left after paying the expenses of the provincial government. A province sometimes paid its tribute in a gross sum. Taxation was not ordinarily excessive but the people suffered from the rapacity and extortions of governors such as Verras, made famous by Cicero's denunciation. Roman rule was maintained by a military system of marvelous

11 See Lewis, Government of Dependence, p. 118, note.

12 When Paul was brought before the judgment seat, Gallio, the deputy of Achaia said: “If it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters. And he drave them from the judgment seat. Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. Ahd Gallio cared for none of those things." Acts xviii, 15-17.

efficiency. Magnificent roads and bridges connected the towns and fortified camps.

In the course of time the distinction between the different classes of dependencies in Italy and the provinces disappeared. The privileges of Roman citizenship were extended to the whole of Italy and finally to the distant provinces. During the reign of Constantine the provincial government system was completely revised. Financial and judicial functions were separated from the military power. A system of inspectors was established for the purpose of a more efficient control of the provincial governors. The Roman military, administrative and judicial systems, and Roman law, language and institutions, because of their value and efficiency, gradually superseded those of the natives. The vast superiority of the Roman law and particularly its scientific codification led to its universal adoption. In Justinian's time the provincial governors were required to receive a regular education in the Roman law schools. The provinces always retained subordinate governments.13

It has been generally asserted that Rome ruled the provinces for the good of her subjects and not for selfish gain;1 but Ferrere says15 that "we must abandon one of the most general and most widespread misconceptions which teaches that Rome administered her provinces in a broad-minded spirit, consulting the general interest and adopting wide and beneficial principles of government for the good of the subjects." Lord Cromar also says16 that the colonial policy of Rome, when judged by modern standards, stands condemned.

The feudal kingdoms which arose upon the ruins of the Roman Empire were in some respects aggregations of dependencies. In the sixteenth century Spain ruled the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, the Netherlands, and the Duchy of Milan, as prov

13 See Lewis' Government of Dependencies, Chap. 2, pp. 112-134; Keller, Colonization, Chap. 11; Broderick. Political Studies, Roman Colonies (1879); Arnold, Roman System of Provincial Administration (1879).

14 Gwatking, "Early Church History to A. D. 313,” p. 52.

15 Greatness and Decline of Rome, V, p. 3.

16 Ancient and Modern Imperialism, p. 50.

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inces under a system which resembled that of the Romans. Napoleon created a system of dependent states in Europe of which nothing vital remains.

During the early Middle Ages the maritime republics of Italy instituted the system of commercial posts or "factories" in the Levant, which later played so great a part in the development of the Far East. These factories were ordinarily parts or separate walled sections of certain cities within which the foreign merchants lived with their families. They were similar to the sections assigned to the Jews in European cities and centuries later to the Dutch and English on the coast of China. They were often fortified and not infrequently became the basis for territorial as well as commercial conquest.

During the period of the Latin Empire of the East, the Venetians, Genoese and Pisans maintained factories in Constantinople. The Venetians established colonies on the Black Sea, the Propontis, the Archipelago, the Morea, the coast of Syria, Cypress, and along the Adriatic Sea. These colonies were patterned after the mother city. When taxation was too heavy the people, subject to their government, occasionally revolted. In 1361 the population of Candia, which had been acquired by Venice, refused to pay a tax for public works and demanded representation in the Great Council of the home city. Venice considered her colonies in the Levant as an integral part of the state, but as existing for purely commercial purposes. She encouraged the members of her noble families to migrate to the colonies for the purpose of enriching themselves and upon their return to Venice with their ill-gotten wealth, raised them to the highest order of nobles. Necessarily under such a system the native people within her colonies were subjected to all kinds of oppression.

It is a remarkable fact that modern colonization was begun by the people who probably, judged by modern standards, had the fewest qualifications for such work.17

17 Leroy-Beaulieu, De la colonisation chez les Peuples Modernes, I, p. 3. Keller, Colonization, p. 81, takes a contrary view. See generally, Roscher, The Spanish Colonial System, Translation by Bourne (1904).

Spain at that time was neither rich, prosperous, nor overpopulated. Her long struggle with the Moors had cultivated the military spirit and induced a contempt for labor and agricultural life which was reflected in all her laws and colonial administration. Church and state, engaged in a common struggle for life with the infidel, had been welded into a unit. Enthusiasm for extending the Empire of the Cross glowed with an intensity elsewhere unknown. To Spain, whose monarchs had financed Columbus, fell the lion's share of the new Western world and she entered upon its exploration and exploitation with great energy. The kingdoms were full of needy nobles and soldiers recently released from the wars and eager for adventure. They were sent by shiploads to Mexico and South America to search for gold and silver and the loot of conquered native states, something which could be carried back to Spain to be enjoyed and to enrich the royal treasury. Spain established few colonies in the temperate zone. In America and in the Philippines she conquered countries already inhabited by natives who had reached some degree of civilization. Her conquests were easy, and thereafter she ruled a native population, for the benefit of Spain. No effort was made to populate the new colonies with Spaniards. Her possessions were dependencies and not colonies as the term is ordinarily understood by English-speaking people.

The ancient civilizations of Mexico and Peru were swept àway; the natives were killed in battle or reduced to slavery and forced to toil for their masters. The governments were administered entirely by Peninsula-born Spaniards. Viceroys in Mexico and Lima represented the person and the authority of the king and governed under the discretion of the Council of India after it was established in 1514.18

The rights of the native people were ignored by the civil officials. Good and benevolent laws enacted for their protection were ordinarily disregarded.19 The work of developing the ag

18 This was the first attempt to exercise control over colonies by means of a separate public department in the home country.

19 See Lea, "The Indian Policy of Spain," Yale Review, August 1899;

ricultural resources of the new country was considered as beneath the dignity of the adventurous soldiers and needy and rapacious nobles who constituted the bulk of the Spanish residents. At one time forty-five marquises and counts with their families resided in Lima. Rare material indeed for colonists!

The church was all-powerful. With earthly ambitions went the spirit of proselytism. The passion of the adventurers for gold was no stronger than that of the monks and priests for the saving of souls. Notwithstanding the glow of religious enthusiasm in which it was enveloped, Spanish colonization was controlled by a spirit as sordid as that of the ancient Phoenicians and the Venetians of the Middle Ages. Spain adopted their system of trade monopoly and passed it on to the Dutch, French and English. To the end of her career as a colonial power she retained all the worse principles of the original system. Nevertheless there was something vital in her system. The native races under her rule never entirely disappeared as they did in the French and English colonies in the West Indies, to be supplanted by negro slaves brought from Africa. While often cruel and oppressive she managed in some degree to assimilate the natives and to impress upon them her religion and civilization, as no other country has been able to do. In the course of time all her colonies revolted, but to-day the people of the Philippine Archipelago and of most of the great Western continent south of the United States are the children of Spanish civilization.20 While Spain was establishing dependencies in the west the Portuguese were scattering their outposts of trade about the Mediterranean and along the route of the East. Considering the insignificance of Portugal in Europe, the part she played in early expansion and trade is little less than marvelous. Her enter

Bourne, Spain in America, Chap. 18; Cheyney, European Background of American History, Chaps. 5, 6.

20 Leroy-Beaulieu. De la colonisation chez Peuples Modernes, I, Chap. 1. "From the beginning the Spanish establishments in the Philippines were missions and not in the proper sense of the term a colony. They were founded and administered in the interests of religion rather than of commerce and industry." Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, I, Introduction. Hereafter this work will be cited as B. & R.