BOOKS OF

THE DAY The Colonial Problem (Professor W. K. Hancock) .. Ito

The Colour Line (D. W. Brogan) . . . . Iii International Relations (C. Delisle Burns) . . . . Public Utilities and the State (W. T. Wells) .. The English Soldier (Herbert Read) ..

Defoe (V. S. Pritchett) .. The Rengma Nagas (hulk Raj Anand) Presbyterian Pirate (Janet Adam Smith). . William Penn (C. E. Vulliamy) The Spirit of Paris (Christopher Hobhouse) The Sussex Kipling (Orlo Williams) ..

Fiction (Adrian Bell) . .

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THE COLONIAL PROBLEM

By PROFESSOR W. K. HANCOCK

MANY of the present-day international controversies are but part of a deeper contest, which is fought not only across

frontiers but inside them. It is the contest between reasoning man and unreasoning man—who was never more formidable than he has made himself now, since he has perfected the techniques of violence and propaganda. To defend himself, reasoning man has to improve his own techniques, since

it would be suicide to borrow those of his adversary. And first of all he has to improve his command of reliable and relevant fact. He will find a whole armoury of exact fact in The Colonial Problem.

The first part of the volume deals with the international aspect. The so-called dissatisfied powers have raised a clamour for territorial transfer. A special chapter of the book is devoted to the mechanism and implications of transfer, but other chapters focus attention on an assumption which underlies the demand. It is assumed that there are advantages in colonial possession. What are these advantages ? The discussion in the early chapters needs to be supplemented by the statistical information and economic analysis of the third part of the book. There is not very much summing-up, but the assembled facts show that many of the policies preached, both in possessing and non-possessing States—e.g., the policies of imperial self- siifficiency—are pure illusion. The writers of the book seem to doubt, as Adam Smith doubted, whether any absolute advantage arises from colonial sovereignty, as distinct from colonial economic enterprise. But they know, as Adam Smith knew, that the sovereign uses his powers to secure a relative advantage for himself over his neighbours. Apart from prestige and strategical power, colonial sovereignty means economic privilege which varies in degree according to the policy pursued by the individual sovereign. Since_ this is so, the colonial problem, in its international aspect, is something more than a grievance of particular " dissatisfied " nations against particular " satiated " nations. It is a grievance of the whole community of nations against the misuse of colonial sovereignty wherever it occurs. The study-group does not say this flatly, but it comes close to saying it. It does not conceal its belief that all departures from the principle of the " open door " are an injustice to the international community. And it ventures (pp. 66, 78, 104) to make some recommendations for reform.

To advocate reform according to the principle of trusteeship " for the commerce of the world " is tantamount to rejecting the colonial demands of the Nazis. For their economic argument makes no sense except on the assumption that they will rigidly monopolise to themselves the markets and raw materials of the colonies which they demand (see e.g., the analysis on p. 322). The study-group considers that Nazi principles conflict equally with the other side of the Mandates principle, that of trusteeship towards backward races. " Back- ward peoples," it says on p. 104, " being more defenceless than others, especially require the protection of democratic institu- tions in the metropolitan country." This is a true saying, sa far as it goes. But, of course, one has still to enquire whether he democratic countries themselves are living up to the stand- ards which they profess. The second part of this volume contains a great amount of material which is relevant to this enquiry. As the analysis deals in turn with the population ques- tion, the relative merits of plantations and native farming, labour policies more or less savoury, health services, education, the build- ing up of local capital, and a score of similar topics, the reader feels that he is coming to grips with the real colonial question.. In comparison with these matters, so urgent for human happiness, the international noise seems as stupid as it is threatening.

The Colcmiat Problem. A Report by a Study Group of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. (Oxford University Press. z-1 s.) And yet the colonial problem remains an inseparable part of the international problem. The study-group method does not lend itself to a thorough probing of this relationship. The proper ambition of a study-group is to be encyclopaedic; the price which it pays for realising this ambition is a loss of focus. The volume under review is an erudite comparative report on empires as they are ; it does not search the deeps of history. The student who wishes to wring most profit from this report should have at hand something which probes more sharply, like Mr. Hawtrey's essay on The Economic Aspects of Sovereignty, or the chapter on colonies in The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith sees the colonial question as part of the general anti- thesis between State and society, an antithesis belonging to all human history. Colonial expansion is to Smith an inevitable and rational activity of economic society, rooted deeply, like its other activities, in " the natural propensity of mankind." Its tendency is the unification of all mankind in " a great commer- cial republic." But political society cuts across economic society, and divides the world into sovereignties and empires. Smith thought this irrational, but saw no cure for it. All the same he protested, as this volume protests, against "the wretched spirit of monopoly." He wished, so far as might be, to check the greedy interference by which the sovereign State hindered the natural increase of opulence among the citizens of all nations.

The root of the colonial question, as of many other questions, lies in the fact that economics and politics are out of scale. Europe is a society, but is not a body politic. " The expansion of Europe " is the correct descriptive phrase for Europe's overseas history in every aspect except the political one ; under that head we have to speak of the expansion of England, the expansion of France, the, expansion of Italy. The - colonial problem permits no satisfactory solution until this dualism is overcome—until " the great commercial republic" possesses its political controls, until there is a real Society of Nations acknowledging common standards and maintaining them - by effective machinery.

• Today the tendencies are all in the other direction. The totalitarian States repudiate the whole conception of a society of nations ; they stand for the heresy of the separate self-sufficient society within the separate sovereignty. Finding that this is economically impossible, they declare that they are suffocated, and demand expansion. But the facts contained in this book make it irrefutably clear that no matter hoir they expanded, and no matter how they' monopolised and exploited their colonies, their sovereignties would still remain fundimentally out of scale with economic society.

The challenged empires are in a difficult position. To transfer colonial territories to the threatening States would not buy them safety, and it would be treachery to the colonial peoples and to " the great commercial republic.". The logical answer to the dissatisfied States would be to transfer. to all mankind what single Powers demand as a monopoly ; but " all mankind" has no effective political existence. This logic must remain Utopian until. he League of Nations is a federation strong enough to protect what the imperial Powers are wise enough to surrender. Until this day comes, the imperial. Powers are condemned to live dangerously.; but they will best mitigate their danger if they exercise their sovereignty in trust— first for the colonial peoples, and secondly for ." the wealth of nations." This means that they ought, in their own interest if for no 'other reason, to extirpate from their empires all taint of monopoly and exploitation—in fact, they ought to live up to their professions. The struggle between the ideas of Mercan- tilism and Mandate is not merely, perhaps not primarily, a struggle between nations ; it is a struggle within those nations which have "..great possessions...".