THE GOVERNMENT OF DEPENDENT RACES.* SPEARING before the Liverpool Chamber
of Commerce a year agoiord Milner took occasion to remark that all the volumes written in England on the subject of the administration of our tropical dependencies would scarcely fill a small book- shelf. It may well be that our success in practice has relieved us of the necessity of producing a critical and analytical .literature on the art or science of tropical administration ; but if we turn from practice to theory we find in French and German, and above all in Dutch, a body of material which, both in bulk and quality, completely overshadows our own -contributions to the annals of an enterprise in which we have led the world for more than two centuries. The science of tropical administration is therefore in this curious state,that its text-books are most complete in regard to those experiments which have been least satisfactory, whereas in regard to the most extensive, the most varied, and the most successful work accomplished in modern times little has been done to examine, classify, and expound the enormous mass of valuable material which has accumulated in the secretariats of India and the Crown Colonies and in the India and Colonial Offices. We wish we could believe that some day there will occur a quickening of interest on the part of the intelligent -body of British citizens in the important and fascinating subject of the control and development of their tropical Empire, but, unfortunately, every indication discourages such a hope. We recall the publication of Mr. Benjamin Kidd's suggestive volume, "The Control of the Tropics," in which the vital dependence of the temperate zones upon the torrid for a hundred products necessary to our life and com- fort was strikingly presented. Beyond furnishing the reviewers with a worthy occasion for eulogistic notices it appears to have had no effect upon public opinion. We recall Mr. Alleyne Ireland's "Far Eastern Topics," a work designed to present in compact form the varied problems of administra- tion in the Indo-Malayan countries, and the measures taken to meet them by England, France, Holland, and the United States. The book appears to have had some influence in bringing about certain changes in the administration of Burma and Hong Kong; but the present writer has never seen a copy of the volume in a friend's library.
We have referred above to Lord Miler's address. It was an earnest and scholarly appeal for a wider expression of in- terest in our Crown Colonies. Delivered, as it was, before a distinguished commercial body by one of our most eminent authorities on tropical administration, it passed almost un- noticed by the daily Press. We could adduce many more instances in support of the view that England regards with stolid indifference that portion of her Empire from which she has drawn most glory, and, if we must seek a lower ground, most profit. To the story of Clive, Hastings, Nicholson, Lawrence, Rodney, Raffles and Brooke, whose names are part of the history of our East and West Indian dependencies, we may add the magic symbols, tea, sugar, spice, tin, rubber, cocoa, jute and rice—the master-names of our tropical cora- rnerce—and still our enthusiasm lags. The climax is capped when we find that in that magnificent publication, the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopwclia Britannica, there is no entry under "Colonization."
In these circumstances we must congratulate Sir Charles Bruce upon his courage and patriotism in writing "The Broad Stone of Empire," for he can have hoped for no reward beyond the satisfaction of having performed a duty—one for which, we are assured, his long and wide experience as a Colonial Administrator gave him at once the mandate and the authority. "The Broad Stone of Empire" is a work of the greatest importance to students of tropical government. We could name a hundred books which deal with the countries mentioned by Sir Charles Bruce—books describing scenery, the discomforts of travel, hunting, fighting, mining, life on the plains and in the hills—but we could not name half-a- dozen in which any serious attempt is made to describe the actual mechanism of the administrative miracle which is per- formed every day, and every hour of the day, in our tropical dependencies. We do not find in Sir Charles Bruce's book any of those loose and easy phrases, such as "elevating the natives," "spreading the blessings of civilization," "redeeming
• The Broad Stone of Empire: Problems of Crown Colony Administration, With Records of Personal Experience. By Sir Charles Bruce, G.C.M.G. 2 vols. Loudon : Macmillan and Co. 1303. net.;
the people from savagery," phrases which, when they are used to describe the direct object instead of the indirect effect of our administration, produce so regularly and so naturally the scorn and hilarity of our neighbours among the nations. "The Broad Stone of Empire," notwithstanding its allegorical and imaginative title, deals with the great con- crete matters which have been imaginatively and allegorically- epitomised in the expression, "The White Man's Burden."
We may gain a stimulating sense of the fascination of wielding authority in a tropical jungle by reading the- admirable stery of Lord Jim in Patusan, or of John Chinn amongst the Satpura Bhils, but if we would understand the real underlying basis of our success in the administration of tropical countries we must turn to the severe and practical pages of Sir Charles Bruce. Here a plain tale is unfolded. We see the administrator at his daily work. The chapters pass in review the questions of taxation, the administration of justice, labour, medical and sanitary administration, roads, railways, hospitals, police, prisons, defence, and education. We hope that this valuable and interesting book will do some- thing to remove an injustice under which our tropical administrators have at all times suffered. It has always seemed to us that the role played by the military man in our over-seas expansion has been awarded much louder applause and a greater measure of lasting fame than its undoubted im- portance merits, and that the quiet, unassuming part of the civil administrator has paid the penalty of its modest trap- pings in an almost complete absence of public sympathy. The military commander, as such, is confronted with a simple and straightforward task. Its execution requires skill, nerve, and decision ; but his aim is single and clearly defined, and his instruments are the forces of destruction. When his last shot has been fired the military commander quits the scene of his triumphs, amid a chorus of congratulation, to receive in England the rewards of a grateful Government. He leaves behind him a territory where his operations have thrown everything into confusion ; where each success he has gained in arms has been the parent of a hundred burning hatreds.; where his final victory marks not the end but the beginning of the hard work. He is succeeded by the civil administrator. For years the efforts of the Service are devoted to the delicate and difficult problem of healing wounds, establishing con& dence, and restoring industry. The skill, the patience, the loyal devotion by means of which alone success may be won, represent the life story of hundreds of men whose names are seldom known to the public at home and are never remem- bered outside a very narrow circle. Oblivion is a strange reward for this army of heroes, for it is not by her military exploits in the tropics that Great Britain has earned her high reputation as the guardian of dependent races ; it is through the earnest, conscientious, and thankless labour of her civil administrators.
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