Colonial administration

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Preface

In oflfering this comparative study of the methods of colonial administration the author is fully aware that the time is not ripe for a complete and conclusive statement of the principles involved. Many of the experiments dealt with are of so recent an origin that their outcome is still entirely problematical ; in fact, it may be said that the entire policy of governing distant and alien dependencies is still on trial. The purpose of this volume is to furnish a statement of the various problems confronting colonial governments; and to indicate the main lines of solution that have been attempted; selecting from the vast amount of available material the most striking illustrations. It intends to give a survey of the varied activities of colonial governments, the institutional framework of which has been outlined in an earlier book in this series.

A part of the first chapter of the book was read by the author at the International Congress of Arts and Sciences at St. Louis, and a part of the second chapter has been published in the American Journal of Sociology. The author desires to express his obligation to Mr. J. W. Gannaway, and to Mr. Horatio B. Hawkins, students at the University of Wisconsin, for valuable assistance in verification and proof reading.

Paul S. Reinsch.

Madison, March i, 1905.

V

Contents

CHAFTBIt ' PAGE

1. Introduction ...'.. 3

II. Education and General Social

Chapter I

Future students of political evolution will note a strange similarity between the theories which are now being advanced to defend imperialistic expansion and that humanitarian optimism which animated the period of the French Revolution. The ideas through which the French Revolution attempted to conquer the world were based upon an intense and undoubting belief in the equality and uniform virtue of human nature. Freed from the shackles which perverted forms of society had forged, humanity would again be true to itself, would follow its rational impulses, and under sane institutions, inherit a millennium of peace and happiness. These hopes of a young century were bitterly disappointed in its later years. It became impossible to realize the unity of civilized mankind, and the narrower feelings of nationalism and race antipathy completely overbore the earlier enthusiasms. But at present, when a new and universal forward movement of civilized society is taking place, the same ideals are again appealed to. Humanity is one, and those members of the brotherhood who, through barbarous customs and irrational institutions, are kept in a state of backwardness are to be led out into the light of freedom and reason and endowed with the multiform blessings of civilization. Many of the races embraced in this ideal love are as little inclined to accept the dispensations of a human providence as were the European nations who resisted the spread of revolutionary ideas as interpreted by Napoleon.

Their resistance may, however, turn out to be less formidable, and so the course of history may not repeat itself. The experiment may be more successful this time than it was before, and a new era may actually be dawning upon the outlying regions of the world. But if this forecast is to come true, it will be due primarily not to the general ideas to which we have just referred, but to certain great economic changes which have taken place during the last century and which have laid a material foundation for a world-wide organization of social life. The movement began a few centuries ago with the creation of commercial stations along the coasts of Asia, Africa, and the Eastern Archipelago. The basis of intercourse was then frankly commercial. There was no attempt to interfere with the interior social and political arrangements of the native races, and only in India, where the British were spurred onward in the course of empire by the ambitions of the French conquerors, and in the Dutch possessions and other plantation colonies, which were looked upon as estates waiting exploitation, was there any penetration of the interior regions. But after the middle of the last century, the great advance made in the rapidity and ease of communication revolutionized the entire movement of colonial activity. Being brought so much nearer to the European countries, the undeveloped regions in general came to be looked upon as promising fields for the investment of capital in the extractive and agricultural industries. This implied a far different relation to internal affairs than had obtained before. While the merchant had been satisfied with small trading stations or river hulks, the ^lortlal CTrfrepreneufN^ oked to the in- ^ terior regions for an investment of his capital, /it / was essential to him that these regions should^ be made accessible and that within them law j ind orderly r^rjr^itinn s shoul d be established, that a steady labor supply should be provided, and that ^^ far ^^ possible the mechanism of western industrial life should be introduc^d!^ The inevit- "able result of such changes was tKe demand for political sovereignty over extensive tracts of territory. The struggle for colonial possessions commenced, and with great rapidity Africa was divided among the colonizing nations while preemption rights were claimed in other unoccupied regions. Having thus forcibly seized upon large / tracts of land and established a claim of sover- / eignty over their inhabitants, the nations engaged / in this movement looked for some moral principle / upon which this procedure could be defended. / At this juncture it was very natural to fall back / upon the earlier theories of the unity of mankind ^ and of the destiny of rational civilization to embrace the entire globe. The missionary spirit was evoked, the duties of the civilized nations towards the less fortunate were unfolded, and the J whole movement was represented as one of altruism and benevolence.

This intermixture of economic forces and ideal- 's istic moral impulses has brought great confusion into the entire political thought of our period. So chaotic is its condition that many minds have despaired of discovering in the entire movement of expansion any vestige of the moral sense. They are ready to stamp the entire idealistic theory as pure cant, consciously designed to veil a most selfish type of aggression. They point out that while we preach the doctrine of universal brotherly love, we look with disdain upon natjons, no matter how highly civ ili,'i^^d> wh^ Hifff>f from us in the least shade of color: we abolish slavery, and under the pretext of providing a moral educatio n for f\]p^ f| ;^|ivp<^ ^ introduc e forced _ labor L we preach peace while we are stirring up into warlike feelings societies that for ages_haye_ "l ived in a condition of peacef ulne ss : we cry for the open door, meanwhile plottrngall the time to r eserve to ourselv es th e markets over which we ^ can exercisean v contr ol; and while our scienc e has made the idea of^ e yolution an ingrainedj iart^ . of our being, we carve up the world into artificial tr acts and attempt to i mpose upo n the natives an ^lien system'oT social institutions^) Such contradictions invite the suspicion that we have here to do with a vast aggressive movement of national selfishness, which is simply paying a bare and empty respect to ideas of morality that in practice are totally disregarded. And yet such a conclusion would hardly be just. In the complex system of thought which directs the action of our time, the enthusiasm for the ends and purposes of civilization is more than a mere veil of selfishness; but it remains to be determined how this idea can have any effectual influence in the constructive work of colonial administration.

Like strong personalities, the modern nations are filled with a desire to impress the mark of their genius upon the world. While there are many ways in which this may be done, one of the most obvious is that of gaining followers for their ideas of life and civilization. Nations desire wealth, and expand their trade ; they desire prowess, they create great industries and maintain powerful navies and armies; but in their heart of hearts there can be no truer gratification than that of hearing their language spoken in a strange land, th an having t ^^^ir customs and in stitutions. a ckno^yled^ed as superior by other races. This leads to the conception — surely not ignoble — that the area of civilization is expanding and that by the patient efforts of centuries one nation after another will be raised to a higher level of social efficiency and allowed a greater share of social happiness. As from the small altar of civilisation in Greece, the torches were carried to the east and west, even by the armies of Alexander w^ and Caesar, the imperialists hope that this same heritage, enriched by the achievements of many intervening centuries, will henceforth be spread throughout the globe by the peaceful means of economic development, supported only when absolutely necessary by the arm of force.

But we have already seen how unsafe a guide an ideological conception like this will ever be. In order that it should become useful, we must avoid the danger of a vagueness which would include all manifestations of expansive energy under its mantle of approval. We must analyze the forces at work in order to determine which of them are really in accordance with the aims and the character of civilization. We must inquire what our civilization demands, and what constructive elements in a colonial policy may be judged to flow from its character and essence. Our own civilization is the only criterion we can apply, because, while we may despair of being able to bestow its outward blessings upon alien races, we must in our relations with them be governed by the inherent laws of our own rational nature. An attempt to act otherwise would imply a claim to the wisdom of Providence in ordering the destinies of alien races. But we are on safer grounds when we conclude that we are entitled to do what is natural to our own civilization and what its character demands, and as long as we do not depart from its principles in our intercourse

with other races, we shall not have tg reproach ourselves, at any rate, with having deserted the only clear guide we have.

Colonial expansion must first be judged from the point of view of the needs of our own civiliza- J tion. To what extent is it a normal result of those forces which constitute the civilization of the West? The conception that the whole movement is undertaken in an unselfish spirit in-order to help the less fortunate races cannot be seriously considered. Nations that have so many unsolved , problems at home would be stultifying themselves ^ by trying to straighten out the difficulties of others. Unless a vital need of our own civilization for this very expansion and interference with other races can be shown, it cannot claim any justification on humanitarian grounds, because we have no way of proving that our political interference with others will be necessarily beneficial to them. When we inquire what are the truly essential characteristics . of our civilization which distinguish it from all others, we will perhaps find in the last analysis that they are mobility, concentration, and mastery over the forces of nature. In no other society are the individual members so independent, so able to move within the social body, to determine their own development, and to bring their energies to bear in a variety of places and manners. No other society has so high a concentration of individual forces for social ends. No other society has achieved so complete a mastery over the productive and impellent powers of nature. Out of these characteristics the expan-

K sion movement has naturally developed. It was impossible to restrict the mobility of social forces to national boundaries. Passing beyond, they for a time escaped social control, and the action of the individual adventurers by no means always redounded to the credit of civilization. It was found necessary to follow them up and to bring social conscience and control to bear upon them in the new regions which they had penetrated. The principle of concentration naturally led to the demand that the new regions whose resources were being opened up, should be brought into close relations with the national industrial life to which they are subsidiary. Finally, the great problems of the control and utilization of the vast productive forces of the new continents invited the ability trained in the narrower European field to prove its mettle in coping with greater difficulties.

It has been urged that since the characteristic mark of modern economic life is the intensiveness of its methods, the attempt to spread economic effort over larger areas would probably mean the return to the barbarian system of exploitation. According to this view we have to choose between the constantly more productive intensive culture of a smaller territory and the extensive exploitation of ever widening areas. A real danger is here pointed out. If on account of the rapid and easy profits gained through a reckless exploitation of the natural wealth of new regions, our capital should neglect the steady inten-

lO sive improvement of industry at home, a marked retrogression would be sure to set in. Our industrial supremacy would be threatened and our social life corrupted, on the one hand by a degeneration of industries at home, on the other hand, by a wealth too easily gained and by the consequent rigid stratification of society. The lesson to be drawn from this objection, therefore, is that by all means reckless exploitation in the new . countries is t6 be made impossible, not only in order to protect the inhabitants of these regions, but also to prevent a very dangerous reaction' upon our own industrial and social life. But if a sane and rational policy of economic development should be followed, it is difficult to see why it is not justifiable to extend intensive methods to wider areas, and to introduce a productive economy into regions where at the present time bar-"^ barian exploitation holds undisputed sway.

It has also been urged that the present move- . ment only emphasizes the nervous restlessness ^ of western civilization. We have given, it is said, too much attention to means, too little to the ends of life, and in the great movement that we are now undertaking, we are striving simply for new means, we are erecting a vast mechanism which will embrace the entire world and crush it into dreary uniformity. What result are we aiming at in the construction of this vast machine? Who is to be happier for it? How can it conceivably increase our happiness or the happiness of the native populations who are turned from their

II natural mode of existence, and forced to adopt a new and irksome way of life ? Questions like this are too general in their reach to admit of a conclusive answer. We may grant that our civilization is lacking, in definiteness of aim, that its general tendencies are confused and uncertain, but may it not be that in the contact with the older civilizations of the Orient, it will be led to a new interpretation of life? Such would seem to be the natural outcome. When once the world has been organized as a system of civilized states and future expansion becomes impossible, we shall of necessity have to seek satisfaction in static rather than in dynamic ideals.

In contemporary thought the idea is often expressed, or at least suggested, that our civilization is to be the ruling force in the future, in this sense, that all other civilizations are to be subservient to it, and that the Western races are to form a privileged caste. A conception such as this is untrue to the fundamental characteristics of our civilization. A return to the caste system, even with our race as the ruling order, would be a denial of the essential principle of social mobility. The wealth that would be drawn from the subject territories under a system of this kind, would inevitably lead to national degeneracy. The social and political attitude thus introduced would have a most pernicious reflex influence upon the internal institutions of the Western nations. As they are not so constituted as to form in themselves a compact caste, the result would be that an inflexible social stratification would be developed within them, and the laboring classes reduced again to a position of virtual serfdom. It is due therefore to the very ideals which constitute our superiority and secure our welfare that we should allow to the territories which come under the control of the Western nations the same freedom of economic development which has rendered the latter powerful and prosperous. The movement which we are considering carries with it the danger of a revival of actual slavery. As the former stages of evolution which our civilization has passed through began with the existence of a large slave population — in the ancient cities and in the societies of mediaeval Europe — ^so there is now, with the entry upon that phase in which the whole world will constitute a unified economic organism, an unavowed but powerful tendency to reduce a large part of mankind to a position of servitude. The belief in the perfectibility and ultimate unity of the human race is largely formal and present inferiority is treated as necessarily permanent. With the economic development of the new regions that are now coming under European control there is created a great demand for unskilled labor, far greater than the slight inclination of the black races to work prompts them to fill. It is not surprising, therefore, that the introduction of a system of compulsory labor is advocated. The dignity of labor is to be taught the natives by force, and methods which we have been accustomed to consider among the worst abuses of slavery are freely advocated as the only means of endowing the backward races with the progressive spirit of industry. Should this tendency continue to gain strength, it is clear that the world will have to fight the anti-slavery struggle over again from the beginning, but on a far wider area and involving far more powerful interests than the recent national anti-slavery crusade which we had considered as the final word in this matter.

We have thus far looked at the movement of expansion from the point of view of the interests of our own civilization. We now approach the far more difficult question as to what is to be our attitude towards the civilizations and social systems which we meet and with which we have to deal in colonial administration. At first sight, it would seem an eminently proper policy to favor the introduction of our own institutions among all the populations that come under our control. Every nation considers its own institutions as the highest products of social evolution, and no better destiny could be conceived for other races than that they should be allowed to share in the benefits which rational laws would bestow upon them. Moreover, it is exceedingly difficult to understand alien social systems and to judge correctly the trend of their evolution. It would indeed require the wisdom of a Platonic philosopher to forecast properly the spontaneous development of such societies. With our own institutions we are familiar. Their virtues we believe in. They seem simple and rational, we can easily put them in the form of legal enactments and thus bestow them upon our dependents as a complete and satisfying whole. Moreover, the general desire to set the impress of our national genius upon the world, finds no better expression than this propaganda of institutions. In fact, to many people the entire justification of the expansion movement lies in the promised spread of better institutions, of the European or American type. When we therefore ask ourselves the question, which is the better policy, not to interfere with native customs and civilizations, in fact to foster their natural development, or to sweep away the customs of backward races which so often seem but the bonds which hold them in slavery, and to put in their stead the liberal institutions of our own society, the answer is most readily given in favor of the latter alternative.

And yet the policy of assimilation has thus far in practice proved unsuccessful and at times even disastrous. Experience seems to show that even those institutions which are by us considered the very foundation of good government may have harmful results when introduced into another society. The most striking example of this is found in the experience of Great Britain in India. The English are not an assimilating race. They have always had clearly in mind the economic purposes of expansion, and have allowed the political missionary spirit comparatively little sway. They have not been filled with the desire of transforming native societies. Still they have introduced certain institutional reforms, which to them seemed absolutely essential and not attended with any risk. Thus, who would not agree that the impartial enforcement of contracts, the system of judicial appeals, representative government, the institution of the jury system, a free press, and liberal education, are things about the usefulness of which among us there can be no two opinions. The British introduced these institutions into India, with the best of intentions, and yet with such results that their opponents can now plausibly argue that they must have been animated with the sinister purpose of disrupting and undermining Indian society. The most unforeseen consequences have resulted. Through the rigid enforcement of contract the vast agricultural debtor class has been gradually enslaved to the money lenders and is being ousted from its ancestral holdings. As the government upholds the principle of freedom of contract and will not fix the price of grain in times of shortage, the calculating native capitalist is enabled to hold his stock of food for higher prices regardless of the fact that people may be dying of famine by the thousand in the neighborhood. The scientific system of appeals favors the machinations of unscrupulous native pleaders, who gain a livelihood by stirring up litigation and making the most of judicial delays, with the result that the confidence of the Indian population in the justice and efficiency of the law has been impaired. The grant-

i6 ing of representative government in municipalities has led to the sharp accentuation of religious and racial animosities and has especially increased the bitter feeling between Mohammedans and Hindus, the former of whom oppose strongly any system of representation based upon numbers. The same result has been brought about by the creation of a free press, which uses its freedom not only for the purpose of constant agitation against the British, but also to stir up and perpetuate the feeling of mutual hatred between the various great religions of India. The jury system has undermined the confidence of the natives in the justice of the British, because no white jury can be found to condemn a white man for the murder of a native. And finally, the system of higher literary education conceived by Lord Macaulay for the purpose of initiating the Oriental mind into the philosophy and literature of the West, has resulted in the destruction of native morale among the educated classes, and in the creation of a literary proletariate, hungry for public employment. The complete bearing of these social changes deserves more careful study than we can here give it, but the above brief indication may suffice to point out how incalculable are the results of the importation of foreign institutions into a native society.

France is the classical land of assimilation. The colonies that were left to France after the Napoleonic era were few and small. A Certain romantic and sentimental interest attached to i^

Martinique and Guadeloupe, and they became the spoiled children among the colonies. Most of the institutions of the mother country were extended to them. When in the middle of the last century the colonial empire of France again expanded, through the acquisition of territory in Africa and Asia, the older principles of action were not abandoned. The new territories were treated as res gions within which French civilization was to be ? forthwith established. The most radical belief

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^ in constructive meliorism still governed French political thought. The results of this policy are now before our eyes. Algeria has long been treated as a part of France. The attempt has been made to give the natives a personal status, to destroy the family and the tribe, to break up the communal land holdings, to apply to the forests the stringent regulations of the French forest laws ; with the result that to-day the natives look upon the French as their arch enemies, bent upon destroying their social life and utterly ruining them. It is in the matter of individualism that the assimilating policy is apt to make its most radical attempts at reform. The grouping of populations in families and tribes is looked upon as a mark of barbarism, and it is regarded as the first principle of a liberating policy to recognize the right of the individual fully to control his property. While this is apparently a liberalizing movement, its results in fact are usually far from those aimed at. Not prepared by gradual social evolution for the individual status> the na-

i8 tive when artificially placed in this position is helpless and becomes a victim of shrewder persons ready to take advantage of his weakness. Thus the natives of India, the fellaheen of Egypt, and the Kabyles of Algeria, when legally individualized, soon lose all effective economic liberty.

In Indo-China, the French began by remodeling and destroying the native institutions and even attempting to introduce the entire legislation of continental France. But they discovered in time that such a policy, of doubtful wisdom in Algeria, is totally unsuitable for a tropical colony like Indo-China, and at present they show a tendency to maintain such native institutions as the Anamite commune and even to allow the mandarinate a certain influence. Wherever the French elective and representative institutions have been introduced into tropical colonies they have led to the most grotesque results. In the Indian possessions as well as in Senegal, the elections have become a pure formality. Thus, while thousands of votes afe officially returned, hardly a native is seen to enter the polling place on election day, the entire reports being prepared in advance by public officials. During the last decade a powerful opposition has arisen in France to the continuance of the policy of assimilation. This movement has received much support from the success of the French administration in Tunis, where the native institutions, beliefs, and customs have not been unduly interfered with. In West Africa and in Madagascar there has also been a certain willingness to acknowledge the justification of divergent social institutions. But the essential character of French colonial policy is still assimilative in the main, although a greater willingness is shown to make concessions to the natural obstacles opposed to such a policy.

The policy of assimilation rests upon the old rationalist doctrine of the universality of human reason. An institution once declared rational must as such be applicable at all times and in all places; and though individuals may at first, in the darkness of superstition, resist the introduction of such institutions, they will, if forced to accept them, be ultimately liberated thereby and raised to a higher plane of existence and civilization. The essential element in this belief is that reason is the one controlling force in human conduct, and that rational institutions are productive of rational action and hence are the sole requirement for well-ordered and civilized life. As a matter of fact, however, the science of the nineteenth century has abandoned this belief in the universal supremacy of the conscious rational faculty. Men are governed far more by their iny^herited beliefs, customs, and instincts, than by a conscious choice between different courses of action. This is true among ourselves, and it is so to an exceedingly greater extent among all aboriginal peoples. The doctrine of assimilation makes a demand upon the rational element in human nature which not even the action of the most highly developed individuals, to say nothing of nations, could justify. The natives are to abandon the entire complex of customs and beliefs which have thus far guided them through life, and by an act of selective reason, to adopt institutions foreign to their social experience. Modern science is agreed that inherited psychological elements — the constitution of the mind — ^are the most persistent phenomena of which we have any knowledge. \ New ideas may be poured into the consciousness, may even be understood by the rational faculties, but they will leave no trace upon the mental constitution and upon the real spring of action.

The most conclusive proof of this is found in the psychology of those races which have come, through the chance of history, under the control of different conquerors. Through numberless generations under the most varied historical conditions and environments, the descendants of the same race will continue to develop similar psychological traits. Thus parts of the Malay race have been for centuries under the rule of three different European peoples; nevertheless the Filipinos with their Spanish instruction, the Javans trained under the Dutch colonial system, and the Malays of the mainland who have been under English tutelage, all display identical characteristics and have the same intellectual constitution which the earliest explorers noted in their day. In the same way we may trace among the negroes of the United States, of Hayti, and of Martinique, the same psychological tendencies which are found among their distant relatives in the African forests. The actual experience of colonizing nations and the results of scientific investigation leave room for but one opinion upon the policy of assimilation, that it rests upon a purely ideological basis and runs counter to the scientific laws of psychic development.