Colonialism

Author(s): Rupert Emerson

Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 4, No. 1, Colonialism and Decolonization
(Jan., 1969), pp. 3-16
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/259788
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 Colonialism

Rupert Emerson

It is difficult to decide which is to be accounted the more extra-

ordinary event: western Europe's achievement of imperial pre-
dominance over so much of the world in the last few centuries, o
the recent spectacular demise of virtually the entire colonial system
as one of the major manifestations of the decline of that pre-
dominance. My inclination is to press the claim of the overthrow
and abandonment of colonialism. Here was a system of world-wid
dimensions which only a few years earlier still had a look of solidity
and permanence to it and which had ordered - or disrupted - th
affairs of very large segments of mankind for centuries in som
instances, for decades in many others. Is there any other occasion
on which so global and commanding a scheme of things was swep
away in so brief a time ?
That western colonialism - in brief, as a working definition, the
imposition of white rule on alien peoples inhabiting lands separated
by salt water from the imperial centre - should have come to so
sudden an end is all the more extraordinary in that at least one o
the principal circumstances involved in its coming into bein
remained to some degree intact. It is an obvious condition of the
establishment and maintenance of colonial rule that there should
be a significant disparity in power between those who govern and
those on whom alien rule is imposed, and this disparity was in-
creasingly multiplied as Europe moved from the Renaissance
through the Enlightenment into the Industrial Revolution. The
sudden downfall of colonialism should indicate a striking change
in the power relationships. Such a change there has undoubtedly
been in various respects, and yet it is notorious that the gap be-
tween the advanced and the backward (if a euphemistically dis-
carded term may be employed) has continued to widen rather
than to contract. In science and technology, productivity and
material well-being, transport and communications, armaments,
and political and social organization, the advanced peoples have
3

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 CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

been moving ahead more rapidly than the developing

catching up with them. The disparity in power has in
grown, but it no longer carries imperial predominance wi
signal and peculiar fact, to be added to the appalling lo
world wars on one side and the rise of nationalism on
that the possession of increasingly sophisticated weap
has by no means assured easy military superiority to
have them, as witness Malaya, Kenya, Algeria, and first t
and then the Americans in Vietnam. But at least as im
any other element is the sapping of the will to empi
change in the climate of domestic as well as world opi
acceptance to rejection of colonialism, in which the ri
munism as a world force can be accorded as large a r
observer may be inclined to allot it.

The repudiation of colonialism has been both sw

embracing, even though it has not yet caught up with
guese, thus incidentally raising the question whether
suppress ruthlessly can in appropriate circumstances
for some indefinite period what otherwise seems the
forward sweep of nationalism.
In the past, if colonialism was not praised or at least ind
accepted as a fact of nature, the attack was not ordinar
against it as an institution but against particular abuses or
Now the entire range of colonialism is condemned ou
Although many warning signals had foretold what w
the most ardent enemies of colonialism opened fire w
batteries for the first time in their first international g
their own, the Bandung Conference of 29 Asian a
countries in I955. Here it was flatly laid down that 'co
all its manifestations is an evil which should speedily
to an end', and that the subjection of peoples to alien
exploitation is a denial of fundamental human rights,
the UN Charter, and an impediment to world peace.
later these central tenets of the anti-colonial creed w
out in further detail in the UN General Assembly Dec
the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries an
which summed up what the anti-colonialists had been
wards from the beginning and charted the course to be f
1 Resolution I514 (XV).

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 COLONIALISM

the future. Reiterating some of the key phrases of the

final communiqud, this Declaration went far beyond Ba
that it was unanimously adopted by the General Assem
though the United States, Great Britain, France, and six
assorted countries abstained. Solemnly proclaiming 'the
of bringing to a speedy and unconditional end colonialism
forms and manifestations', the Declaration proceeded t
the central positive proposition that 'All peoples have t
to self-determination', a phrase taken over intact in th
article of each of the two Covenants on Human Rights
mously adopted by the Assembly in I966. A resolution
went a step further than the Declaration in asserting in
amble that the continuation of colonial rule and the pr
apartheid not only threaten international peace and secu
also 'constitute a crime against humanity'.
In similar vein the Charter of the Organization of Africa
proclaims it as one of its purposes to eradicate all
colonialism from Africa, and maintains 'the inalienable r
people to control their own destiny'. In other times an
colonialism has been pilloried as permanent aggression to
fully attacked by all comers, and the communist powers
much they may differ among themselves, give their suppor
of liberation on the ground that they are just wars.
It is, of course, evident that the radically anti-coloni
nouncements of the UN and other international bodies have no
necessary effect on actual colonial situations - a state of affairs
which generates a sense of bitter frustration particularly among the
African leaders.2 Portugal holds its colonies without appearing
to be gravely worried by the UN challenge to its rule, and Britain,
the United States, and the handful of others involved in colonial
affairs hold on to a dwindling few of their overseas possessions or
trust territories and act towards them in such fashion and at such
tempo as they themselves determine. The hostility of the UN
majority to colonialism no doubt influences the policies of the
remaining colonial powers, but they accept neither the accusation
of being international criminals nor the injunction that they must

2 The frustration of Africans in the directly colonial sphere is greatly ag-

gravated by their inability to do anything drastic themselves about South Africa,
Southwest Africa, and Rhodesia, or to persuade others who might achieve
significant results to swing into action.

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 CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

take immediate steps to grant independence. If a case

the right of a colonial power to hold the territories it con
to be brought before the International Court, the Co
presumably sustain the right of the colonial power t
though the new majority on the Court might call for a sp
of steps taken to ensure complete independence and
accord with UN resolutions.
Taken at face value (which the immediately preceding comments
indicate they need not be), the anti-colonial resolutions adopted
by the General Assembly and by the Committee of 24, established
to implement the 1960 Declaration, go far beyond both the
language of the Charter and the apparent assumptions of its prin-
cipal drafters. While the Charter represented a substantial advance
over the League Covenant which, apart from the inconclusive
mandates system, virtually ignored the colonial problem - as did
the League itself - it recognized only a principle of self-determina-
tion and in Chapter XI went no further than to exact a pledge of
movement towards self-government. But it did open up a crack of
international concern with colonial issues into which in due course
the anti-colonial majority drove a huge wedge of international
accountability, giving to the UN prerogatives which the colonial
powers would never have dreamed of conceding at San Francisco
or for a decade and more thereafter. In the course of the anti-
colonial drive, the safeguarding of domestic jurisdiction in Article
2:7 was for all practical purposes deleted from the Charter as far as
colonial issues were concerned. An experienced observer fresh
from the San Francisco conference reported that independence
was not mentioned as a goal because only the United States among
the colonial powers saw it as the natural outcome of colonial
status, and he explicitly denied that the obligation of the powers to
provide information concerning their non-self-governing terri-
tories gave the UN 'authority to meddle in colonial affairs ....3
But the 'meddling' has swollen to ever larger dimensions.
With the adoption of the I960 Declaration one of the most
important moral and theoretical bulwarks of colonialism was

3 Huntington Gilchrist, 'Colonial Questions at the San Francisco Conference',

American Political Science Review, October 1945, 987-8. He conceded, however,
that if there had not been a controversy over the use of the word 'independence',
it would have been clear that the pledge to develop free political institutions
must have included independence.
6

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 COLONIALISM

demolished. Under the Covenant tutelage had been

acknowledged as necessary for peoples not yet able to
themselves in a strenuous world, and the advanced po
taken on the burden of tutelage as the sacred trust of a civ
presumably identified with themselves. Implicitly
Charter the same doctrine held, although the clear iden
of civilization was evaded, and for the trust territories
independence was now stated. In I960 the justif
colonialism on grounds of tutelage was unambiguously
since Article 3 of the Declaration of that year held that 'In
of political, economic, social or educational preparedne
never serve as a pretext for delaying independence'. Th
powers, of course, did not accept the new standard w
been laid down, but henceforward their plea that a colo
was not yet ready for independence would be met by ci
UN resolution unanimously adopted.

One of the most entertaining and hazardous of parlou

speculation as to what might have happened if there h
colonialism, speculation which seems peculiarly in orde
when the anti-colonialists have stripped the last shreds of
from colonialism no matter what the circumstances. It
to come to at least tentative conclusions as to the effects which
colonial rule in fact had on different peoples, but we have only the
most dubious of clues as to the might-have-beens if the same
peoples had entirely escaped subjection to such rule.
Colonial and ex-colonial peoples have from time to time found it
tempting to assume that if they had remained free all kinds of good
things would have fallen to their lot, enabling them to advance on
the path to modernity, prosperity, strength, and national unity far
more rapidly than proved possible under alien control. Much more
rarely does there appear to be a belief that it would have been
preferable to linger undisturbed in the older traditional society, or
to seek to return to it, sloughing off the alien intrusions of
modernity. It is manifestly highly consoling to believe that one's
present woes, weakness, poverty, and internal divisions derive, not
from anything inherent in one's own race, society, or history, but
from the wounds inflicted on an otherwise sound body by those
who encroached on it and exploited it for their profit and pleasure.
In its simplest form this satisfying myth holds that the peoples
7

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 CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

involved were just about to launch themselves on an aut

inspired drive towards catching up with the advanced
when they were taken over by the imperialists and herded
a less developed way of life than they had already ach
were at least denied the advancement which would otherwise have
been theirs.
The major difficulty with any such claim is that the evidence, if
any, on which it might be based is highly unconvincing. Thus it is
sometimes said that just as Europe's diverse ethnic groups were
forged into nations over the centuries, so Africa's tribes were in
process of being amalgamated into stable large-scale nations at the
time when the slave trade and later the Scramble disrupted all
hope of African development, imposing an arbitrary set of Euro-
pean boundaries instead of those which would have emerged from
an unforced natural evolution of the continent. What actually
appears to be the case is that African tribes were, in an essentially
haphazard way, dividing, coalescing, forming empires and breaking
them up again, as other peoples around the world have throughout
history seen their political communities wax and wane. No general
trend either of amalgamation or of disintegration is evident in the
complex and inadequately recorded history which is available.
What political shape African peoples might have taken on if they
had been left to themselves is a mystery to which only the most
speculative and controversial answers can be given. What we do
know is that there was a multiplicity of tribes in many kinds of
relations with each other and that these tribes were forced into a
peculiar pattern of colonial states whose boundaries have, in the
few brief and tempestuous years since independence, held sur-
prisingly constant, as have those of many ex-colonial territories
elsewhere, such as Indonesia and the Philippines. Again, what
would have been the fate of India if British rule had never been
established ? Would it have been possible to hold the entire sub-
continent together, untroubled by an imperialist policy of divide-
and-rule, or, in reverse, lacking the unity which Britain imposed,
would it have broken up on the European model into, say, a dozen
or more historically and linguistically determined states ?
If one would play this parlour game, the prime necessity is that
the rules be firmly and clearly established in advance, because
various radically different assumptions can be made which produce
quite different results. To discuss the hypothetical fate of peoples
8

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 COLONIALISM

exempt from colonialism without having determined w

stitute relationship with other peoples is to take its pl
framework of the inquiry, is to open the door to hopeless c
To draw on Africa as an example again: if the rules lay
utterly fanciful assumption that no intercourse whatever,
or through intermediaries, took place between Africa an
civilization growing up in western Europe, then there is
to read back into the history that never happened the b
Africans would on their own have then or in due course
some approximation of the unique European developme
a civilization had not in fact emerged anywhere else in t
there were no significant hints that it was likely to blossom
Africa, and, when introduced primarily under colonial a
took hold only tenuously and slowly. What kind of civi
its own Africa might have produced if it had been fenced o
the rest of the world for the last few centuries, and for a m
or two ahead, can be guessed only by spinning idle clou
air. The presumption must be that its peoples would h
served their traditional guise, subject of course to
eruptions which no one could predict.
If total isolation be abandoned as wholly unreal, a nu
kinds and gradations of intercourse with the increasingly d
restless, and powerful peoples of western Europe, and a l
of the United States, Japan, the Soviet Union, and Chi
into the picture. The changes that one can ring on such a
the realms of speculation are so diverse as to make it a
occupation to seek to pursue more than two or three of
the present purpose the heart of the matter is the eas
suffering, the speed or the slowness, the effectiveness o
adequacy of the process of adaptation of traditional societies
characteristic forms and forces of modernity which have in
ably demonstrated their power and productivity, what
evils which accompany them. Peace must in some fashion
with them if there is to be any hope of extended inde
survival and of achieving sufficient well-being at home
grave disaffection and upheaval, perhaps played upon an
from abroad.
If contact with the advanced countries, but not coloni
allowed, perhaps its most utopian form would confine th
to men of skill and benevolence who, financed from out
9

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 CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

able to draw on large capital sums for such projects

seem in order - roads, railroads, ports, dams, irrigat
schools, hospitals, etc. - would disinterestedly see to
traditional societies made the most painless transition int
compatible with preserving the best of the old society
ments most essential to the maintenance of its corpor
spirit. But the questions which come immediately to
legion. Would one include among such men missionar
whose major purposes would be the introduction of C
or perhaps Islam or some other faith, at the evident cost
undermining one of the main pillars of the traditional so
Would that old order be taken as the starting point bo
of an indirect rule based on the traditional authorities and in rela-
tion to the demographic-geographic scope of the society or must the
old order be swept away to make way for the new ? So massive a
scale of benevolence has never been seen in this world, nor can we
have any assurance that, even if the men and the means to practise
it could be found, the extraordinarily difficult job by which they
would be confronted could be done. Would the expatriates en-
gaged in such an enterprise be accepted as benevolent instructors
by those whose lives they sought to change, or as intruders to be
got rid of as speedily as possible; and would they be tough-minded
enough to inflict the kind of blows which are usually needed to
break the cake of custom and to start the flow of a new kind of life
and labour ? To ask such questions is to open up some of the major
controversies which have in fact surrounded the practitioners and
theorists of colonialism.
At a next remove, coming uncomfortably, and indeed indis-
tinguishably, close to historical reality except for the continuing
ground rules ban on colonial regimes, far the most likely turn of
events would be that western economic interests - traders, seekers
after raw materials or labour, money lenders - would establish
themselves in what has now come to be known as the third world.
Since only governments stronger than any the third world could
provide would be able to bar them from entry or effectively regu-
late them, such interests could not only penetrate deeply into the
undeveloped countries but often also dominate them, and, as an
accidental by-product for which they accept no responsibility,
profoundly disrupt them. Two possibilities appear: either the
economic interests involved would calculate that they could get by,
IO

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 COLONIALISM

despite disruptions and disaffections, with no more than

manipulation of the existing government of the count
they were operating, although its ultimate collapse or dra
hauling could be foreseen; or, in order to establish an
the conditions necessary for carrying on profitable enter
would move to take over the government and recons
meet their own needs.
Here, evidently, one begins to swing full circle. A government
stemming from outside the society has been imposed, but, as
the game's ground rules require, it is a government deriving from
the economic enterprise itself and not from the government of the
country from which that enterprise originally set out. At this point
it is not irrelevant to go back to the dictum of Adam Smith that the
worst of all governments for a colony is the government of a com-
pany. The argument is essentially the simple one that a company's
primary concern is to make a profit, while a government has other
responsibilities which, gravely as it may neglect them, are likely
to have some positive bearing on its activities. At its by no means
unknown worst a colonial government may in fact be little more
than an agent providing labour and other facilities for commercial
interests, or itself exploiting the manpower and resources of the
country for the profit of the home government, as in the Dutch
East Indies for much of the nineteenth century. The hope, how-
ever, certainly not without some measure of justification in colonial
history, is that a colonial government will come to accept at least
a minimum of responsibility for the well-being of its subjects and
their adaptation to the modern world. Although the altruistic
desire to promote welfare and adaptation to modernity has pre-
sumably never been the root reason for imperialist expansion, the
existence of a government and its civil servants nonetheless pro-
vides another channel of contact with the modern world - some-
times a quite inadequate one, as in the case of Spain and Portugal
in recent times - and may provide a safeguard against the worst
abuses of exploitation and neglect. As the colonial powers pro-
gressed into the mid-twentieth century' they increasingly tended
to acknowledge that their responsibilities went beyond the crude
maintenance of law and order, harshly summarized in the term
'pacification', and beyond the provision of the basic facilities re-
quired by their businessmen, planters, and miners. At least the
rudiments of welfare, economic and social development, and
II

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 CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

political advancement came to be accepted by most co

governments as necessary features of contemporary co
rule.
It is, I trust, clear that I am not contending that coloni
offered any ideal means of access to the modern world. Ind
am not at all sure that any ideal means of access exists, alth
am sure that colonial regimes do not provide it. But when
the game of ruling out colonialism, leaving other cond
realistically as they were, I find myself inexorably driven
conclusion that, as an interim and transitional measure, colonia
is likely to be the lesser of the evils in a predatory world. It ha
fact been the agency of diffusion through which hundred
millions of people have begun the long and painful transition f
their traditional societies into the modern world created b
West and now available in the alternative packaging of commun
Two further observations may be briefly added. The conditio
otherwise comparable countries, such as Liberia, Ethio
Afghanistan, and the Central American states for the last ce
and a half, all of which escaped colonialism or most of it, le
no optimistic conclusion that all would have been well if colonia
had never been invented. Second, that colonialism is oddly s
have its virtues was demonstrated by the earlier insistenc
African spokesmen and men of good will in general th
Colonial Office should retain control in Kenya and the Rho
until the Africans could take over, rather than allow white sett
to take over predominant political control.

Whatever its achievements throughout the ages as one

chosen instruments for the diffusion of civilization, those on w
colonialism has been imposed detest it for its besetting si
arrogance. For a relatively brief period there are a few wh
the colonial situation more than barely tolerable: the first g
tion or two of the new western-educated elite who feel a
distance between themselves and their less fortunate tradition-
bound countrymen, and set as their goal acceptance by the
superior beings who have taken command of their society. As self-
government and independence come nearer, others - the tradi-
tionally privileged or other hangers-on who have been artificially
sustained by the colonial authorities, or ethnic groups who feel
threatened by those who are coming into power - may prefer the
I2

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 COLONIALISM

existing colonial status to what lies ahead. But the growi

creasingly universal sentiment has been one of refusal
the inherent arrogance of a system in which alien superior
sides over the inferior 'native'.
The issue is not at all necessarily the arrogance of individuals in
a crude sense, although that is also frequently involved and finds
in colonialism an ideal breeding ground. Outside the colonial
relationship individuals and groups representing the two races or
communities are often able to get along easily and happily, as is
demonstrated by the surprising readiness of ex-colonial peoples
to establish close and friendly relations with both the former
imperial power itself and with the many expatriates in the newly
independent countries.
The arrogance of colonialism takes many forms. The simplest,
most straightforward form, endowed with the most ancient heri-
tage, is the principle that the right of the stronger, the right of
conquest, puts the conquered wholly at the disposal of the con-
queror. A more sophisticated version rests upon belief in some
form of racial or cultural superiority which justifies colonial rule
either on a permanent basis, since the 'natives' are congenitally
incapable of overcoming their backwardness, or for as long a
period - seen, perhaps, as lasting many generations or even cen-
turies - as they are regarded by their colonial masters as being
incompetent to manage their own affairs. At least in the more
or less contemporary scene the presumption has been that such
superiority carries with it the white man's burden of seeking to
bring about the advancement of the colonial wards, but it may also
serve merely to establish the legitimacy of continued colonial rule.
Basic tenets of the colonialism of the last centuries were the sole
sanctity of Christianity and the self-evident supremacy of the
white man. The arrogance of the League Covenant's assumption
that the sacred trust of civilization in relation to the mandates, and
by implication to all colonial peoples, was vested in the colonial
powers has already been noted. It was an integral part of the
arrogance of the colonial administrator that he honestly believed
that he spoke more authentically for the colonial masses than did
the new-style nationalist leaders. No doubt he sometimes did, but
the nature of the colonial system made the nationalist the inevitable
heir to power.
It might be contended that the supreme arrogance was displayed
I3

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 CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

by the devoted and unself-seeking colonial civil se

missionary who set as his goal only the transformation of t
society and its beliefs into a closer replica of his own. Ther
in a sense an ultimacy of arrogance which far surpasses tha
strong ruler who exploits his subjects for what he can g
them but is indifferent to their creeds and institutions
them to save their souls in their own fashion.
Rebelling against the inherent arrogance of the coloni
tion, the anti-colonialist finds the appeal to the dignity of
most passionately convincing slogan.

It would be absurd to think that any definitive ve

colonialism can be pronounced in this immediate afterma
era of western imperialist expansion. It is far too varied
plex a phenomenon to lend itself to an easy summing u
effects, of which we have seen only the first manifesta
surely be felt for generations to come. The climate of o
the moment is peculiarly confusing because, while the d
trend is the condemnation of colonialism in all its forms and
manifestations, a renewed sense begins to creep in that perhaps
all was not evil and that, however clumsily and often inadvertently,
it made positive contributions which are not to be ignored.4 In the
manner of their unexpectedly peaceful departure from many
dependent countries, the colonial powers made possible a calm and
even friendly reassessment of what they had accomplished, failed
in, and put on the agenda for future action. The ceremonial
speeches of good will and mutual congratulations which have
accompanied the lowering of imperial flags and the raising of the
new national banners were by no means wholly insincere, as has
been shown by the close ties maintained between so many of the
newly independent states and their former overlords.
It may be, too, that the shortcomings of the new countries make
4 Professor Ali A. Mazrui of Makerere University College, Uganda, sees
colonialism as having helped to transform Africa's intellectual universe: 'In
fact, the most significant thing about the colonial experience for Africa is that
it was at once a political bondage and a mental liberation. We might even say
that the colonial fact was the most important liberating factor that the African
mind has experienced in historical times.' 'Borrowed Theory and Original
Practice in African Politics' in Herbert J. Spiro, ed., Patterns of African Develop-
ment (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., I967), 92. A generally favourable estimate of the
colonial experience is made by Peter Duignan and L.H. Gann, Burden of Empire
(New York, I967).

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 COLONIALISM

the colonial interlude look better than might otherwise

expected. The naive vision of oppressive colonialism gi
to the freedom and progress of liberation has been supplan
more grubby reality. One-party one-man rule, military
ships, corruption, inadequacies and failures in develop
modernization, and other deficiencies dim the lustre of
dence and tend to turn what the anti-colonialists painte
into more neutral grays. Except perhaps for a handful of t
Asian and African civil servants, who look back nostalgical
days of colonial bureaucracy, no one wants to return to co
but it can at least be assessed with a larger measure of c
sion. Or, of course, the other side of the coin may be that
colonialism is held responsible for present shortcomings
failed to educate, democratize, develop, and modernize,
underdeveloped peoples whom it exploited still undeve
To the sins of colonialism in this latter version must be added
the accusation that the former colonial powers, and particularly
the United States, are following a neo-colonialist policy of seeking
to maintain the substance of control over the nominally indepen-
dent new states through the acquisition of economic predomi-
nance. Neo-colonialism is a difficult term of which to make much
sensible use because it is usually employed by the spokesmen of
the left who, discovering imperialism in every action or inaction of
the non-communist countries, lump together everything from
monopolistic exploitation and armed intervention to technical
assistance and the Peace Corps. The general drift, however, is
clear: the advanced countries are in various ways deeply involved
in the former colonies. Given the extent of the ties built up under
colonial rule and the amount of debris it left behind, the gross
disparities in wealth and power which continue to divide the
world, and the demand of the new countries for aid in develop-
ment, it would be incredible if there were not many relationships
which could be tagged with the label of neo-colonialism. A more
important question than the invidious use of the label is whether
the diverse activities it embraces are meeting some of the urgent
needs of the new countries, notably in the sphere of development,
and meeting them in ways both more effective and more tolerable
to the people concerned than the colonial regimes which preceded
them.
It is arguable that what is extraordinary is not the extent of
I5

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 CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

imperialist yearning to restore the substance of colonia

rather the readiness to be rid of what have come to be seen as
imperial burdens. For profit, prestige, and political advantage,
and from a sense of tasks left unaccomplished, the ex-colonial
powers have understandably sought to maintain a greater or less
degree of contact with their former dependencies. In some in-
stances - Houphouet-Boigny's Ivory Coast is the most frequently
cited example - expatriate economic, political, and cultural control
and influence have undoubtedly gone beyond what is compatible
with real independence, although the later recapture of inde-
pendence is by no means excluded. The dilemma confronting poor
and ill-equipped countries which are struggling both to survive
and develop and to cling to freedom is a very real one, and some
have sold out or come close to it. On the other side, the record of
such countries as Burma and Indonesia, Guinea and Mali, which
in their different fashions have sought to cut loose from the ad-
vanced West, has not been very impressive. With all the temptations
open to them in this condition of the world's affairs, the erstwhile
imperialists seem in large measure to have accepted the anti-
imperialist convictions of their opponents. Of a yearning for a
renewal of imperialist aggrandizement there is little trace.
Throughout history, save at the rarest of intervals, men have
acted upon the assumption that expansion, conquest, and far-
flung rule over others were the fruits and symbols of virility and
grandeur. Have we now come to a turning point in history, or will
the next throw of the global dice bring forth a new imperialism
and a new colonialism ?

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