Page:Morel-The Black Mans Burden.djvu/249

 denounce the material factors in Europe's relations with tropical Africa as necessarily evil, because they are material, is futile. The real problem is to ensure that a material relationship, which is inevitable, shall not preclude just, humane, and enlightened government of tropical African peoples by European States.

In elaborating what should be, in effect, a charter of rights for the peoples of tropical Africa, a League of Nations would begin by frankly recognising that the driving force which has conducted European States to undertake the experiment of direct government of the tropical African region, is neither altruistic nor sentimental, but economic. The League would then find itself confronted (as a League) with the problem which confronts every European State now ruling in tropical Africa, and the public conscience within every such State. Can this economic purpose of Europe in tropical Africa be worked out in such a way that the native peoples shall benefit from its accomplishment? To put the matter even more baldly, is it possible that Europe can become possessed of the natural riches of the African tropics and of the riches which the soil of tropical Africa can produce through the labour of tropical man, without degrading, enslaving and, in the ultimate resort, probably destroying the peoples of tropical Africa? The reply is in the affirmative provided that native rights in land are preserved, and provided the natives are given the requisite facilities for cultivating and exploiting the raw material which it is Europe's economic purpose to secure. The League, if convinced of the accuracy of this affirmative assertion, would then regard the preservation of this fundamental native right as the first step in the elaboration of its charter.

This would be an easy matter in a considerable area of the tropical region, where policy has either been directed to the preservation of the land rights of the native population—in Nigeria, for example—or where policy has not been directed to usurping them. But what should be the attitude of the League where this fundamental right has been set aside; where the governing European administration has allocated great stretches of country to syndicates and concessionaires; where the natives, divorced from their land and unable, in consequence, to improve