Page:Morel-The Black Mans Burden.djvu/250

 their material conditions, or even to sustain themslevesthemselves [sic], have already lost their economic independence and with it their freedom; where they have become the wage slaves of alien white men without any means of safeguarding their interests even as wage slaves; where, in short, capitalistic exploitation of the native population is in full swing?

Should the League take up the position that the evil has gone too far to be arrested, and content itself with devising means whereby the wage slaves can be protected against the worst abuses of alien exploitation? Or should the League recommend the cancelling of the private interests which nave been created, with or without compensation to the beneficiaries—and a reversion to sound policy? The difficulty is a very real one. While it may be possible for a League in which the most important European States actually governing tropical Africa will presumably enjoy a dominating position for many years to come, to elaborate a general charter of native rights; it, is, a very different proposition to expect these States, which in any case would play the chief part in the drawing-up of such a charter, to sweep away, or to buy out, the vested interests established, with their sanction, in particular African dependencies. Nor is this the only point to be considered. Where the destruction of native rights in land has taken place and the native has become a helot, the edifice of native society has crumbled and cannot be repaired. Native life has been broken up. A community of free African landowners, cultivators and farmers has been converted into a landless proletariat, dependent upon alien enterprise for the wherewithal to feed and clothe itself. New conditions have been set up: certain consequences have resulted. The central mischief is done, and cannot be undone.

But that is no reason why an evil political and economic system should be allowed to grow, any more than a human disease. If it cannot be extirpated, its progress can be checked. If—to take a concrete case—a portion of the land of British East Africa has been handed over to European syndicates, that is no reason why the process should be continued. The remainder of the country can still be preserved for the native population. Nor is this all. Even where the evil has become implanted, it can be assailed indirectly. Labour