Page:The league of nations and primitive peoples (IA leagueofnationsp00oliviala).pdf/10

 instructed development, valuable minerals, food-stuffs, and raw materials required by the whole world. There can be no reasonable question of locking up these sources of wealth because certain barbarous tribes, as the result of migrations of centuries, are found in this age sparsely inhabiting the countries which can produce them. Freedom of access to and exploitation of these natural resources is now generally recognized as a common right of mankind, and no true friend of primitive races would propose entirely to exclude, or to withdraw, European intercourse and influence from them, or even to hand back to them, at this period, that unregulated and unsupported responsibility for their own governance under which slave-raiding, brigandage, and internecine violence were rampant. Under proper control such intercourse and the development of the natural resources by civilized enterprise are of recognized advantage to the natives. The ghastly instances to the contrary, where native populations have been oppressed, enslaved, and destroyed by policies of ruthless exploitation, do not establish a case for the abstention from European penetration. They do establish the duty of regulating such penetration by the erection of a controlling authority actuated by the dictates of human conscience and guided by the experience which has been gained of the compromises and safeguards whereby the human rights of both Europeans and natives may be maintained.

But the partition of Africa and the Pacific was not entered into or regulated on any concerted basis of