The problem of Africa is, of course, a part of the wider problems of Imperialism, but it is that part in which the application of Socialist principles is most difficult.In regard to Asia, and more particularly in regard to India and Persia, the application of principles is clear in theory though difficult in political practice.The obstacles to self-government which exist in Africa do not exist in the same measure in Asia.What stands in the way of freedom of Asiatic populations is not their lack of intelligence, but only their lack of military prowess, which makes them an easy prey to our lust for dominion.This lust would probably be in temporary abeyance on the morrow of a Socialist revolution, and at such a moment a new departure in Asiatic policy might be taken with permanently beneficial results.I do not mean, of course, that we should force upon India that form of democratic government which we have developed for our own needs.I mean rather that we should leave India to choose its own form of government, its own manner of education and its own type of civilization.India has an ancient tradition, very different from that of Western Europe, a tradition highly valued by educated Hindoos, but not loved by our schools and colleges.The Hindoo Nationalist feels that his country has a type of culture containing elements of value that areabsent, or much less marked, in the West; he wishes to be free to preserve this, and desires political freedom for such reasons rather than for those that would most naturally appeal to an Englishman in the same subject position.The belief of the European in his own Kultur tends to be fanatical and ruthless, and for this reason, as much as for any other, the independence of extra-European civilization is of real importance to the world, for it is not by a dead uniformity that the world as a whole is most enriched.
I have set forth strongly all the major difficulties in the way of the preservation of the world's peace, not because I believe these difficulties to be insuperable, but, on the contrary, because I believe that they can be overcome if they are recognized.A correct diagnosis is necessarily the first step toward a cure.The existing evils in international relations spring, at bottom, from psychological causes, from motives forming part of human nature as it is at present.Among these the chief are competitiveness, love of power, and envy, using envy in that broad sense in which it includes the instinctive dislike of any gain to others not accompanied by an at least equal gain to ourselves.The evils arising from these three causes can be removed by a better education and a better economic and political system.
