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_Trade Politics and Christianity in Africa and the East_. By A. J.
MACDONALD, M.A. With an introduction by SIR HARRY JOHNSTON. Longmans,
Green and Co., London, 1916. Pp. 296.
This is a dissertation awarded the Maitland Prize at Cambridge in 1915
for an essay on the thesis, _Problems raised by the contact of the
West with Africa and the East and the part that Christianity can play
in their solution_. The work shows scientific treatment. The facts
used were obtained largely from the Government Blue Books, the Minutes
of Evidence attached to Reports of the Committee of Inquiry into the
Liquor Trade in Southern Nigeria together with the reports of the
United Races Committee, the Journal of the Anglo-Indian Temperance
Association, the British Quarterlies, the publications of the Society
for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, and the reports of the
Proceedings of the First Universal Race Congress.
The writer traces the development of contact with the natives by means
of trade which, supplying them with what they want rather than with
what they need, often demoralizes them. Then along with the problem of
trade comes that of labor, giving rise to labor contracts or forced
labor, and this with another problem of preventing the native
population from too far exceeding that of the whites. Then comes the
consideration of the liquor question, the opium trade, education and
self-government, and inter-racial marriage, with the merits and
demerits of the methods of those who have attacked these problems.
Caution is given in the assertion that Christianity must be the
life-principle. "Imperialism," says the author, "is a matter of
religion." The extension of the empire, therefore, is an extension of
religion. The success of an imperial policy then depends upon the
degree of attention paid religion, which lies deeper than
statesmanship, deeper than civilization, which is, indeed, the
inspiration of both. Administrators, therefore, must not neglect
Christianity, as they are only imperialists so long as they remember
that they are in spite of themselves religious men. "Translated into
practical terms," says he, "the theory means that if the black and
white races are unequal in intelligence and social capacity they are
equal on the basis of common Christianity. The old doctrine of the
'solidarity of humanity' needs to be revived and to be applied over a
wider area. The Empire can only be extended securely by the extension
of its religion, but that means that settler, trader and administrator
must realize in the black man a capacity to receive Christianity." The
Church, too, must cease to regard the propagation of the gospel as its
own task and missionaries must no longer retard the extension of the
empire by carrying on their work as members of an independent
organization.
Taking up inter-racial marriage, the author raises many questions. He
does not seem to fear race fusion, as there is evidence "to prove that
the crossing of the different races does produce definite physical and
mental results in succeeding generations." He contends that the white
man's objection to connection with women of colored races and to the
children who spring from those unions has no scientific justification.
The exclusive attitude of the white man is accounted for by the
difference in degree of civilization, the so-called superiority of the
white race. Although he does not show how science has uprooted the
idea of racial superiority, the author does raise the question as to
whether the integrity of the dominant races has been maintained. As
evidence of this he cites the facts that the Pelasgii of Greece were,
according to Professor Sturgis, of African origin, that Sir Harry
Johnston traced Negro blood across India and the Malay States to
Polynesia, that a negroid race penetrated Italy and France, according
to recent discoveries, leaving traces at the present day in the
physiognomy of the people of Southern Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and
Western France, and even in parts of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, and that even to-day there are some examples of
Keltiberian peoples of western Scotland and western Wales and southern
and western Ireland of distinctly negroid type.