ivilisation and good order among backward races. So managed it may
last long; and its dominion may be practically permanent, for commerce
and industry, literature and science, rapid and easy communication by
land and sea, spread far more quickly, and connect distant countries
far more closely, in modern times than in the ancient world. Yet there
is always an element of unrest and insecurity underlying the position
of imperial rulership over different and often discordant groups of
subjects; and this has been one main cause of the immemorial weakness
of Asiatic empires, and of the indifference of the people to a change
of masters, because no single dynasty represented the whole people. It
is just this weakness of the native rulers that has enabled the
European to make his conquests in Asia; and we have carefully to
remember that although our governments are superior in skill and
strength, we have inherited the old difficulties. For it is my belief
that in many parts of the world, particularly in Asia, the strength of
the racial and religious sentiments is rather increasing than
diminishing. This is indeed the view--the fact, if I am right--that I
especially desire to press home, because it is of the highest
importance at the present time, when all the European nations, and
England among the foremost, are extending their dominion over peoples
of races and creeds different from their own. Our governments are now
no longer confined to the continent which we inhabit; we are acquiring
immense possessions in Asia and Africa; we can survey the whole earth
with its confusion of tongues; its multitude of beliefs and customs,
its infinitely miscellaneous populations. We must recognise the
variety of the human species; we must acknowledge that we cannot
impose a uniform type of civilisation, just as we admit that a uniform
faith is beyond mere human efforts to impose, and that to attempt it
would be politically disastrous. This is the conclusion upon which I
venture to lay stress, because some such warning seems to me neither
untimely nor unimportant.

For there is still a dangerous tendency among the enterprising
commercial nations of the West to assume that the importation into
Asia of economical improvements, public instruction, regular
administration, and religious neutrality will conquer antipathies,
overcome irrational prejudices, and reconcile old-world folk to an
alien civilisation. Undoubtedly a foreign government that rul