elves the great problems of
democratic self-government. We shall do more to civilise Africa by
civilising the East End of London than by governing from Cape to
Cairo."[479] "It is not only impossible for one nation to civilise
another by governing it; it is wrong that it should attempt to do so.
Conquest may have opened up one civilisation to another in times long
antecedent to the steam engine and a world commerce, but to-day its
only effect is to crush out and level down all national life to the
dead uniformity of an alien political routine."[480]

"What is the attitude of Socialism towards backward races, savage and
barbaric peoples who are to-day outside the civilised world? The
position of Socialism towards these races is one of absolute
non-interference. We hold that they should be left entirely alone to
develop themselves in the natural order of things; which they must
inevitably do or die out. It is the duty of Socialists to support the
barbaric races in their resistance to aggression."[481] "It is the
duty of International Socialists, the only international
non-capitalist party, to denounce, and wherever possible to prevent,
the extension of colonisation and conquest, leaving to each race and
creed and colour the full opportunity to develop itself until complete
economic and social emancipation is secured by all."[482] "Duty, like
charity, begins at home, and if the civilisation of the blacks is to
be purchased only by the destruction of our own democratic spirit, the
balance to the world is of evil, not of good. There is another view of
Imperialism expressed with brutal candour by Mr. Rhodes when he said
that the flag was our best commercial asset, that trade follows the
flag. Trade does no such thing. Trade follows business enterprise.
Imperialism is, indeed, a policy of industrial deterioration, and by
impoverishing the skill of the country and encouraging the worst
forms of financial capitalism, must crush out every budding hope that
labour has of becoming economically and politically free."[483]

The foregoing extracts should suffice to show that there is among
British Socialists a strong desire to abandon the non-self-governing
colonies.

The attitude of the British Socialists towards the great
self-governing dominions is not much more favourable than it is
towards tropical colonies. Their attitude is one of hardly disguised
hostility, which appears to spring partly from jealousy of the
colonists, par