To the writer of these pages, what really seems most hopeful in the outlook for the future is the prospect that violent upheavals of society will be less and less attempted as the State appears to be the best expression of the wishes of the majority; and that some falling off in the energy and acquisitiveness, which are fostered by individualism, will be compensated by the growth of what we may call patriotism, as each man identifies himself more and more with the needs and aspirations of his fellowcountrymen. That men generally should look up to the State to take the lead in industrial undertakings is probably undesirable, and is perhaps never likely to occur. Whatever administrations may do, they can hardly monopolise more than a small portion of the field of human enterprise. Meanwhile, it is surely in the interests of all that the poorest man in the country should feel that he owes inestimable blessings to the political order under which he lives: not only protection from foreign enemies, but equality before the law, the certainty of employment in bad times, education for his children, security for the purity of his household life, and a fair chance of rising out of the ranks if he possesses the requisite ability. If this ideal has not been absolutely attained in the civilised countries of the world, it is not because the best statesmen of all times have not been habitually working towards it, but because individualism. has meant privilege-privilege for rank, for wealth, and for influence-and because the outworks of individualism have been guarded accordingly. More and more as we approach the stationary state—as there are no countries to receive immigrants; as war is more and more dreaded for its chances, or recoiled

from for its barbarity; as commerce and invention are restricted because there are no new regions to open up-will the old outlets for discontent or unsatisfied ambition be closed. What are now the governing classes will have to arrange reasonable compromises, by which the condition of the poor is made endurable. It may be that there will be less enthusiasm in those days, because there will be less hope; but it may be assumed that there will be less misery, more resignation, and it may even be more content. Life in itself is an inexhaustible delight to all but a few; and the conditions of life will be more tolerable, though the sky above may be more gray.

CHAPTER I

THE UNCHANGEABLE LIMITS OF THE HIGHER

RACES

There is a general belief that the higher races are bound to gain more and more upon the lower.-North America, the Argentine Confederation, and Australia furnish the grounds of this belief.—The races exterminated have not been industrial races.-The character of a race determines its vitality more than climate.-Chinamen, Hindoos, and negroes cannot be exterminated.—The Cape Colony is not predominantly white, though settled under the most favourable conditions.-Natal is already not a white man's colony, and is bound to pass more and more into the hands of the coloured race. Much more are the parts of Africa north of Natal bound to remain negro.—Were the whole emigration of Europe turned into Africa, it could not build up a white people there. The negro would increase faster.-Practically, too, there will always be parts where the white man cannot live. Malaysia is uninhabitable by the white man, as a colonist, building up families.-Central Asia is likely to be peopled chiefly from China.-The Aryan race can only make small gains in Europe, and in the Temperate Zone districts of Asia, Africa, America, and Australasia.-China is a serious competitor for empire; even in Tonquin and Burmah. Chinese colonisation of the Straits Settlements shows what the race is capable of. The Chinese are bound to people, and probably to rule Borneo.-There is a possibility of Chinese expansion to the North and West.-It is conceivable that the Hindoo race may spread over Beloochistan and Southern Persia.-Great parts of Southern and Central America cannot be peopled by the white race. The autochthonous races are gradually growing upon the descendants of the Spaniards, and will absorb, them and possess the country. These Indians are showing themselves capable of selfgovernment. If the Indians do not supersede men of European descent, negroes or Chinamen will.-Only the parts of America from which Indians have already been driven are fitted to be the

homes of the white race.-Brazil will pass more and more into the hands of the negroes, as certain of the United States are believed to be passing.-The most fertile and populous parts of the earth are therefore the inalienable freehold of the inferior races, though the higher races may contribute, and be needed in the first instance, to organise and develop them.-The development of a race within the limits of a country-India or China-is no impediment to its expansion abroad.-Emigration abroad will often stimulate the growth of a population at home.—The increase of population in Europe has been retarded for eighteen centuries by misgovernment and internal wars.-The general law is that the lower race increases faster than the higher. - The English aristocracy is favoured by a great many circumstances that would seem calculated to promote increase.-Its families are constantly dying out. The French and the negroes of the United States furnish characteristic instances of slow and rapid growth.England is an apparent but not a real exception to the rule that a race with a high standard of comfort increases slowly.-The condition of the Jews in Russia has been one of inferiority, but not of intolerable hardship.-Having a strong motive to make money, and no temptation to spend it freely, they have increased so rapidly as to become a danger to the Empire. The increased humanity of war is telling in favour of the weaker races.-So are sanitation and the increased means of transport afforded by railways.—Therefore, when we are swamped in certain parts of the world by the black and yellow races, we shall know that it has been inevitable.

It seems to be generally assumed that the higher races of men, or those which are held to have attained the highest forms of civilisation, are everywhere triumphing over the lower. North America is almost

occupied by men of European ancestry, and in South America the European element has received notable accessions in Brazil and the Argentine Republic. Australasia is British; Central Asia is being Russianised; and the Turk is being driven out of Europe, where his heritage is bound to fall to some race that has assimilated modern ideas better than the Ottoman. In Africa the North-west is passing under French influence, and has received a leaven of French or Spanish colonists. Egypt is practically part of

Europe; South Africa is English or Dutch; and it seems scarcely questionable that England and Germany will divide Central Africa. We are per

petually assured that countries which till now were assumed to be unfitted for European colonists, will really allow them to multiply and prosper if they will only comply with such reasonable conditions as the climate exacts. Central and Southern America, the regions of the Congo, of the African Lakes, and of Matabele and Mashonaland, Northern Australia and Borneo, are among the parts which have been recommended for European colonisation at various times and it is not uncommon to hear those who l districts offer great No one, of

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