Principles of western civilisation

442 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

development in Africa, we see as it were the collective consciousness of the English-speaking people struggling, just as in the other phases of the economic process already described, with the tendencies of two entirely distinct eras of human evolution. At times in this conflict we see it giving the reins completely to the governing tendencies of the past ; and yet again at transient moments, overmastered by the subconscious inspiration of the future, we see it giving effect in its more instinctive acts to a meaning and part in the world-process completely transcending the objects of its conscious policy. During the greater part of the phase of the competitive process of which we are speaking, the ascendency in the councils of the home government in England of that central principle of the Manchester school, which dissociated the sense of responsibility from the course of the economic process throughout the world, has been almost complete. Yet as the exploitation of the less developed peoples of the world in the interests of private gain has continued, a series of unforeseen results, often at first sight confusing to an extraordinary degree but in reality all proceeding from the same cause, have followed.

In the first stage, the results of the irresponsible exploitation of less developed peoples in the interests of private cupidity have been such that they have continually engaged attention, and at times revolted the general conscience at home to such a degree, that the stage of non-responsibility has, by force of circumstances, and often in conditions of explosion, passed over to the stage of direct political control. At a later stage still, as