a European State for the purpose of bolstering up a system of that kind in tropical Africa, is flung into the sea. Every European nation which is a governing State in tropical Africa and which tolerates a system of that kind in its dependencies, is allowing the major national interest to be sacrificed for the temporary enrichment of a restricted number of individuals. And, from the point of view of economics, the national interest is also the international interest.
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Such, broadly, are some of the most important considerations which one might hope would guide a League of Nations approaching the problem of tropical African Government with the desire of promoting an international policy for this vast region, at once intelligent and humane. The foundation upon which it would work would be that the material prosperity of the native was the key-note to administrative success: that the exploitation of African labour for sectional European interests was an economic error; that the native communities of tropical Africa need protection, in the major European interest and to ensure the progressive development and expansion of the economic purpose of Europe, from the positive evils of a capitalist system which, bad for all Europe, is fatal for Africa.
Apart from these fundamental issues it would be the object of the League to ensure the "open door" for commercial enterprise throughout the tropical region of Africa. This would involve absolute trading equality for all nations within the tropical area, and the consequent disappearance of the differential tariff and the territorial concessionaire. The subjects of the various Powers adhering to the League would enjoy complete equality in all commercial transactions. The European States, members of the League, that were also governing States in tropical Africa, would be free to make their own fiscal arrangements; they would not be free to differentiate in favour of their nationals—a fertile cause of endless international friction in the past. It would be very desirable that the principle of the "open door" should be broadened so as to include capital enterprises such as the construction of railways, harbour works, dredging of rivers and kindred matters. In these cases the permanent tropical African Commission, referred to in the next
