This section is from the "Expansion of Races" book, by Charles Edward Woodruff. Also see Amazon: Expansion of Races.
Our motto is The Philippines for the Filipinos, and it does not mean that American interests are to be killed. The future prosperity of the Islands and their peoples demands that American capital be introduced to develop the wonderful resources of the Islands, but this cannot be done if we do not make it profitable for the capital to come in. Unwise laws, since repealed, did discriminate against foreign capital, and as the Filipinos had little money, the prosperity of the Islands was injured several years. The Philippines are in the condition which this country occupied only a generation or two ago, when it was without money and had enormous resources to develop. So we induced European capital to come in profitably. We settled the Civil War with money borrowed abroad, and this money also built our railroads, opened the country to settlement and worked the mines, but we could not allow Europeans to exploit the country at our expense. It was a mutual affair - profitable to both - commensalism. Without this money loaned to us so lavishly we could not possibly have attained our present prosperity, and unless we lavishly lend to the Philippines they will not enter into theirs.
Commensalism or mutual aid is, then, the basis of the relation of Aryan democracies to lower races, and though enough instances have already been given for illustration, it will do no harm to repeat the case of Egypt. The very existence of the British nation depends upon the control of both ends and the middle of the Mediterranean - Gibraltar, Suez and Malta - and the occupation of Egypt is as necessary as the occupation of the Transvaal. They have a motto that Egypt must be for the Egyptians, and though Englishmen are at the head of every part of the government in every branch and control the army and finances, Lord Cromer and Lord Milner have both insisted that their intention was to teach the Egyptians as rapidly as possible how to govern themselves. This does not mean that the small brained native will be able to do what requires Aryan brains - they have never done that, and never will. But it does mean that the work shall be done by natives under British control, the English officials being supervisors of self-governing natives, if we can call this self-governing. But the point is, the greater the prosperity of Egypt, the greater will be the reflex prosperity of Great Britain in her control of the East. Prof. J. W. Jenks has shown that the prosperity of Egypt has already reflexly benefited the English,* but the enormous benefit to the Egyptians themselves must be considered.
The Boston Transcript says: "A decade ago Egypt saw bankruptcy staring her in the face. Lady Duff Gordon wrote: 'I cannot describe the misery here now - every day some new tax. The fellaheen can no longer eat bread. The taxation makes life almost impossible. The people are running away by wholesale.' Of those sorry times another observant says: 'The peasant went about his daily task with bowed and trembling heart, starting with fright if addressed by a person of superior rank.' Justice was unknown; corruption prevalent. The body politic suffered from a shattered constitution, every organ diseased. The native was still living in the Stone Age. And then came Lord Cromer's active measures of reconstruction. Stability is given to the whole situation. Egyptian credit restored, European capital attracted, the value of trade doubled, financial conditions (by vast drainage and irrigation works) made independent of the vicissitudes of the seasons, 1,400 square miles of lands added to the cultivated area, taxes lightened, justice established, education advanced, the corvee system practically abolished, disease reduced - in short, a new Egypt evolved out of the wreckage of ages".
* International Quarterly 1902.
Mr. J. E. Woolcott, writing of Lord Cromer's new Egypt, says: "The transformation of Egypt since the British occupation is more wonderful than any story that Oriental imagination could conceive. The fellaheen can hardly realize that they are not living in some present dream from which there may be a rude awakening. During my sojourn in Egypt I saw an offending Prince within the walls of a prison and the Governor of a Province deposed for extorting money from the people for the purposes of public rejoicing. I saw, too, taxes removed which bore heavily on the laboring population. I feel proud, then, of the work done in Egypt by England, and of the great Englishman to whom the Egyptian peasant owes so great a debt." Still more eloquent is Lord Milner's tribute to Lord Cromer. "He has realized that the essence of our policy is to help the Egyptians to work out, as far as possible, their own salvation. And not only has he realized this himself, but he has taught others to realize it. The contrast between Egypt to-day and Egypt as he found it, the enhanced reputation of England in matters Egyptian, are the measure of the signal service he has rendered alike to his own country and to the country where he has laid the foundation of a lasting fame." The poor fellaheen called the period of Lord Cromer's regime "the time of blessing".
Could anything show more clearly the true commensal relationship of Aryan brain and tropical laborer? It is a true picture of Egypt for the Egyptians, and the greatest curse to the Egyptians will be English withdrawal from the country.
Egypt and the Philippines will be parallel cases of prosperous countries, whose people cannot bring about prosperity, but who are made so by Aryan brains, and the prosperity will help the Aryan reflexly. The only difference will be the fact that the Egyptian set of advisors come from an Aryan democratic monarchy, the other from an Aryan democratic republic originated by people of the same blood. In each case it is commensalism and the exact opposite of imperialism.
 
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