“The White Supremacy Religion.”

The rousing address which Mr. Andrews delivered to the Calcutta students, a telegraphic summary of which appeared in these columns yesterday, is an example of the loftiest idealism coupled with a burning love both for India and England. No man can love another country with that passionate ardour with which Mr. Andrews loves India if he is not inspired with like feelings for his own native land. The converse, however, of this proposition is unhappily not always true. And it is exactly for this reason that one so often comes across the spectacle of Englishmen combining in themselves the highest patriotism for England with feelings of self-complacent superiority towards their Indian fellow-subjects. The generic name for this attitude of mind which regards the domination of one nation by another as a matter of right is Imperialism. Its most recent instance was supplied by the Peace Conference under the presidency of Mr. Wilson. The Japanese delegates proposed the famous amendment to the text of the Covenant in regard to the question of the races. It secured in its favour a majority of votes, but Mr. Wilson as President declared that unanimity was essential for the adoption of an amendment of this kind. On this flimsy pretext, the motion of the Japanese delegates was rejected and a great opportunity — one that we are afraid will not recur for many a year to come — of establishing in the eyes of the Asiatic people the bona fides of the heads of Western Governments was thrown away. The Japanese proposers of the amendment were shrewd people, but their European conference were shrewder inasmuch as they perceived in time that the acceptance of the proposal would be tantamount to making a breach in the citadel of Western Imperialism. This spirit of Imperialism is pre-eminently a disease of the West so that in this respect England’s case is in no way peculiar.

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