CHAPTER V

COMMERCE

The expansion of national commerce was the original motive of colonizing activities, and even to the present time the English colonial move­ment, especially in the tropics, is centered about commercial interests. These interests have been so clearly preponderant that political methods and institutions have been molded with prime regard to commercial policy. Commercial or­ganization has remained supreme, and political institutions must adapt themselves to it. For this reason, British colonial policy has always favored local autonomy; and the creation by the home government of a general uniform system of legislation to which all colonial activities would have to conform, will remain impossible as long as British commercial interests are active and vigorous. Thus the establishments of Great Britain in India and the Far East, as well as in tropical Africa, have been governed primarily from the point of view of commercial develop­ment, and freedom of commerce has been the first consideration. It is a mistake made by some of the other powers, into which even some sections of the British public are in danger of falling, to

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