situation and
if there are any motions to be made--including calling the meeting
quits--or decisions to come to, we can start from there."

There was a murmur of assent. The objector sat down in a huff.

Crawford looked out over them. "I don't know most of you. The word of
this meeting must have spread from one group or team to another. So what
I'll do is start from the beginning, saying little at first with which
you aren't already familiar, but we'll lay a foundation."

He went on. "This situation which we find in Africa is only a part of a
world-wide condition. Perhaps to some, particularly in the Western World
as they call it, Africa isn't of primary importance. But, needless to
say, it is to we here in the field. Not too many years ago, at the same
period the African colonies were bursting their bonds and achieving
independence, an international situation was developing that threatened
future peace. The rich nations were getting richer, the poor were
getting poorer, and the rate of this change was accelerating. The
reasons were various. The population growth in the backward countries,
unhampered by birth control and rocketing upward due to new sanitation,
new health measures, and the conquest of a score of diseases that have
bedeviled man down through the centuries, was fantastic. Try as they
would to increase per capita income in the have-not nations, population
grew faster than new industry and new agricultural methods could keep
up. On top of that handicap was another; the have-not nations were so
far behind economically that they couldn't get going. Why build a
bicycle factory in Morocco which might be able to turn out bikes for,
say, fifty dollars apiece, when you could buy them from automated
factories in Europe, Japan or the United States for twenty-five
dollars?"

Most of his audience were nodding agreement, some of them impatiently,
as though wanting him to get on with it.

Crawford continued. "For a time aid to these backward nations was left
in the hands of the individual nations--especially to the United States
and Russia. However, in spite of speeches of politicians to the
contrary, governments are not motivated by humanitarian purposes. The
government of a country does what it does for the benefit of the ruling
class of that country. That was the reason it was appointed the
government. Any government that doesn't live up to this dictum soon
stops being the government."

"That isn't always so,"