more than a formal registration
of what already existed in fact. Such is the story of the subjection of
Egypt, Morocco, and Persia, while England's Indian Empire started in a
purely trading venture--the East India Company. The tremendous potency
of "pacific penetration" is often not fully appreciated. Take the
significance of one item alone--railway concessions. Says that keen
student of _Weltpolitik_, Doctor Dillon: "Railways are the iron
tentacles of latter-day expanding Powers. They are stretched out
caressingly at first. But once the iron has, so to say, entered the soul
of the weaker nation, the tentacles swell to the dimensions of brawny
arms, and the embrace tightens to a crushing grip."[82]

On the question of the abstract rightness or wrongness of this
subjection of the East by the West, I do not propose to enter. It has
been exhaustively discussed, pro and con, and every reader of these
pages is undoubtedly familiar with the stock arguments on both sides.
The one thing certain is that this process of subjugation was, broadly
speaking, inevitable. Given two worlds at such different levels as East
and West at the beginning of the nineteenth century--the West
overflowing with vitality and striding at the forefront of human
progress, the East sunk in lethargy and decrepitude--and it was a
foregone conclusion that the former would encroach upon the latter.

What does concern us in our present discussion is the effect of European
political control upon the general process of Westernization in Eastern
lands. And there can be no doubt that such Westernization was thereby
greatly furthered. Once in control of an Oriental country, the European
rulers were bound to favour its Westernization for a variety of reasons.
Mere self-interest impelled them to make the country peaceful and
prosperous, in order to extract profit for themselves and reconcile the
inhabitants to their rule. This meant the replacement of inefficient and
sanguinary native despotisms inhibiting progress and engendering anarchy
by stable colonial governments, maintaining order, encouraging
industry, and introducing improvements like the railway, the post,
sanitation, and much more besides. In addition to these material
innovations, practically all the Western governments endeavoured to
better the social, intellectual, and spiritual condition of the peoples
that had come under their control. The European Powers who built up
colonial empires during the n