What he meant by Socialism can be seen from his books. Nothing in them
surprised me after our talk. His appreciation of Confucius, when I
quoted some things of the Chinese sage's which confirmed what he was
saying, was emphatic, and that and many other things showed that
Socialism to him implied the upward evolution of humanity. It was
because of the degradation of men involved that he objected to letting
individuals grab the public property--earth, air and water. Monopolies,
he thought, should at once revert to the public, and we had an argument
which showed that he had no objection to even artificial monopolies if
they were public property. He defended the old Dutch Government
monopolies of spices, and declared them better than to-day's free trade,
when cultivation is exploited by men who always tended to be mere
money-grabbers, selfish savages let loose. In answer I mentioned the
abuses of officialdom, as seen by me from the inside in Burma, and he
agreed that the mental and moral superiority of many kinds of Asiatics
to the Europeans who want to boss them made detailed European
administration an absurdity. We should leave these peoples to develop in
their own way. Having conquered Burma and India, he proceeded, the
English should take warning from history and restrict themselves to
keeping the peace, and protecting the countries they had taken. They
should give every province as much home rule as possible and as soon as
possible, and study to avoid becoming parasites.
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