INTRODUCTION 
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a trusteeship for their colonial wards throughout the very 
period when the new colonial rivalry was at its height. This 
trend was none the less real, in spite of some serious failures 
and some reprehensible maladministration. The narra- 
tive traced deftly in these pages points to the almost in- 
evitable conclusion now realized: the exploitation of a 
continent which long involved the exploitation of its in- 
habitants is now to be conducted more and more with an 
eye to the well-being of those formerly oppressed. There is 
still much to be accomplished, as the investigations of the 
League of Nations have recently shown, in such matters as 
slavery; but in so vast and varied a problem, we must learn 
to see things as a whole, rather than to become lost in the 
detail of single parts. Whatever failures there are to be 
registered on the spot, whatever injustices may still result 
from the economic hunger of the white, when not properly 
controlled, or from absentee landlordism or commercial ex- 
ploitation, there is a rising sense of responsibility for these 
things upon the part of the colonial powers. And this, 
rather than any readjustment of frontiers, constitutes the 
distinctive note of the new era. 
It is perhaps too soon for the historian to make a com- 
parative survey of the working of the Mandate System in 
Africa. The final verdict as to the success or failure of this 
great experiment will have to await a longer trial. But no 
student of practical politics can afford to ignore the inci- 
dents of the largest of all efforts at international control. It 
is only when one recalls how vague, prior to 1918, were the 
theories as to the degree of sovereignty implied in the ac- 
ceptance of a mandate, that one appreciates the value of 
these early years of new colonial experience. And above all, 
one sees the League of Nations in a new light. It has often 
been said that the post-war state system of Europe makes 
necessary the continuance of the League of Nations no mat-