ABSTRACT
CONCERN over what came to be called the "underdeveloped" portions of the world coincided with the march toward selfgovernment. There was a growing awareness by the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America of the disparities between themselves and the industrialized countries of Europe and North America in income, standards of living, and levels of schooling, health and hygiene. The fact that the list of "developed" countries included the colonial powers led to the conclusion that the exploitation by these powers of the mineral, agricultural and human resources of their possessions was the instrumentality by which they had achieved their position. Political independence represented for colonial peoples a means of recapturing control over their own resources, and thus acquiring for themselves the material benefits that had previously gone to their rulers.
