ABSTRACT
In conformity with its double parentage in the evangelical and free-trade movements the theory of colonial trusteeship has two sides. The mandate is a 'dual' one; the trusteeship is exercised for the sake both of the 'backward' peoples and 'the commerce of the world'. Under the conditions from which the theory arose each of the two elements in it appeared to reinforce and support the other. By granting equal commercial opportunity to the traders of all nations the imperial power drew the sting from sovereignty and assuaged the international jealousies which inevitably arise when empire connotes economic monopoly or privilege. By the same policy the imperial power safeguarded its colonial subjects against the evils of economic subservience to a single European nation. The open competition of traders from many nations assured to colonial producers the fair market price for their exports; the same competition was a guarantee to colonial consumers that they would not be overcharged for their imports. Thus. to all seeming. Great Britain's colonial system fitted perfectly into that programme of 'the harmonisation of interests' which. according to Sir Eyre Crowe. was a necessity of imperial policy. It enabled the British Empire to erect its defences. not merely upon the foundation of armed power. but on the foundation of consent-consent of the people in whose interest. and with whose increasing participation, it governed: consent of the whole society of nations who were free to share the material advantages created by just government and impartial commerce . . . . This. at any rate. was the official doctrine. 1
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries this conception of commerce 'and colonisation enjoyed high international *Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press from W. K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, Volume ii, (1942).
