ABSTRACT
Freedom, as we know it, struggling towards equal justice, includes the right to speak our thoughts and follow our conscience, and to be protected from violence in so doing. The facts about Empire as practised have been overlaid by a wealth of theory about 'Imperialism'. We, in recent years, have made progress of a sort in thinking of the colonial peoples. The main criticism of Imperial rule is on political and economic grounds; far less is said of social and moral effects or weaknesses. The political defects cannot be denied-Imperial government must necessarily be alien and may at times be arbitrary when exercised as it is, say, by the South African police at their worst. The fact that the rulers and the ruled are of different colour is an accident, but colour is seized on as a symbol by the ignorant on both sides when difficulties of social adjustment arise.
