ABSTRACT
International relations have always aroused strong passions, antipathies, and antagonisms. Some scholars wish to make the study of international relations into a science from which ethics and morality are excluded except for the purely descriptive recording of moral influences that may have affected the course of events. The historian of international affairs should, they claim, refrain from moral judgements and adhere to a position of ethical neutrality. At the present time “moral indignation” against colonialism has reached an extraordinary height, particularly in Africa and Asia. It has become a potent political force, and essentially a negative force. The ritual outpourings of moral indignation against colonialism, fostered by Russia and China to serve what they conceive to be their own national interest, encourage the masses to look backwards in anger instead of forwards in hope and determination. But indiscriminate anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism cannot be met effectively on their own ground.
