Moribund Society and Anarchy by Jean Grave

Colonization is extending too widely, in the present epoch, for us to neglect to treat separately of this hybrid product of patriotism and mercantilism combined -- brigandage and highway robbery for the benefit of the ruling classes! A private individual goes into his neighbor's house, breaks everything he lays his hands on, seizes everything he finds convenient for his own use: he is a criminal; society condemns him. But if a government find itself driven to a standstill by an internal situation which necessitates some external "diversion; " if it be encumbered at home by unemployed hands of which it knows not how to rid itself, of products which it cannot get distributed; let this government declare war against remote peoples which it knows to be too feeble to resist it, let it take possession of their country, subject them to an entire system of exploitation, force its products upon them, massacre them if they attempt to escape this exploitation with which it weighs them down -- oh, then, this is moral! From the moment you operate on a grand scale it merits the approbation of honest men. It is no longer called robbery or assassination; there is an honorable word for covering up the dishonorable deeds that government commits: this is called "civilizing" undeveloped peoples.

And let no one deem this exaggeration. No nation is reputed to be a colonizing one save when it has succeeded in getting out of a country the maximum product it is capable of yielding. Thus England is a colonizing country, because she knows how to "reward" her colonies with the prosperity of the people she sends out to rule them, how to gather back into her coffers the taxes with which she burdens them. In the Indies, for instance, those whom she sends out make colossal fortunes. The country, to be sure, is completely ravaged from time to time by frightful famines that decimate hundreds of thousands of people. But of what moment are the details so long as John Bull can market his manufactured products and thereby succeed in obtaining, for his own advantage, what the soil of Great Britain could not produce? Such are the benefits of colonization!