Tradition 17
common good, the answer must regretfully, but not the less
clearly, be in the negative.”
In Africa the case is different. There the invasion of
western civilization took the form, not of an attack upon
old cultures by new theories of government or the social
order, but of the trader and the permanent white settler.
Those who know Africa best deplore the effect that these
impacts have had upon its tribal cultures. Where white and
black come together the latter often degenerates. After
the impact he is driven as a dangerous derelict out on the
high seas far from his old home, poor though that was.
And the effect on the white is ominous, for he too may turn
into a drifter unskilled, and become in time a castaway. In
the Union of South Africa there were said to be in 1929,
one hundred and fifty thousand “poor whites,” or one-tenth
of the white population.
As we look out into the future of the world, the prob-
lems that should cause us most anxiety are not economic
but racial. At present our commercial and industrial de-
pression fills the scene for the average person; but he who
considers even casually the world view must realize that
the more distant prospect is the more alarming. We can
diagnose our present economic troubles ; our economists are
agreed that they spring chiefly from over-emphasis on na-
tionalism, expressing itself in too high tariffs and in political
self-sufficiency, and from fear and mistrust of one another.
We must learn sense and get into a more cooperative frame
of mind. Unless human nature has in our time permanently
lost its balance, our economic recovery is sure though it
may be slow, and possibly society will be radically changed,
though here again the conservative power of tradition must
be taken into account. But racial ciashings are growing