The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy Part 4

China's possibilities of race-expansion in the colored regions of the Far East are thus excellent. The same cannot be said, however, for j.a.pan. The j.a.panese, bred in a distinctively temperate, island environment, have not the Chinese adaptability to climatic variation. The j.a.panese, like the white man, does not thrive in tropic heat, nor does he possess the white man's ability to resist sub-Arctic cold. Formosa is not in the real tropics, yet j.a.panese colonists have not done well there. On the other hand, even the far-from-Arctic winters of Hokkaido (part of the j.a.panese archipelago) seem too chilly for the j.a.panese taste.

j.a.pan thus does not have the same vital interest as China in the Asiatic tropics. Undoubtedly they would for j.a.pan be valuable colonies of exploitation, just as they to-day are thus valuable for white nations. But they could never furnish outlets for j.a.pan's excess population, and even commercially j.a.pan would be exposed to increasing Chinese compet.i.tion, since the Chinaman excels the j.a.panese in trade as well as in migrant colonization. j.a.panese lack of climatic adaptability is also the reason why j.a.pan's present military excursion in eastern Siberia, even if it should develop into permanent occupation, would yield no adequate solution of j.a.pan's population problem. For the Chinaman, Siberia would do very well. He would breed amazingly there and would fill up the whole country in a remarkably short s.p.a.ce of time. But the j.a.panese peasant, so averse to the winters of Hokkaido, would find the sub-Arctic rigors of Siberia intolerable.

Thus, for j.a.panese migration, neither the empty s.p.a.ces of northern or southern Asia will do. The natural outlets lie outside Asia in the United States, Australasia, and the temperate parts of Latin America. But all these outlets are rigorously barred by the white man, who has marked them for his own race-heritage, and nothing but force will break those barriers down.

There lies a danger, not merely to the peace of the Far East, but to the peace of the world. Fired by a fervent patriotism; resolved to make their country a leader among the nations; the j.a.panese writhe at the constriction of their present race-bounds. Placed on the flank of the Chinese giant whose portentous growth she can accurately forecast, j.a.pan sees herself condemned to ultimate renunciation of her grandiose ambitions unless she can somehow broaden the racial as well as the political basis of her power. In short: j.a.pan must find lands where j.a.panese can breed by the tens of millions if she is not to be automatically overshadowed in course of time, even a.s.suming that she does not suffocate or blow up from congestion before that time arrives. This is the secret of her aggressive foreign policy, her chronic imperialism, her extravagant dreams of conquest and "world-dominion."

The longing to hack a path to greatness by the samurai sword lurks ever in the back of j.a.panese minds. The library of Nippon's chauvinist literature is large and increasing. A good example of the earlier productions is Satori Kato's brochure ent.i.tled "Mastery of the Pacific," published in 1909. Herein the author announces confidently: "In the event of war j.a.pan could, as if aided by a magician's wand, overrun the Pacific with fleets manned by men who have made Nelson their model and transported to the armadas of the Far East the spirit that was victorious at Trafalgar.

Whether j.a.pan avows it or not, her persistent aim is to gain the mastery of the Pacific. Although peace seems to prevail over the world at present, no one can tell how soon the nations may be engaged in war. It does not need the English alliance to secure success for j.a.pan. That alliance may be dissolved at any moment, but j.a.pan will suffer no defeat. Her victory will be won by her men, not by armor-plates--things weak by comparison."[31]

The late war has of course greatly stimulated these bellicose emotions.

Viewing their own increased power and the debilitation of the white world, j.a.panese jingoes glimpse prospects of glorious fis.h.i.+ng in troubled waters. The "world-dominion" note is stressed more often than of yore. For instance, in the summer of 1919 the Tokio _Hochi_, Count Ok.u.ma's organ, prophesied exultantly: "That age in which the Anglo-j.a.panese alliance was the pivot and American-j.a.panese co-operation an essential factor of j.a.panese diplomacy is gone. In future we must not look eastward for friends.h.i.+p but westward. Let the Bolsheviki of Russia be put down and the more peaceful party established in power. In them j.a.pan will find a strong ally. By marching then westward to the Balkans, to Germany, to France, and Italy, the greater part of the world may be brought under our sway. The tyranny of the Anglo-Saxons at the Peace Conference is such that it has angered both G.o.ds and men. Some may abjectly follow them in consideration of their petty interests, but things will ultimately settle down as has just been indicated."[32]

Still more striking are the following citations from a j.a.panese imperialist p.r.o.nouncement written in the autumn of 1916:

"Fifty millions of our race wherewith to conquer and possess the earth! It is indeed a glorious problem!... To begin with, we now have China; China is our steed! Far shall we ride upon her! Even as Rome rode Latium to conquer Italy, and Italy to conquer the Mediterranean; even as Napoleon rode Italy and the Rhenish States to conquer Germany, and Germany to conquer Europe; even as England to-day rides her colonies and her so-called 'allies' to conquer her robust rival, Germany--even so shall we ride China. So becomes our 50,000,000 race 500,000,000 strong; so grow our paltry hundreds of millions of gold into billions!

"How well have done our people! How well have our statesmen led them! No mistakes! There must be none now. In 1895 we conquered China--Russia, Germany, and France stole from us the booty. How has our strength grown since then--and still it grows! In ten years we punished and retook our own from Russia; in twenty years we squared and retook from Germany; with France there is no need for haste. She has already realized why we withheld the troops which alone might have driven the invader from her soil! Her fingers are clutching more tightly around her Oriental booty; yet she knows it is ours for the taking. But there is no need of haste: the world condemns the paltry thief; only the glorious conqueror wins the plaudits and approval of mankind.

"We are now well astride of our steed, China; but the steed has long roamed wild and is run down: it needs grooming, more grain, more training.

Further, our saddle and bridle are as yet mere makes.h.i.+fts: would steed and trappings stand the strain of war? And what would that strain be?

"As for America--that fatuous b.o.o.by with much money and much sentiment, but no cohesion, no brains of government; stood she alone we should not need our China steed. Well did my friend speak the other day when he called her people a race of thieves with the hearts of rabbits. America, to any warrior race, is not as a foe, but as an immense melon, ripe for the cutting. But there are other warrior races--England, Germany--would they look on and let us slice and eat our fill? Would they?

"But, using China as our steed, should our first goal be the land? India?

Or the Pacific, the sea that must be our very own, even as the Atlantic is now England's? The land is tempting and easy, but withal dangerous. Did we begin there, the coa.r.s.e white races would too soon awaken, and combine, and forever immure us within our long since grown intolerable bounds. It must, therefore, be the sea; but the sea means the Western Americas and all the islands between; and with those must soon come Australia, India.

And then the battling for the balance of world-power, for the rest of North America. Once that is ours, we own and control the whole--a dominion worthy of our race!

"North America alone will support a billion people; that billion shall be j.a.panese with their slaves. Not arid Asia, nor worn-out Europe (which, with its peculiar and quaint relics and customs should in the interests of history and culture, be in any case preserved), nor yet tropical Africa, is fit for our people. But North America, that continent so succulently green, fresh, and unsullied--except for the few chattering, mongrel Yankees--should have been ours by right of discovery: it shall be ours by the higher, n.o.bler right of conquest."[33]

This apostle of j.a.panese world-dominion then goes on to discuss in detail how his programme can best be attained. It should be remembered that at the time he wrote America was still an unarmed nation, apparently ridden by pacifism. Such imperialist extravagances as the above do not represent the whole of j.a.pan. But they do represent a powerful element in j.a.pan, against which the white world should be forewarned.

CHAPTER III

BROWN MAN'S LAND

Brown Man's Land is the Near and Middle East. The brown world stretches in an immense belt clear across southern Asia and northern Africa, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans. The numbers of brown and yellow men are not markedly unequal (450,000,000 browns as against 500,000,000 yellows), but in most other respects the two worlds are sharply contrasted. In the first place, while the yellow world is a fairly compact geographical block, the brown world sprawls half-way round the globe, and is not only much greater in size, but also infinitely more varied in natural features.

This geographical diversity is reflected both in its history and in the character of its inhabitants. Unlike the secluded yellow world, the brown world is nearly everywhere exposed to foreign influences and has undergone an infinite series of evolutionary modifications. Racially it has been a vast melting-pot, or series of melting-pots, wherein conquest and migration have continually poured new heterogeneous elements, producing the most diverse racial amalgamations. In fact, there is to-day no generalized brown type-norm as there are generalized yellow or white type-norms, but rather a series of types clearly distinguished from one another. Some of these types, like the Persians and Ottoman Turks, are largely white; others, like the southern Indians and Yemenite Arabs, are largely black; while still others, like the Himalayan and Central Asian peoples, have much yellow blood. Again, there is no generalized brown culture like those possessed by yellows and whites. The great spiritual bond is Islam, yet in India, the chief seat of brown population, Islam is professed by only one-fifth of the inhabitants.

Nevertheless, there is a fundamental comity between the brown peoples.

This comity is subtle and intangible in character, yet it exists, and under certain circ.u.mstances it is capable of momentous manifestations. Its salient feature is the instinctive recognition by all Near and Middle Eastern peoples that they are fellow Asiatics, however bitter may be their internecine feuds. This instinctive Asiatic feeling has been noted by historians for more than two thousand years, and it is just as true to-day as in the past. Of course it comes out most strongly in face of the non-Asiatic--which in practice has always meant the white man. The action and reaction of the brown and white worlds has, indeed, been a constant historic factor, the roles of hammer and anvil being continually reversed through the ages. For the last four centuries the white world has, in the main, been the dynamic factor. Certainly, during the last hundred years the white world has displayed an unprecedentedly aggressive vigor, the brown world playing an almost pa.s.sive role.

Here again is seen a difference between browns and yellows. The yellow world did not feel the full tide of white aggression till the middle of the last century, while even then it never really lost its political independence and soon reacted so powerfully that its political freedom has to-day been substantially regained. The brown world, on the other hand, felt the impact of the white tide much earlier and was politically overwhelmed. The so-called "independence" of brown states has long been due more to white rivalries than to their own inherent strength. One by one they have been swallowed up by the white Powers. In 1914 only three (Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan) survived, and the late war has sent them the way of the rest. Turkey and Persia have lost their independence, however they may still be painted on the map, while Afghanistan has been compelled to recognize white supremacy as never before. Thus the cycle is fulfilled, and white political mastery over the brown world is complete.

Political triumphs, however, of themselves guarantee nothing, and the permanence of the present order of things in the brown world appears more than doubtful when we glance beyond the map. The brown world, like the yellow world, is to-day in acute reaction against white supremacy. In fact, the brown reaction began a full century ago, and has been gathering headway ever since, moved thereto both by its own inherent vitality and by the external stimulus of white aggression. The great dynamic of this brown reaction is the Mohammedan Revival. But before a.n.a.lyzing that movement it would be well to glance at the human elements involved.

Four salient groupings stand out among the brown peoples: India, Iran, "Arabistan," and "Turkestan." The last two words are used in a special sense to denote ethnic and cultural aggregations for which no precise terms have hitherto been coined. India is the population-centre of the brown world. More than 300,000,000 souls live within its borders--two-thirds of all the brown men on earth. India has not, however, been the brown world's spiritual or cultural dynamic, those forces coming chiefly from the brown lands to the westward. Iran (the Persian plateau) is comparatively small in area and has less than 15,000,000 inhabitants, but its influence upon the brown world has been out of all proportion to its size and population. "Arabistan" denotes the group of peoples, Arab in blood or Arabized in language and culture, who inhabit the Arabian peninsula and its adjacent annexes, Syria and Mesopotamia, together with the vast band of North Africa lying between the Mediterranean and the Sahara Desert. The total number of these Arabic peoples is 40,000,000, three-fourths of them living in North Africa. The term "Turkestan" covers the group of kindred peoples, often called "Turanians," who stretch from Constantinople to Central Asia, including the Ottoman Turks of Asia Minor, the Tartars of South Russia and Transcaucasia, and the Central Asian Turkomans. They number in all about 25,000,000. Such are the four outstanding race-factors in the brown world. Let us now examine that spiritual factor, Islam, from which the brown renaissance originally proceeded, and on which most of its present manifestations are based.

Islam's warlike vigor has impressed men's minds ever since the far-off days when its pristine fervor bore the Fiery Crescent from France to China. But with the pa.s.sing cycles this fervor waned, and a century ago Islam seemed plunged in the stupor of senile decay. The life appeared to have gone out of it, leaving naught but the dry husks of empty formalism and soulless ritual. Yet at this darkest hour a voice came crying from out the vast Arabian desert, the cradle of Islam, calling the Faithful to better things. This puritan reformer was the famous Abd-el-Wahab, and his followers, known as Wahabees, soon spread over the length and breadth of the Mohammedan world, purging Islam of its sloth and rekindling the fervor of olden days. Thus began the great Mohammedan Revival.

That revival, like all truly regenerative movements, had its political as well as its spiritual side. One of the first things which struck the reformers was the political weakness of the Moslem world and its increasing subjection to the Christian West. It was during the early decades of the nineteenth century that the revival spread through Islam.

But this was the very time when Europe, recovering from the losses of the Napoleonic Wars, began its unparalleled aggressions upon the Moslem East.

The result in Islam was a fusing of religion and patriotism into a "sacred union" for the combined spiritual regeneration and political emanc.i.p.ation of the Moslem world.

Of course Europe's material and military superiority were then so great that speedy success was recognized to be a vain hope. Nevertheless, with true Oriental patience, the reformers were content to work for distant goals, and the results of their labors, though hidden from most Europeans, was soon discernible to a few keen-sighted white observers. Half a century ago the learned Orientalist Palgrave wrote these prophetic lines: "Islam is even now an enormous power, full of self-sustaining vitality, with a surplus for aggression; and a struggle with its combined energies would be deadly indeed.... The Mohammedan peoples of the East have awakened to the manifold strength and skill of their Western Christian rivals; and this awakening, at first productive of respect and fear, not unmixed with admiration, now wears the type of antagonistic dislike, and even of intelligent hate. No more zealous Moslems are to be found in all the ranks of Islam than they who have sojourned longest in Europe and acquired the most intimate knowledge of its sciences and ways.... Mohammedans are keenly alive to the ever-s.h.i.+fting uncertainties and divisions that distract the Christianity of to-day, and to the woful instability of modern European inst.i.tutions. From their own point of view, Moslems are as men standing on a secure rock, and they contrast the quiet fixity of their own position with the unsettled and insecure restlessness of all else."[34]

This stability to which Palgrave alludes must not be confused with dead rigidity. Too many of us still think of the Moslem East as hopelessly petrified. But those Westerners best acquainted with the Islamic world a.s.sert that nothing could be farther from the truth; emphasizing, on the contrary, Islam's present plasticity and rapid a.s.similation of Western ideas and methods. "The alleged rigidity of Islam is a European myth,"[35]

says Theodore Morison, late princ.i.p.al of the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, India; and another Orientalist, Marmaduke Pickthall, writes: "There is nothing in Islam, any more than in Christianity, which should halt progress. The fact is that Christianity found, some time ago, a _modus vivendi_ with modern life, while Islam has not yet arrived thither. But this process is even now being worked out."[36]

The way in which the Mohammedan world has availed itself of white inst.i.tutions such as the newspaper in forging its new solidarity is well portrayed by Bernard Temple. "It all comes to this, then," he writes.

"World-politics, as viewed by Mohammedanism's political leaders, resolve themselves into a struggle--not necessarily a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle, but still an intense and vital struggle--for place and power between the three great divisions of mankind. The Moslem mind is deeply stirred by the prospect.

Every Moslem country is in communication with every other Moslem country: directly, by means of special emissaries, pilgrims, travellers, traders, and postal exchanges; indirectly, by means of Mohammedan newspapers, books, pamphlets, leaflets, and periodicals. I have met with Cairo newspapers in Bagdad, Teheran, and Peshawar; Constantinople newspapers in Basra and Bombay; Calcutta newspapers in Mohammerah, Kerbela, and Port Said."[37]

These European judgments are confirmed by what Asiatics say themselves.

For example, a Syrian Christian, Ameen Rihani, thus characterizes the present strength and vitality of the Moslem world: "A nation of 250,000,000 souls, more than one-half under Christian rule, struggling to shake off its fetters; to consolidate its opposing forces; replenis.h.i.+ng itself in the south and in the east from the inexhaustible sources of the life primitive; a.s.similating in the north, but not without discrimination, the civilization of Europe; a nation with a glorious past, a living faith and language, an inspired Book, an undying hope, might be divided against itself by European diplomacy but can never be subjugated by European arms.... What Islam is losing on the borders of Europe it is gaining in Africa and Central Asia through its modern propaganda, which is conducted according to Christian methods. And this is one of the grand results of 'civilization by benevolent a.s.similation.' Europe drills the Moslem to be a soldier who will ultimately turn his weapons against her; and she sends her missionaries to awaken in the ulema the proselytizing evil."[38]

Typical of Mohammedan literature on this subject are the following excerpts from a book published at Cairo in 1907 by an Egyptian, Yahya Siddyk, significantly ent.i.tled "The Awakening of the Islamic Peoples in the Fourteenth Century of the Hegira."[39] The book is doubly interesting because the author has a thorough Western education, holding a law degree from the French university of Toulouse, and is a judge on the Egyptian bench. Although writing as far back as 1907, Yahya Siddyk clearly foresaw the imminence of the European War. "Behold," he writes, "these Great Powers ruining themselves in terrifying armaments; measuring each other's strength with defiant glances; menacing each other; contracting alliances which continually break and which presage those terrible shocks which overturn the world and cover it with ruins, fire, and blood! The future is G.o.d's, and nothing is lasting save His Will!"

He considers the white world degenerate. "Does this mean," he asks, "that Europe, our 'enlightened guide,' has already reached the summit of its evolution? Has it already exhausted its vital force by two or three centuries of hyper-exertion? In other words: is it already stricken with senility, and will it see itself soon obliged to yield its civilizing role to other peoples less degenerate, less neurasthenic; that is to say, younger, more robust, more healthy, than itself? In my opinion, the present marks Europe's apogee, and its immoderate colonial expansion means, not strength, but weakness. Despite the aureole of so much grandeur, power, and glory, Europe is to-day more divided and more fragile than ever, and ill conceals its malaise, its sufferings, and its anguish.

Its destiny is inexorably working out!...

"The contact of Europe on the East has caused us both much good and much evil: good, in the material and intellectual sense; evil, from the moral and political point of view. Exhausted by long struggles, enervated by a brilliant civilization, the Moslem peoples inevitably fell into a malaise, but they are not stricken, they are not dead! These peoples, conquered by the force of cannon, have not in the least lost their unity, even under the oppressive regimes to which the Europeans have long subjected them....

I have said that the European contact has been salutary to us from both the material and the intellectual point of view. What reforming Moslem Princes wished to impose by force on their Moslem subjects is to-day realized a hundredfold. So great has been our progress in the last twenty-five years in science, letters, and art that we may well hope to be in all these things the equals of Europeans in less than half a century....

"A new era opens for us with the fourteenth century of the Hegira, and this happy century will mark our renaissance and our great future! A new breath animates the Mohammedan peoples of all races; all Moslems are penetrated with the necessity of work and instruction! We all wish to travel, do business, tempt fortune, brave dangers. There is in the East, among the Mohammedans, a surprising activity, an animation, unknown twenty-five years ago.... There is to-day a real public opinion throughout the East."

The author concludes: "Let us hold firm, each for all, and let us hope, hope, hope! We are fairly launched on the path of progress: let us profit by it! It is Europe's very tyranny which has wrought our transformation!

It is our continued contact with Europe which favors our evolution and inevitably hastens our revival! It is simply History repeating itself; the Will of G.o.d fulfilling itself despite all opposition and all resistance.... Europe's tutelage over Asiatics is becoming more and more nominal--the gates of Asia are closing against the European! Surely we glimpse before us a revolution without parallel in the world's annals. A new age is at hand!"[40]

If this be indeed the present spirit of Islam it is a portentous fact, for its numerical strength is very great. The total number of Mohammedans is estimated at from 200,000,000 to 250,000,000, and they not only predominate throughout the brown world with the exception of India, but they also count 10,000,000 adherents in China and are gaining prodigiously among the blacks of Africa.

The proselyting power of Islam is extraordinary, and its hold upon its votaries is even more remarkable. Throughout history there has been no single instance where a people, once become Moslem, has ever abandoned the faith. Extirpated they may have been, like the Moors of Spain, but extirpation is not apostasy. This extreme tenacity of Islam, this ability to keep its hold, once it has got a footing, under all circ.u.mstances short of downright extirpation, must be borne in mind when considering the future of regions where Islam is to-day advancing.

And, save in eastern Europe, it is to-day advancing along all its far-flung frontiers. Its most signal victories are being won among the negro races of central Africa, and this phase will be discussed in the next chapter, but elsewhere the same conditions, in lesser degree, prevail. Every Moslem is a born missionary and instinctively propagates his faith among his non-Moslem neighbors. The quality of this missionary temper has been well a.n.a.lyzed by Meredith Townsend. "All the emotions which impel a Christian to proselytize," he writes, "are in a Mussulman strengthened by all the motives which impel a political leader and all the motives which sway a recruiting sergeant, until proselytism has become a pa.s.sion, which, whenever success seems practicable, and especially success on a large scale, develops in the quietest Mussulman a fury of ardor which induces him to break down every obstacle, his own strongest prejudices included, rather than stand for an instant in the neophyte's way. He welcomes him as a son, and whatever his own lineage, and whether the convert be negro, or Chinaman, or Indian, or even European, he will without hesitation or scruple give him his own child in marriage, and admit him fully, frankly, and finally into the most exclusive circle in the world."[41]

Such is the vast and growing body of Islam, to-day seeking to weld its forces into a higher unity for the combined objectives of spiritual revival and political emanc.i.p.ation. This unitary movement is known as "Pan-Islamism." Most Western observers seem to think that Pan-Islamism centres in the "Caliphate," and European writers to-day hopefully discuss whether the Caliphate's retention by the discredited Turkish Sultans, its transferrence to the rulers of the new Arab Hedjaz Kingdom, or its total suppression, will best clip Islam's wings.

This, however, is a very short-sighted and partial view. The Khalifa or "Caliph" (to use the Europeanized form), the Prophet's representative on earth, has played an important historic role, and the inst.i.tution is still venerated in Islam. But the Pan-Islamic leaders have long been working on a much broader basis. Pan-Islamism's real driving power lies, not in the Caliphate, but in inst.i.tutions like the "Hajj" or pilgrimage to Mecca, the propaganda of the "Habl-ul-Matin" or "Tie of True Believers," and the great religious fraternities. The Meccan Hajj, where tens of thousands of picked zealots gather every year from every quarter of the Moslem world, is really an annual Pan-Islamic congress, where all the interests of the faith are discussed at length, and where plans are elaborated for its defense and propagation. Similarly ubiquitous is the Pan-Islamic propaganda of the Habl-ul-Matin, which works tirelessly to compose sectarian differences and traditional feuds. Lastly, the religious brotherhoods cover the Islamic world with a network of far-flung a.s.sociations, quickening the zeal of their myriad members and co-ordinating their energies for potential action.

The greatest of these brotherhoods (though there are others of importance) is the famous Senussiyah, and its history well ill.u.s.trates Islam's evolution during the past hundred years. Its founder, Seyyid Mahommed ben Senussi, was born in Algeria about the beginning of the nineteenth century. He was of high Arab lineage, tracing his descent from Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet. In early youth he went to Arabia and there came under the influence of the Wahabee movement. In middle life he returned to Africa, settling in the Sahara Desert, and there built up the fraternity which bears his name. Before his death the order had spread to all parts of the Mohammedan world, but it is in northern Africa that it has attained its peculiar pre-eminence. The Senussi Order is divided into local "Zawias" or lodges, all absolutely dependent upon the Grand Lodge, headed by The Master, El Senussi. The Grand Masters.h.i.+p still remains in the family, a grandson of the founder being the order's present head. The Senussi stronghold is an oasis in the very heart of the Sahara. Only one European eye has ever seen this mysterious spot. Surrounded by absolute desert, with wells many leagues apart and the routes of approach known only to experienced Senussi guides, every one of whom would suffer a thousand deaths rather than betray him, El Senussi, The Master, sits serenely apart, sending his orders throughout North Africa.

The Sahara itself is absolutely under Senussi control, while "Zawias"

abound in distant regions like Morocco, Lake Chad, and Somaliland. These local Zawias are more than mere "lodges." Their spiritual and secular heads, the "Mokaddem" or priest and the "Wekil" or civil governor, have discretionary authority not merely over the Zawia members, but also over the community at large--at least, so great is the awe inspired by the Senussi throughout North Africa that a word from Wekil or Mokaddem is always listened to and obeyed. Thus, beside the various European authorities, British, French, or Italian as the case may be, there exists an occult government with which the colonial authorities are careful not to come into conflict.