The ‘native interest’ was truly born with the invention of the Mandate system in the League of Nations. Even though the ‘humanitarian’ idea that the welfare of the natives in various colonies must be promoted had been animating the imperial European conquest of Asia and Africa throughout the nineteenth century, international law had not truly been prepared for that task until the League. Indeed, the natives were seen as lazy, lacking in dynamism and entrepreneurship and were considered to lack the character necessary for capitalism, including by many social scientists in the nineteenth century. This was important, since (as mentioned in the introductory chapter) the route to civilization now lay in the transition of traditional economies into modern ones. An effort to bring welfare and development to the natives could then be justified more easily on the more culturally neutral terms of the ‘doux commerce’ thesis, rather than the more imperial, theological imperative to bring the true faith to the infidels.