Those who have had occasion to make a special study of colonial affairs cannot have failed to observe that the subject of colonial administration is one which is assuming from year to year a higher degree of importance, and is drawing to itself a constantly increasing share of public attention.

This access of interest in a branch of investigation hitherto very generally regarded as a curious by-product rather than as a vital part of Political Science, has served the useful purpose of disclosing to the student in this neglected field the failure of the great majority of recent writers to approach the colonial problem in that scientific spirit which in other departments of study is alone held to justify a public expression of opinion.

Indeed, so wide is the range of occupations which have added their followers to the ranks of writers upon colonial government—a range which embraces lawyers, doctors, soldiers, sailors, politicians, presidential candidates, ministers of the gospel, labor leaders, poets, geologists, engineers, and professors of subjects as wide apart as ethics and zoology—that one is almost tempted to believe that a knowledge of calligraphy is regarded as the only qualification necessary for a writer on colonial topics.