laws is in many cases about a thousand years older than the civilisation of those whom we force to obey them. When we spend less money on paying men to tinker with those laws, and more on teaching men how to live so that they won't need those laws, then we may be really doing something towards the development of the individual. But we won't study economics sufficiently for that. We make laws. And at the same time we are making criminals."
"Punishment for crime is not man's idea. You're rating his intellect too highly. It's one of the natural primary laws."
"Of course. The moral punishment. I was speaking of the physical. The moral punishment falls on the race—on the nation. And we think to avoid it by visiting physical punishment on the few. That doesn't alter our obligations."
"Well, what are you going to do about it? I fancy other men have been struck with the same notion. But I don't observe that it's affected the world at all."
"But that doesn't alter our obligations. We white men have chosen to be rulers of the world. Do the best we can we'll have a mighty reckoning to pay for that pride. And we'll have a mighty reward for that service. But until we recognise our brotherhood, until we recognise our individual responsibility, we are not going to get much virtue out of our inheritance."
"I tell you we do what we can. I think the law is too ready to look for extenuating circumstances."
"Do you think it will find any extenuating circumstances in Andree's case?"
Dick shut his teeth with a snap on the pipe-stem. He did not look at the other man.
"How can I tell?" he said sullenly.
"Do you?"
"No."
"Nor do I. And yet we both know that they are there, and we know that the law can't recognise them. The responsibility lies with those who make it possible for a girl to grow up with no restraint, no moral training, no traditions. And it lies with those white men—those rulers of the country—who take advantage of that. We know that,
