Point Four and Dependent Areas

Abstract

T HE case for the inclusion of dependent areas within the purview of Point Four would appear on all counts to be irrefutable. To lend aid to the millions in non-self-governing territories to promote their progress and prosperity is to act for the benefit not only of these people themselves but also of the world at large. This fact has been recognized both by the United States in its planning for the implementation of Point Four and by the United Nations in its technical assistance and economic development proposals. By and large, the contentions in favor of the Point Four Program as related to underdeveloped areas in general are applicable without modification to dependent areas as well, but the latter present some special problems which are worthy of independent examination. Insofar as the colonial system may be said to rest on an ethical foundation (and it is in large part its defenders who would claim that it does) that foundation must be the peculiar state of backwardness of the non-self-governing peoples-their inability to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world. The mere fact of their asserted greater backwardness should inescapably establish them as the most deserving of attention under a bold new program designed to increase the availability of scientific advance and industrial progress. Politically and economically these peoples attach almost exclusively to the free democratic nations which the United States is pledged to aid through the Economic Cooperation Administration and other enterprises and policies. Their social and economic development will serve both as a bulwark against the spread of communism and as a source of strength for the metropolitan powers, at least until such time as they achieve independence or autonomy. To assist in advancing the well-being and modernization of poverty-ridden peoples throughout the world is in keeping with our new conviction that the miseries of any corner of the earth affect the wellbeing of the rest; and if such assistance speeds the disappearance of the colonial system itself, that is in accord with the old and admirable anti-imperialist tradition of the American people. Neither their dead level of poverty nor their dependent status makes it possible for the United States to pass by the nonself-governing peoples as it puts Point Four into effect.