The Cambridge scholar saw an ‘epoch-making’ change taking place in relations between East and West, whereby the Japanese, the Chinese and the Indians would no longer accept exclusion and disability on the grounds of race. It was increasingly clear that those whom Europeans had dismissed as ‘inferior peoples’ were not inferior in capacity; they claimed, demanded and deserved equal rights. Wolstenholme told Smuts that ‘it would surely be wise statesmanship, as well as good human fellowship, to concede in time and with a good grace what is sure eventually to be won by struggle.’
