Immanuel KANT, 1795: Perpetual Peace. (English translation, M. CAMPBELL SMITH, 1903, London: Swan Sonnenschein; reprint 1992, Bristol: Thoemmes.

The injustice which they exhibit on visiting foreign lands and races ---this being equivalent in their eyes to conquest-- is such as to fill us with horror. America, the negro countries, the Spice Islands, the Cape etc. were, on being discovered, looked upon as countries which belonged to nobody; for the native inhabitants were reckoned as nothing. In Hindustan, under the pretext of intending to established merely commercial depots, the Europeans introduced foreign troops; and, as a result, the different states of Hindustan were stirred up to far-spreading wars. Oppression of the natives followed, famine, insurrection, perfidy and all the rest of the litany of evils which can afflict mankind. [p. 139 -- 140.]

The worst, or from the standpoint of ethical judgment the best, of all this is that no satisfaction is derived from all this violence, that all these trading companies stand on the verge of ruin, that the Sugar Islands [Indonesian Islands], that seat of the most horrible and deliberate slavery, yield no real profit, but only have their use indirectly and for no very praiseworthy object --namely, that of furnishing men to be trained as sailors for the men-of-war and thereby contributing to the carrying on of war in Europe. And this has been done by nations who make a great ado about their piety, and who, while they are quite ready to commit injustice, would like, in their orthodoxy, to be considered among the elect. [p. 141 - 142.]

This guarantee is given by no less a power than the great artist nature is whose mechanical course is clearly exhibited a predetermined design to make harmony spring from human discord, even against the will of man. [p. 143.]