ing a success of her colonial work because she is controlled by liberal ideas, does not exploit the natives and recognizes that "to attempt to govern a country without those, or against those to whom it belongs, is a blunder."55

Italy was without experience in such work and it is still uncertain whether her people possess at present the qualities which are essential for it. Colonies it was urged would increase her importance politically, build up her trade, provide a place for her dissatisfied contadini and thus stop the draining away of her manhood. But she entered the field hesitatingly. Soon after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 she purchased Assab on the coast of the Red Sea. For a time thereafter the agitation for colonies seems to have subsided.56 In 1882 Italy refused to cooperate with Great Britain in Egypt. The occupation of the Port of Massowah in 1885, in consequence of the massacre of a party of scientists, resulted in one of those outbursts of public feeling to which the people of all races seemed to be subject. "Were not the Romans the first of colonizers? Could the Italians acknowledge themselves degenerate sons of these hardy Venetians, Genoese and Pisans who were medieval lords of trade and of commercial factories?" Between 1885 and 1895 Italy acquired by conquest approximately one hundred thousand square miles of territory along the western shores of the Red Sea and a protectorate over some of the surrounding country. But in teenth Century, Vol. LXXIII, p. 728 (April, 1913), and a review of Mrs. Roy's book by Lord Cromer in The Spectator for May 31, 1913.

M. Millet says: "The new conception implies that France has to grant definite rights to her citizens. The Algerian Moslems are to enjoy fiscal equality, justice and sufficient power to defend their own interests and to take part in the administration of the colony."

55 Powell (The Last Frontier, p. 6) says: "The most casual traveler can not but be impressed by the thoroughness with which France has gone into the schoolmaster business in her African domains. She believes that the best way to civilize native races is by training their minds, and she does not leave so important a work to the missionaries either. In Tunisia alone

there are something over 1,500 educational institutions; all down the feverstricken West Coast, under the palm-thatched roofs of Madagascar and the crackling tin ones of Equatoria, millions of dusky youngsters are being taught by Gallic schoolmasters that p-a-t-r-i-e spells 'France'."

56 Brunialti, Le colonie degli Italiani (Torino, 1897), p. 323; cited in Keller, Colonization, p. 519.

1896 she met with a disaster which for a time dampened the enthusiasm for a colonial policy. At the battle of Abba Garima an Italian force of twelve thousand men was annihilated by the Abyssinians.

During the succeeding years the Italian possessions were organized under the name of Eritrea. No more territory was to be acquired and Eritrea was to be governed on the most advanced and liberal principles. The Italians intended, so they announced, to avoid Spanish formalism, Dutch egoism, French concentration and the too diverse conditions of English colonization. They intended to give the people simple justice and economic and commercial prosperity. So much for the theory. In reality, says Professor Keller, they "always proceeded toward Abyssinia as toward a people ignorant and barbarous, whom they thought it not only allowable, but easy to deceive."

Nevertheless considerable progress was made toward developing the country. Roads were constructed, artesian wells dug, and lighthouses built, all by native labor. Schools were established in which the boys and girls were taught Italian, Arabic, arithmetic, hygiene and gymnastics. Although the administration was not phenomenally successful, it was creditable to the Italians, 58

In 1912 the revival of the expansion fever led to the war with Turkey and the annexation of Tripoli, which is now being administered under the name of Libia. The work is as yet in the experimental stage. There is in Italy, as in the United States, a strong party which is violently opposed to expansion,59 but its supporters assert that the colonial policy has already been justified by results.60 It is not yet time to pass judgment upon modern Italy as a colonizing power. Her initial efforts were failures, but she seems to have learned something from her misfortunes. Her statesmen and administrators are studying the

57 Keller, Colonization, pp. 525, 526.

58 See "Italy in Africa," The Nation, LX, p. 179.

59 "Italian Imperialism," Fortnightly Review, February, 1914.

60 "Italy a Year After the Libian War," by Luigi Villari, Fortnightly Review, November, 1913.

61

problems of colonization in a scientific spirit, and there seems to be no reason why she may not ultimately be successful.

During the thirty years immediately preceding the war, Germany was the most active and aggressive of the colonial powers. Having determined to claim her "place in the sun" she acted with characteristic promptness and precision.62 Her theory of colonization was definite and understandable. Each colony was to be a little Prussia, and there was to be no nonsense about native rights and privileges.

Soon after the Franco-Prussian War the Germans began to look about for new territory.63 Bismarck, who was not much of a Kolonialmensch, waited patiently until the new empire had been firmly cemented and the foundation of a navy laid and then yielded to the growing demand. In 1884 Germany had no territory beyond the seas. One year later she was in possession of an external empire of more than one million square miles with a population of ten million. Of this all but ninety-six thousand square miles was in Africa. With the exception of the Bismarck Archipelago, the so-called New Philippines, a few small islands such as in the Samoan group, and Kaiou Chau, which was Germany's gateway to China, her colonial possessions at the

61 For a list of recent Italian books and monographs on colonization, see United Empire (N. S.) IV, p. 284.

62 "German Colonial Policy," an address by Prof. M. Bonn, of Munich, before the Royal Colonial Institute, January 13, 1914, United Empire, V. (N. S.), No. 2, pp. 126. This is an authoritative and very valuable statement of the condition of the German colonies and of the national colonial policy just before the beginning of the war. See also "The German Colonies, 1010-11," by L. Hamilton, United Empire, III, (N. S.). No. 12; "German Colonial Policy," by the same writer, United Empire, IV (N. S.), No. 2 (1913), p. 150; "German Colonies in 1912-13, United Empire, V, No. 6, p. 493.

63 Mr. E. A. Powell (The Last Frontier), p. 166 (1912), gives the following graphic description of German methods:

"Germany has deliberately embarked on a systematic campaign of world expansion and exploitation. Finding that she needs a colonial empire in her business, she set out to build one just as she would build a fleet of dreadnaughts or a ship canal. The fact that she has nothing, or next to nothing to start with, does not worry her at all. What she can not obtain by purchase or treaty and what she can not obtain by threats she stands ready to obtain by going to war. Having once made up her mind that the realization of her political, commercial and economic ambition requires her to have colonial dominion, she is not going to permit anything to stand in the way of her getting it."

64 Lowe, Prince Bismarck, p. 172; Keltie, The Partition of Africa, p. 170.

beginning of the war in August, 1914, were divided into four groups-Togo, the Cameroons, German East Africa and German Southwest Africa.

The Cameroons and Togo are tropical countries consisting of malarial lowlands with high inland plateaus inhabited by about three and one-half million natives. In 1913 there was a small German population of about sixteen hundred, of which five hundred were merchants.

German East Africa is also a tropical country with an enormous table-land about thirty-five hundred feet above the sea level, where Europeans may live with reasonable comfort. The population consists of seven and one-half million natives and five thousand Europeans.

German Southwest Africa is mainly an elevated table-land divided from the sea by a broad, slowly rising, uninhabited desert and interspersed with mountain ranges. The climate resembles that of the Orange River country and Rhodesia. It has a sparse native population. It is not suitable for close settlement and the Germans divided the country into big farms ranging from six to forty thousand acres each. There are only about eighty-five thousand natives. In 1914 the white population was considerable and was slowly increasing. It is the most European of Germany's colonies. It can fairly be said to be a white man's country, but all manual labor is done by natives. "The real problem of Southwest Africa," said Professor Bonn,65 "has always been not only how to find the white men to settle the country, but quite as much how to find colored laborers to support them when settled."

This statement suggests a remarkable fact in the recent economic history of Germany. She entered upon her career as a colonial power during a period of commercial depression, and it was assumed that the emigration which marked the preceding period would continue. The Germans were asking themselves, “Are we going on contributing to build up foreign states with 65 German Colonial Policy, supra.

our best bone and brain? If not, what is the remedy?" The answer was, acquire territory where they can settle and remain Germans. But after the territory was acquired Germans almost ceased to emigrate." The yearly loss of one hundred thirty thousand between 1881 and 1890 fell to twenty-two thousand during the years 1901-10 and to eighteen thousand five hundred in 1913. For several years before the war about seven hundred thousand migratory foreign laborers entered Germany each year to engage in agricultural work. While developing colonies the Germans were developing Germany as well. In 1882 German industry employed six million four hundred thousand men; in 1907, eleven million three hundred thousand men. Nor was Germany overpopulated, having but 310.4 persons to the square mile, as against 618 in England.

Even if the establishment of settlement colonies in Africa was practicable, it had become evident that no German material would be available until industrial depression or social discontent again moved the Germans to leave their Fatherland.

Germany was thus in the possession of a great territory in the tropics which she was developing with money out of the Imperial Treasury by the use of native labor. While a few enthusiasts still hoped to establish settlement colonies, the German government, according to Professor Bonn, had "shown plainly enough that their idea of colonization is not a policy of settlement, but one of commercial exploitation." That is, Germany was still in the plantation era of colonial development. She wanted land where she could grow raw material and develop open markets for her manufactured articles. Her real and only immediate problem was the old one of securing and handling native labor in the tropics. The question, said Professor Bonn, was: "What are we going to do with the natives when we have the power to shape their fate? We want them to be as numerous as possible and as skilful and as intelligent as we can make them. For only

66 Many German emigrants preferred to live and do business in British colonies. Powell, The Last Frontier, pp. 2, 185.