the other day two suave, frock-coated gentlemen, seated at a green-covered table in the foreign office in berlin, by putting their names to the bottom of a piece of parchment, caused a territory almost as large as the state of texas to become french, and another territory, larger than the state of oregon, to become german. about as many people were affected, though not consulted, by that international dicker—which has passed into history as the morocco-equatoria convention—as there are in the county of london. the lot of about four-fifths of these people will doubtless be materially improved, and in a few years, if they have any gratitude in their moorish souls, they will be thanking allah for having given them french instead of sherifian justice. as for those congolese blacks who compose the other fifth, they will soon find, unless i am very much mistaken, that the red-white-and-black flag stands for something very different from the red-white-and-blue one, and that the stiff-backed, guttural-tongued german officers in their tight-fitting uniforms will prove sterner masters than the easy-going french administrateurs in their topées and white linen.
now the significance of that convention does not lie in its ethics—which are very questionable; nor in [pg 166] the territory and population and resources concerned—which are very great; but in the fact that it brings within reasonable measure of fulfilment the imperial dream which william ii began dreaming some seven and twenty years ago, and which he recently translated to the world in the declaration “germany's future lies oversea.” in those four words is found the foreign policy of the fatherland. the episode which began with the sending of a war-ship to an obscure port of morocco and ended with germany's acquirement of a material addition to her african domain was not, as the world supposes, an example of the haphazard land-grabbing so popular with european nations, but a single phase of a vast and carefully laid scheme whose aim is the creation of a new and greater germany oversea—a deutschland über meer.
to solve the problems with which she has been confronted by her amazing increase in population and production, germany has deliberately embarked on a systematic campaign of world expansion and exploitation. finding that she needs a colonial empire in her business, she is setting out to build one just as she would build a fleet of dreadnoughts 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 cannot obtain by purchase or treaty site will obtain by threats, and what she cannot obtain by threats she stands perfectly ready to obtain by going to war. having once made up her mind that the realisation of her political, commercial, and economic ambitions requires her to have a colonial [pg 167] dominion, she is not going to permit anything to stand in the way of her getting it. in other words, wherever an excuse can be provided for raising a flagstaff, whether on an ice-floe in the arctic or an atoll in the south pacific, there the german flag shall flutter; wherever trade is to be found, there hamburg cargo boats shall drop their anchors, there stettin engines shall thunder over essen rails, there solingen cutlery and silesian cottons shall be sold by merchants speaking the language of the fatherland. it is a scheme astounding by its very vastness, as methodically planned as a breakfast-food manufacturer's advertising campaign and as systematically conducted; and already, thanks to teutonic audacity, aggressiveness, and perseverance, backed up by german banks, fleets, and armies, much nearer realisation than most people suppose.
in morocco, east africa, and the congo; in turkey, persia, and malaysia; in hayti, brazil, and the argentine; on the shores of all the continents and the islands of all the seas, german merchants and german money are working twenty-four hours a day building up that oversea empire of which the kaiser dreams. the activities of these pioneers of commerce and finance are as varied as commerce and finance themselves. their guttural voices are heard in every market place; their footsteps resound in every avenue of human endeavour. their holdings in brazil are the size of european kingdoms, and so absolute has their power become in at least two states—santa catharina and rio grande do sul—that the brazilian government has [pg 168] become seriously alarmed. their mines in persia and china and the rand rival the cave of aladdin. they are completing a trunk line across western asia which threatens to endanger england's commercial supremacy in india; in africa they are pushing forward another railway from the shores of the indian ocean to the great lakes which will rival the cape-to-cairo system in tapping the trade of the dark continent. they own the light, power, and transportation monopolies of half the capitals of latin america. in china the coal mines and railways of the great province of shantung are in their hands. they work tea plantations in ceylon, tobacco plantations in cuba and sumatra, coffee plantations in guatemala, rubber plantations in the congo, hemp plantations in east africa, and cotton plantations in the delta of the nile. their argosies, flying the house flags of the hamburg american, the north german lloyd, the german east africa, the deutsche levante, and a score of other lines, carry german goods to german warehouses in the world's remotest corners, while german war-ships are constantly aprowl all up and down the seven seas, ready to protect the interests thus created by the menace of their guns.
back of the german miners and traders and railway builders are the great german banks, which, when all is said and done, are the real exploiters of germany's interests oversea. so completely are the foreign interests of the nation in their hands that there is no reason to doubt the story that the emperor, when warned by the great bankers whom he had summoned to a [pg 169] conference over the ominous moroccan situation that war with france would endanger, if not destroy, germany's oversea ambitions, turned to his ministers with the remark, “then, gentlemen, we must find a peaceable solution.” we of the west have not yet awakened to a realisation of the magnitude of germany's foreign interests or to the almost sovereign powers which the banks behind them exercise in certain quarters of the world—particularly in that latin america which we have complacently regarded as securely within our own commercial sphere. in asia minor the deutsche bank not only controls the great anatolian railway system but it is building the bagdad railway—probably the most important of germany's foreign undertakings—these two german-owned systems providing a route by which german goods can be carried over german rails to india more cheaply than england can transport her own goods to her possessions in her own bottoms. in one hand the disconto bank gesellschaft holds the railway and mining concessions of the chinese province of shantung, while with the other it reaches out across the world to grasp the railway system of venezuela, it being to enforce certain claims of this bank that the german gun-boat panther—the same that occupied agadir—bombarded la guayra in 1902 and as a consequence brought the relations of the united states and germany uncomfortably close to the breaking-point. seven german banks—the german-asiatic bank, the german-brazilian bank, the german-orient bank, the german-palestine bank, the bank of [pg 170] chile and germany, the bank of central america, and the german overseas bank—devote themselves exclusively to the exploitation of foreign concessions, either owning or dominating enterprises of every conceivable character in the regions denoted by their titles or lending financial assistance to german subjects engaged in such undertakings.
a few years ago, when germany was starting in the race for naval supremacy, the imperial admiralty issued a review of germany's oversea interests for the purpose of impressing the reichstag with the necessity for dreadnoughts and then more dreadnoughts. here are some of the figures, taken from the list at random, and the more impressive because they are from official sources and because, since they were published, they have materially increased:
north africa $25,000,000
egypt 22,500,000
liberia 1,250,000
zanzibar 1,500,000
mozambique 2,750,000
madagascar 1,500,000
british south africa 337,500,000
turkey and the balkans 112,500,000
british india and ceylon 27,500,000
straits settlements 8,750,000
china 87,500,000
mexico 87,500,000
venezuela and colombia 312,500,000
peru and chile 127,500,000
argentine 187,500,000
brazil 400,000,000
and this endless caravan of figures represents but a fraction of germany's transmarine interests, remember, for [pg 171] it does not include her colonies on both coasts of africa, in north china, and in the south seas. now, if you will again glance over the above list of germany's foreign interests, you can hardly fail to be struck by the fact that by far the greater part of them are in countries notorious for the weakness and instability of their governments, as, for example, china, morocco, turkey, liberia, mexico, and venezuela; or in countries which, though possessing stable governments, would not be strong enough successfully to resist german aggression or german demands. in regions where german settlers abound and where german banks are in financial control it is seldom difficult for germany to find an excuse for meddling. it may be that a german settler is attacked, or a german consul insulted, or a german bank has difficulty in collecting its debts. so the slim cables carry a dash-dotted message to the foreign office in berlin; instantly the cry goes up that in morocco or china or venezuela or hayti german “interests” are imperilled; and before the government of the country in question realises that anything out of the ordinary has happened a cruiser with a german flag drooping from her taffrail is lying off one of its coast towns. before the silent menace of that war-ship is removed, germany generally manages to obtain a concession to build a railway, or a ninety-nine-year lease of a coaling-station, or the cession of a strip of more or less valuable territory, and so goes merrily and steadily on the work of building up a german empire oversea.
but these interests, world-wide though they are, [pg 172] fail to satisfy the german expansionist party whose prophet is the kaiser. they demand something more material than figures; they would see the german flag floating over government houses instead of warehouses, over fortifications instead of plantations. they would see more of the map of the world painted in german colours. but germany was late in getting into the colonising game, so that wherever she has gone she has found other nations already in possession. in north africa her prospectors and concession-hunters found the french too firmly established to be ousted; the only territory left in south africa over which she could raise her flag was so arid and worthless that neither england nor portugal had troubled to include it in their dominions; though she bullied china into leasing her the port of kiauchau, the further territorial expansion in the celestial empire of which she had dreamed was halted by russian jealousy and japanese ambition; around latin america—the most enticing field of all—stretched the protecting arm of the monroe doctrine.
now, these “keep off the grass” signs with which she was everywhere confronted did not improve germany's disposition. they made her feel abused and peevish, and whenever she saw a foreign flag flying over some god-forsaken islet in the pacific or a stretch of snake-infested african jungle, she resented it deeply and said that she was being denied “a place in the sun.” so when france despatched an expedition to fez in the summer of 1911 to teach the moorish tribesmen proper respect for french property and french lives, germany [pg 173] seized on that action as an excuse for occupying a moroccan harbour and a strip of the adjacent coast, on the pretext that her interests there were being jeopardised, and flatly refused to evacuate it unless france gave her something in return. i might mention, in passing, that germany's interests in morocco are considerably more important than is generally supposed, the powerful westphalian firm of mannesmann brothers having obtained from sultan abdul aziz extensive mining, ranching, and plantation concessions in that portion of his empire which the german newspapers proceeded to prematurely dub “west marokko deutsch.” the rich iron deposits in this region, when taken in conjunction with the alarming decrease of the ore supply in the german mines and the consequent shortage which threatens the german iron and steel industry, undoubtedly provided one of the reasons underlying the kaiser's interference with the french programme in morocco.
france, knowing full well the enormous political and commercial value of morocco, and determined to complete her african empire by its acquirement, after months of haggling, during which battle-ships and army corps were moved about like chessmen, consented to compensate germany by ceding her a slice of the colony of french equatorial africa, better known, perhaps, as the french congo. [4] it was a good bargain that france made, too, for she took an empire and gave a jungle in [pg 174] exchange. but germany made the better bargain, it seems to me, for by agreeing to a french protectorate over morocco she obtained one hundred thousand square miles of african soil without its costing her a foot of land or a dollar in exchange. from the view-point of the world at large, germany emerged from the moroccan imbroglio with a good-sized strip of equatorial territory, presumably rich in undeveloped resources, certainly rich in savages, snakes, and fevers, and, everything considered, of very doubtful value. but to germany this stretch of jungle land meant far more than that. it was a territory which she had wanted, watched, and waited for ever since she entered the game of colonial expansion. it is one of the links—in many respects the most essential one—which she requires to connect her scattered possessions in the dark continent and to bar the advance of her great rival, england, to the northward by stretching an unbroken chain of german colonies across africa from coast to coast. the acquisition of that piece of west-coast jungle marked the greatest stride which germany has yet taken in her march toward an empire oversea.
[4] germany has given her new colony the official designation “new kamerun.”
heretofore germany has been in much the same predicament as a boy who tries to put a picture puzzle together when some of the pieces are missing. in germany's case the missing pieces were held by england, france, belgium, and portugal, and they refused to give them up. if you will open the family atlas to the map of africa, you will see that germany's four colonies on that continent are so widely separated that their consolidation [pg 175] is apparently out of the question. northernmost of all, and set squarely in the middle of that pestilential coast-line variously named and noted for its slaves, its ivory, and its gold, and aptly called “the rottenest coast in the world,” is the colony of togo. approximately the size of cuba and rich in native products, it is so remote from the other german possessions that its only value is in providing germany with a quid pro quo which she can use in negotiating for some territory more desirable. in the right angle formed by the gulf of guinea is the colony of kamerun, a rich, fertile, and exceedingly unhealthful possession about the size of spain. though its hinterland reaches inland to lake tchad, it has hitherto been destitute of good harbours or navigable rivers, being barred from the niger by british nigeria and from the congo, until the recent territorial readjustment, by french equatorial africa. follow the same coast-line twelve hundred miles to the southward and you will come to german southwest africa, a barren, inhospitable, sparsely populated land, stretching from a harbourless coast as far inland as the desert of kalahari. on the other side of the continent, just south of the equator, lies german east africa, almost twice the size of the mother country and the largest and richest of the kaiser's transmarine possessions. the combined area of these four colonies is equal to that of all the states east of the mississippi put together; certainly a substantial foundation on which to begin the erection of an empire, especially when it is remembered that french africa, which now [pg 176] comprises forty-five per cent of the continent, is for the most part the work of but a single generation.
when monsieur cambon and herr von kiderlein-waechter put their pens to the piece of parchment of which i have already spoken, the boundary of the kamerun was automatically extended southward almost to the equator and eastward some hundreds of miles to the logone river, the apex of the angle formed by the meeting of these new frontiers touching the congo river and thereby bringing the kamerun into contact with the belgian congo. in other words, germany's great colonies on either coast are no longer separated by french and belgian territory, but by belgian alone—and belgium, remember, is both weak and neutral. now, it is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility that belgium might consent to sell germany either the whole or a portion of the congo, for the financial difficulties of that colony have been very great, and it has never been able to pay its way, its wants having been supplied at first by large gifts of money from king leopold, and more recently by loans raised and guaranteed by belgium. this unsatisfactory financial condition not having helped to popularise the congo with the thrifty belgians, there is considerable reason to believe that the brussels government would lend an attentive ear to any proposals which germany might make toward its purchase. england might be expected, of course, to oppose the sale of the congo to germany tooth and nail, it being the fear of just such an eventuality which caused her to seize on the rubber atrocities as an excuse for her [pg 177] vigorous and persistent advocacy of the internationalisation of the congo. though france holds the reversionary rights to the congo, there are no grounds for believing that she would place any serious obstacles in the way of its acquisition by germany, for she has given it to be understood that she intends devoting her energies henceforward to the exploitation of her enormous possessions in north africa. assuming, then—and these assumptions, believe me, are not nearly so chimerical as they may sound—that the belgian government should sell germany all or a part of the congo, germany's possessions would then stretch across the continent from coast to coast, comprising all that is most worth having in equatorial africa.
while we are about it, let us carry our assumptions one step farther and take it for granted that portugal could be induced to dispose of her great west-coast colony of angola, to which germany already possesses the reversionary rights. it is not only possible, but probable, that a good round offer of money, or perhaps another agadir performance, based on some easily found pretext and backed up by german war-ships in the tagus, would induce the lisbon government to hand over angola, along with its fevers and its slavery, to the germans. portugal is bitterly poor, its government is weak and vacillating, and a long list of failures has left the people with little stomach for colonisation. the portuguese republic has few friends among the monarchical nations of europe and could count on scant aid from them in resisting teutonic coercion. it [pg 178] is asserted in diplomatic circles, indeed, that the ink on the morocco-equatoria convention was scarcely dry before the german minister in lisbon had opened secret pourparlers with the portuguese foreign office with a view to the purchase of both angola and the east-coast colony of mozambique. [5] the acquisition of angola would supply germany with the final link needed to unite her colonies in east, west, and southwest africa, thus giving her an african empire second in size only to that of france. far-fetched and far-distant as all this may sound, i have but roughly sketched for you that imperial dream for whose fulfilment the kaiser and his people are indefatigably working and confidently waiting.
[5] though commonly applied to the colony of portuguese east africa, the name mozambique belongs, strictly speaking, only to the northernmost province of that possession.
very few people are aware that, as long ago as 1898, england and germany concluded a secret agreement which definitely provides for the eventual disposition of portugal's african possessions. of its true history and scope, however, little has ever leaked out. it grew out of joseph chamberlain's restless and ambitious schemes for the consolidation of british dominion in africa. appreciating, early in the boer war, that england's success in that struggle would largely depend upon germany remaining strictly neutral, that master statesman proposed to the berlin government a plan the effect of which was to divide the reversion of angola and mozambique between great britain and [pg 179] germany, inferentially leaving the former a free hand south of the zambezi. this was the famous secret treaty, the final text of which was afterward signed by lord salisbury, and it was largely in virtue of this agreement that england was free from german interference during the boer war. it is an interesting comment on the ethics of international politics that this remarkable agreement was concluded without any consultation of portugal, the country the most vitally concerned. delagoa bay is no longer as imperative a necessity to england as it was in 1898, at which time it was the quickest way to reach the transvaal, and, on the other hand, the west coast is daily becoming more important for strategical and commercial reasons, for the “afro” railway, of which i have made mention in the chapter on morocco, will become in the near future the great highway between europe and south america, while the railway now being built between benguela (lobito bay) and the katanga region will provide the easiest and quickest means of communicating with rhodesia and the transvaal. the terms of the anglo-german secret treaty are of interest, however, as indicating how that portion of the african continent lying south of the congo will be eventually parcelled out, and as showing the framework on which is being slowly but surely constructed germany's african empire.
the erection of such a german state across the middle of africa would have far-reaching results in more directions than one. in the first place, it would end [pg 180] forever england's long-cherished ambition of eventually linking up her sudanese and south african possessions and thus completing an “all red” route from cairo to the cape. in the second place, germany is now in a position to build her own transcontinental railway—from east to west instead of from north to south—on german or neutral soil all the way, thus removing the completion of the cape-to-cairo system, even under international auspices, to a very distant day, and making dar-es-salam and duala, instead of cape town and alexandria, the starting-points for those highways of steel which are destined to open up inner africa.
it is surprising how little even the well-informed know of these far places which germany has taken for her own. fertile spots as any upon earth, covered with hard-wood forests and watered by many rivers, when seen from the shade of an awning over a ship's deck they are as alluring as the stage of a theatre set for a sylvan opera. go a thousand yards back from that smiling coast, however, and the illusion disappears, for you find a country whose hostile natives, savage beasts, and deadly fevers combine to make it deserving of its title—“the white man's graveyard.” the statesmen of the wilhelmstrasse must have taken a long look into the future when they raised the german flag over such lands as these. the returns they have yielded thus far would have discouraged a man less sanguine than william hohenzollern. though subsidised german steam-ships ply along their coasts, though their forests resound to the clank and clang of german railway-builders' [pg 181] tools, though the plantations of government-assisted settlers dot the back country, though she has spent on them thousands of lives and millions of marks, germany's only returns thus far have been a few annual tons of ivory, copra, and rubber, some excellent but unprofitable harbours, and many lonely stations where her sons contract fevers and pessimism. but i would stake my life that this out-of-the-way, back-of-beyond, sun-blistered, fever-stricken german africa will be a great colony some day.
from the care with which they are laid out, from the perfection of their sanitary arrangements, from the substantiality of their public buildings and official residences and their suitability to the climatic conditions, the travellers who confine their investigations to the coast are readily deceived into thinking that tanga and bagamoyo and dar-es-salam and swakopmund and duala are the gateways to rich and prosperous colonies. from the very outset, however, the imperial government based its claim for popular support in its colonial ventures upon the erroneous assumption that german colonies would attract germans, and that in this way the language of the fatherland would be spread abroad and eventually supplant that of shakespeare. the germans, however, have stubbornly refused to go to their own colonies, preferring those where english is the speech and where there are fewer officials and more freedom. to-day, therefore, you find the model german towns, so perfectly built that you feel as though you were walking through a municipal exhibition, almost [pg 182] wholly peopled by brass-bound, hide-bound officials, while the german traders are carrying on thriving businesses under the english flag at mombasa and zanzibar and sierra leone.
now, germany has no one but herself to blame for this condition of affairs, having brought it about by the short-sightedness of her colonial policy and the harshness and incapacity of her officials. intending to found industrial colonies, she created military settlements instead, administering and exploiting them, not as if they were german lands, but as if they were an enemy's country. nothing emphasises more sharply the purely military character of germany's african colonies than the fact that there are seven soldiers or officials to every german civilian. dwelling in idleness, in one of the most trying climates in the world, the officials seem to take a malicious satisfaction in interfering with the civil population, thus driving the traders—who form the backbone of every colony—to take up their residence in english ports and so paralysing german trade. the soldiers, for want of something better to do, are forever seeking advancement by making unnecessary expeditions into the hinterland for the purpose of “punishing” the natives, thus causing them to migrate by wholesale into british, belgian, and even portuguese territory, so that the german colonies are left without labour and the plantations are consequently being ruined.
the needless severity of germany's colonial rule is graphically illustrated by the fact that during 1911 there were 14,849 criminal convictions in german east [pg 183] africa alone, or one conviction to every 637 natives; while in the adjoining protectorate of uganda, among the same type of natives but under a british administration, the ratio of convictions was only one in 2,047. there is not a town in german east africa where you cannot see boys of from eight to fourteen years, shackled together by chains running from iron collar to iron collar and guarded by soldiers with loaded rifles, doing the work of men under a deadly sun. natives with bleeding backs are constantly making their way into british and belgian territory with tales of maltreatment by german planters, while stories of german tyranny, brutality, and corruption—of some instances of which i was myself a witness—form staple topics of conversation on every club veranda and steamer's deck along these coasts. in german southwest africa the dearth of labour, owing to the practical extermination of the herero nation in germany's last “little war” in that colony, has become a serious and pressing problem. in a single campaign—which cost germany five hundred million marks and the lives of two thousand soldiers, and which could have been avoided altogether by a little tact and kindness—half the total population of the colony was killed in battle or driven into the desert to perish. that is why the builders of the swakopmund-otavi railway in german southwest africa—the longest two-foot-gauge line in the world—have to send to europe for their labour. until germany makes a radical change in her methods of colonial administration, and until she learns that traders and labourers are [pg 184] more essential to a colony's prosperity than pompous and domineering officials, her colonial accounts will continue to stand heaviest on the debit side of the ledger.
successful colonial administration in africa, as in all tropical countries, is largely a matter of temperament, and the stolid sons of the fatherland seem, strangely enough, to be more quickly affected by the demoralising climate and to be irritated more easily than either the english or the french. the englishman's sense of justice and the frenchman's sense of humour are their chief assets as successful colonisers and rulers of alien peoples, but the german colonial official, who is generally serious by nature and almost always domineering as the result of his training, possesses neither of these invaluable attributes and is heavily handicapped in consequence. it is no easy task with which he is confronted, remember. the loneliness and the privations of the white man's life, and the debility that comes from the heat and the rains and the fevers, when combined with the strain of governing and educating an inconceivably lazy, stubborn, stupid, and intractable people, make the job of an african official one of the most trying in the world. the loneliness and the climate seem to grip a german as they never do an englishman, and he becomes irritable and ugly and unreasonably annoyed by trifles, so that when a native fails to get out of his way quickly enough, or to salute him with the punctiliousness which he considers his due, he flies into a rage and orders the man to be flogged. the native goes back to his village with a bleeding back [pg 185] and hatred in his heart, and, as likely as not, a bloody, costly, and troublesome native uprising ensues. the african native is, after all, nothing but an overgrown and very aggravating child, and his upbringing is a job for school-teachers instead of drill sergeants, and the sooner the imperial government appreciates that fact the better.
i went to german east africa, which is the kaiser's star colony, expecting to be deeply impressed; i came away deeply disappointed. it is only about fifty miles from zanzibar across to dar-es-salam, the capital of the colony, but the local steamer, which is the size of a hudson river tugboat and rolls horribly on the slightest provocation, manages to use up the better part of a day in making the trip. seen from the steamer's deck, dar-es-salam presents one of the most enchanting pictures that i know, and every one who goes ashore there does so with high expectations. imagine, if you can, a city of two hundred thousand people, with the imposing, red-roofed schools and churches and hospitals and barracks and municipal buildings of, say, düsseldorf, and the white-walled, broad-verandaed, bungalow dwellings of southern california; with concrete wharves and cement sidewalks and beautifully macadamised roads and many public parks: imagine all this, i say, dropped down in the midst of a palm grove on one of the hottest and unhealthiest coasts in the world—that is dar-es-salam. the hotel is, barring the one at kandy in ceylon and another at ancon in the canal zone, the best and most beautiful tropical hostelry i have ever [pg 186] seen, but, as it is owned and run by the government, for the benefit of its officials, its manager, a blond, florid-faced, pompadoured prussian, was as independent as a hotel clerk in a city where a presidential convention is going on. just as in the other german colonies, i found east africa to be suffering from a severe attack of militarism. i saw more sentries and patrols and guards during my four days' stay in dar-es-salam than i did in constantinople during the turkish revolution. i was lulled to sleep by regimental bugles and i was awakened by them again at daybreak, and i never set foot out of doors without meeting a column of native soldiery, their black faces peering out stolidly from beneath the sun-aprons, their spindle shanks encased in spiral puttees, their feet rising and falling in the senseless “parade step” in time to the monotonous “rechts! links! rechts! links!” of the german sergeant. but what struck me most forcibly about dar-es-salam was that it appeared to have no business. apparently the soldiers had frightened it away. the harbours of mombasa and zanzibar and beira and louren?o marques are alive with steamers taking on or discharging cargo (and quite two out of three of them fly the german flag), and their streets are lined with offices and warehouses and “factories” (over the doors of many of which are signs bearing german names), and their wharves are piled high with bales of merchandise going to or coming from the four corners of the earth; but in the harbour of dar-es-salam, as in all the other german harbours i visited, the only vessels are white german gun-boats [pg 187] or rusty german tramps; its streets are lined with government offices instead of business offices; on its wharves are a few puncheons of palm-oil, or other products of the bush, and nothing more.
warundi warriors. german east africa.
native infantry. german east africa. a few years ago these men were just such savages as those shown above.
the hand of the war lord in german africa.
however much the administration of the german colonies may be open to criticism, and however slow they may have been in commercial development, i have nothing but praise and admiration for the accomplishments of their railway-builders. from dar-es-salam i travelled inland by railway motor-car nearly to kilamatinde, a distance of three hundred and seventy miles, through one of the most savage regions in africa, over one of the best graded and ballasted roadbeds i have ever seen. the line is now being pushed forward from kilamatinde toward ujiji, on lake tanganyika, which it will reach, so the chief engineer assured me, by the summer of 1914. from ujiji, which, by the way, is the place where stanley discovered livingstone, a steamer service will be inaugurated to albertville, on the belgian shore of the lake, whence a line is under construction to the navigable waters of the lualaba, which is one of the chief tributaries of the congo; while another line of steamers will ply between ujiji and kituta, in northeastern rhodesia, which point the british cape-to-cairo system is approaching. by the close of 1914, in all probability therefore, the traveller who lands at dar-es-salam will be able to travel by train, with the passage across lake tanganyika as the only interruption, to the cape of good hope, or by train and river steamer to the mouth of the congo, and in [pg 188] perfect comfort and safety all the way. as walfish bay, the only harbour in southwest africa worthy of the name, belongs to england, the germans, finding themselves unable to buy it and appreciating that a harbourless colony is all but worthless, promptly set to work and built themselves artificial harbours at swakopmund and at lüderitz bay, though at appalling cost. that germany is exceedingly anxious to acquire walfish bay, and that she stands ready to make almost any reasonable concession to obtain it, there is little doubt. the mere fact that walfish bay is owned by england is a source of constant aggravation to the germans, for it lies squarely in the middle of their southwest african coast-line, its roomy roadstead and deep anchorage being in sharp contrast to the german port of lüderitz bay, which is being rapidly sanded up, and that of swakopmund, a harbour on which the berlin government has already thrown away several millions of marks. lüderitz bay is already connected with the inland town of keetmanshoop by three hundred and fifty miles of narrow-gauge line, and plans are now under consideration for pushing this southeastward so as to link up with the south african system near kimberley, while from swakopmund another iron highway, four hundred miles long, gives access to the otavi copper-mining country and will doubtless be extended, in the not far-distant future, to the rhodesian border, tapping the main line of the cape-to-cairo system in the neighbourhood of the victoria falls.
mr. and mrs. powell travelling by railway motor-car in german africa.
a way-station on the line of the german east african railway.
railroading through a jungle.
i have laid considerable stress upon the subject of [pg 189] railways, because it seems to me that in them lies the chief hope of the german colonies, for wherever the railway goes there goes civilisation. throughout the vast and potentially rich regions thus being opened up by the locomotive the imperial government is pouring out money unstintingly in the construction of roads, bridges, and reservoirs, the sinking of artesian wells, the establishment of telegraph lines and postal routes, the erection of schools and hospitals, in furnishing trees to the planters and machinery and live-stock to the farmers, and in assisting immigration. so, if keeping everlastingly at it brings success, i cannot but feel that the day will come when these officers and officials, these soldiers and settlers, these traders and tribesmen, will find their places and play their parts in the kaiser's imperial scheme of a new and greater germany over the sea.
