The recent tariff negotiations between Canada and the United States were carried on directly between Ottawa and Washington, without the intervention of London. Canada regularly conducts her tariff negotiations, even with other members of the British Empire. South Africa takes a like attitude. The Volkstein of July 10, 1911, says: “The Union constitution is in full accord with the principle that neutrality is permissible in the case of a war in which England and other independent States of the Empire are involved. … England, as well as South Africa, would best be served by South Africa’s neutrality” (quoted in Times, July 11, 1911). Note the phrase “independent States of the Empire.” ↩
Times, November 7, 1911. ↩
The London World, an Imperialist organ, puts it thus: “The electoral process of reversing the results of the war is completed in South Africa. By the result of last week’s contests Mr. Merriman has secured a strong working majority in both Houses. The triumph of the Bond at Cape Town is no less sweeping than was that of Het Volk at Pretoria. The three territories upon which the future of the subcontinent depends are linked together under Boer supremacy … the future federated or uniformed system will be raised upon a Dutch basis. If this was what we wanted, we might have bought it cheaper than with two hundred and fifty millions of money and twenty thousand lives.” ↩
A Bill has been introduced into the Indian Legislative Council enabling the Government to prohibit emigration to any country where the treatment accorded to British Indian subjects was not such as met with the approval of the Governor-General. “As just treatment for free Indians has not been secured,” says the London Times, “prohibition will undoubtedly be applied against Natal unless the position of free Indians there is ameliorated.” ↩
Britain’s total overseas trade for 1908 was $5,245,000,000, of which $3,920,000,000 was with foreigners, and $1,325,000,000 with her own possessions. And while it is true that with some of her Colonies Britain has as much as 52 percent of their trade—e.g., Australia—it also happens that some absolutely foreign countries do a greater percentage even of their trade with Britain than do her Colonies. Britain possesses 38 percent of Argentina’s foreign trade, but only 36 percent of Canada’s, although Canada has recently given her a considerable preference. ↩
West Africa and Madagascar. ↩
It is a little encouraging, perhaps, for those of us who are doing what we may towards the dissemination of saner ideas, that an early edition of this book seems to have played some part in bringing about the change in French colonial policy here indicated. The French Colonial Ministry, for the purpose of emphasizing the point of view mentioned in Le Temps article, on two or three occasions called pointed attention to the first French edition of this book. In the official report of the Colonial Budget for 1911, a large part of this chapter is reprinted. In the Senate (see Journal Officiel de la République Française, July 2, 1911) the Rapporteur again quoted from this book at length, and devoted a great part of his speech towards emphasizing the thesis here set out. ↩
A financier to whom I showed the proofs of this chapter notes here: “If such a tax were imposed the output would be nil.” ↩
A correspondent sent me some interesting and significant details of the rapid strides made by Germany in Egypt. It had already been stated that a German newspaper would appear in October, 1910, and that the official notices of the mixed courts have been transferred from the local French newspapers to the German Egyptischer Nachrichten. During the years 1897–1907, German residents in Egypt increased by 44 percent, while British residents increased by only 5 percent. Germany’s share of the Egyptian imports during the period 1900–1904 was $3,443,880, but by 1909 this figure reached $5,786,355. The latest German undertaking in Egypt was the foundation of the Egyptische Hypotheken Bank, in which all the principal joint-stock banks of Germany were interested. Its capital was to be $2,500,000 and the six directors included three Germans, one Austrian, and two Italians.
Writing of “Home Sickness among the Emigrants” (the London World, July 19, 1910), Mr. F. G. Aflalo said:
“The Germans are, of all nations, the least troubled with this weakness. Though far more warmly attached to the hearth than their neighbors across the Rhine, they feel exile less. Their one idea is to evade conscription, and this offers to all continental nations a compensation for exile, which to the Englishman means nothing. I remember a colony of German fishermen on Lake Tahoe, the loveliest water in California, where the pines of the Sierra Nevada must have vividly recalled their native Harz. Yet they rejoiced in the freedom of their adopted country, and never knew a moment’s regret for the Fatherland.” ↩
According to a recent estimate, the Germans in Brazil now number some four hundred thousand, the great majority being settled in the southern states of Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, and Santa Catharina, while a small number are found in Sao Paulo and Espirito Santo in the north. This population is, for the most part, the result of natural increase, for of late years emigration thither has greatly declined.
In Near Asia, too, German colonization is by no means of recent origin. There are in Transcaucasia agricultural settlements established by Würtemberg farmers, whose descendants in the third generation live in their own villages and still speak their native language. In Palestine, there are the German Templar Colonies on the coast, which have prospered so well as to excite the resentment of the natives. ↩
London Morning Post, February 1, 1912. ↩
North
