GERMANY'S VANISHING COLONIES
Germany's Vanishing
Colonies
BY
GORDON LE SUEUR
AUTHOR OF "CECIL RHODES," ETC.
NEW YORK
McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY
1915
"ICHABOD"
"Who sows the Wind will reap the Tempest."
PREFACE
By Lieut.-Col. A. ST. H. GIBBONS, F.R.G.S., F.R.C.I., 23rd (Service)
Batt. Roy. Fusiliers (1st Sportsman's)
In giving his readers a very concise and reliable description of
"Germany's Vanishing Colonies," the author performs a useful public
service. To the travelled man who may have seen something of these
Colonies the work carries conviction; for others it has a useful
educative value. Knowledge is essential to sound judgment, and
although--thanks to the policy of the late Paul Kruger!--a growing
interest in our great Empire has permeated all classes in recent years,
anything like a comprehensive knowledge of the local conditions and
interests of our 12,000,000 miles of Empire is not to be expected until
our schools and universities have added to their curriculum systematic
instruction in Imperial history and geography.
This book provides important and interesting data on which, at the
close of the war, that policy which will determine the status and
ownership of Germany's overseas possessions can be built. To some
it may appear that the title of the book implies the dividing of the
skin before the lion is killed. Be that as it may; to those who have
never felt misgivings as to the ultimate result of this life-and-death
struggle for Empire, the speculative element is overshadowed by the
supreme importance of inspiring the public mind with an accurate
and intelligible grasp of the situation. At times consciously, at
others unconsciously, democratic Governments reflect the mind of the
community. In due course, our statesmen, working in concert with the
Dominion Governments, will be called upon to decide, in the name of
the Empire, how far it is politic, either for strategic or economic
purposes, to annex all or part of such German oversea possessions as
the Allies in council shall decide to be within the British sphere of
influence. Let the people in private and public discussion, and through
the medium of the Press, come to something like an unanimous decision
(and this volume should help them to do so), and so strengthen the
hands of the Government when the crucial hour arrives.
No doubt every aspect will be taken into consideration. It will be
noted that from the moment Germany decided to establish a colonial
Empire her envious hatred of Great Britain took root. She realised
that at the British Empire's expense alone could she fully develop
her ideal. This feeling has grown and intensified until, in recent
years, she had barely cloaked her ambitious design to replace us as a
world Power. When the final word is spoken, and compensation for loss
in life and treasure is forced on us by her unscrupulous action is
discussed, it will, I think, be ruled that we are more than justified
in absorbing, as part payment, those possessions which she had designed
to expand at the expense of ours.
Again, British and French Foreign Office dispatches, at the outbreak
of war and subsequently, go to show that German diplomacy has been
deeply tinged with covetousness and that special kind of hatred born
of envy; that she has brushed aside all honourable and humanitarian
considerations, and ignored that international code to which she
herself had set her seal in favour of a ruthless and unscrupulous
application of the principle of brute force. Nor in this case can
she offer the "first offenders'" plea. Before the Bar of History she
is confronted by Mary Therese and Francis Joseph of Austria, by the
quondam Kingdom of Poland, by Denmark and France. Each and all give
evidence of forced war as a step towards Prussian expansion.
Can a nation so deeply impregnated with such principles since its
cradle days so far reform its political methods as to give reasonable
assurance that in thirty or forty years hence she will not reintroduce
into the life of nations that spirit and practice of mediaeval
barbarism (now better known as "_kultur_") which at present racks the
civilised world? We may leave it to the Ethiopian and the leopard may
reply.
Popular opinion at present seems to indicate an almost unanimous
opinion that the roar of the last cannon will ring down the curtain
on the German Empire of to-day. That Prussia's Polish province and
Alsace-Lorraine will cease to be German may be assumed. Should Denmark
recover Schleswig-Holstein, should Hanover regain her independence,
and Bavaria repudiate Prussia's uncongenial overlordship it would--in
the event of a non-annexation policy being adopted--be difficult to
decide to whom the present German Colonies belong--this, of course,
irrespective of conquests which have been or may be effected in the
meantime, and which, in accordance with the German theory that "might
is right," will, _ipso facto_, have been transferred to the Allies with
a "clean title."
History serves to show that to annex territory carrying a considerable
homogeneous and hostile population is seldom a success, but since
the German Colonies are so sparsely settled--partly because her
bureaucratic methods discourage immigration, and partly because she
has no difficulty in absorbing her surplus population at home--this
argument does not apply here. Closely linked with this is the
native question. Personal observation, supported by first-hand
information, serves to show that German treatment of indigenous
populations is just what might be expected. To the Englishman,
discipline implies leadership--to the German, the mere forcing of will,
without consideration for their feelings or personal interests, on
subordinates. It serves to crush out individuality and self-respect. It
is the discipline of "push." Those who have travelled in Germany will
have noticed how this spirit permeates all ranks and classes. That its
application becomes more intense in dealing with inferior races, where
the restraints of civilisation do not exist, will surprise no one. In
the Pacific Islands, as in their African Colonies, the same tale is
told. Their native population would rejoice to exchange German for
British rule.
If, then, we are to save the next generation from a second great
European upheaval, and if we desire to emancipate those native races
at present under German control from a system of harsh and selfish
exploitation, Germany in Europe must, by the elimination of provinces
detached from neighbouring states by previous wars of aggression, be
deprived of the power she has so notoriously abused, and if we are to
do our obvious duty by the native races, her Colonies must pass to
other hands.
A. ST. H. GIBBONS.
_25th December, 1914._
_Acknowledgments are due to_
"The Partition of Africa." J. SCOTT KELTIE.
"Modern Germany." J. ELLIS BARKER.
"Stanford's Compendium of Geography." A. H. KEANE.
"British and German East Africa." H. BRODE.
"A Footnote to History." R. L. STEVENSON.
"In Near New Guinea." HENRY NEWTON.
"China." E. H. PARKER.
"Encyclopaedia Brittanica."
"The Journal of the African Society."
"United Empire"--the Journal of the Royal Colonial Institute.
"Haydn's Dictionary of Dates."
"Samoan Consular Reports."
"Blue Books on Affairs of Samoa."
The "Daily Telegraph."
"Germany and the Next War."
General VON BERNHARDI.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
GERMANY AND HER COLONIAL EXPANSION 17
CHAPTER II
SOUTH WEST AFRICA 36
CHAPTER III
EAST AFRICA 84
CHAPTER IV
TOGOLAND AND KAMERUN 109
CHAPTER V
THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 124
CHAPTER VI
KIAU-CHAU 172
GERMANY'S VANISHING COLONIES
CHAPTER I
GERMANY AND HER COLONIAL EXPANSION
The German Empire of to-day may best be described as an enlarged and
aggrandised Prussia; its people imbued with Prussian ideals and drawing
their aspirations from the fountain of Prussia.
In the Confederation of the German States as constituted in 1814,
Prussia, under the Hohenzollern Dynasty, was always the turbulent and
disturbing element, by methods peculiarly Prussian, working towards a
unity of the German states--a comity of nations welded into one under
the hegemony of Prussia.
It was not long before Prussian domination became irksome, and her
provocative and arrogant attitude created a war with Denmark in 1864
and with Austria in 1866--the latter, a struggle between Hohenzollern
and Hapsburg, culminating in the complete discomfiture of Austria.
The war with Denmark gave Germany the harbour of Kiel, together with
the million inhabitants of Schleswig-Holstein, and Prussia emerged from
the struggle with Austria the leading Power in the new North German
Confederation.
Since then the salt of Prussian militarism has been ploughed into the
fertile German fields which produced some of the master-minds in the
worlds of Thought, Philosophy and Literature.
In accord with true Prussian methods France was forced into a
declaration of war in 1870, with the result that the German octopus
settled its tentacles upon the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, an
area of 5,605 square miles, with 1,500,000 inhabitants.
A new phase of Empire was then created, and the Germany of to-day was
constituted as practically a new nation under the rule of William
of Hohenzollern, who was elected the "Deutscher Kaiser," or German
Emperor, at Versailles on 18th January, 1871.
Prince Otto von Bismarck became the first Chancellor of the new German
Empire, and in his hands the fortunes of the House of Hohenzollern
prospered, as he set himself to his fixed and single-minded
purpose--that was, to elevate Prussia to the foremost place amongst the
continental Powers.
Bismarck's policy was directed towards extension, but it was extension
of Prussia (or Germany) in Europe and the consolidation of the
portions added to the German Empire. In 1871 he declared "Germany does
not want Colonies." He refused to embark upon dazzling adventures in
which the risk stirred the imagination, and when an agitation arose in
favour of making Germany a sea Power, he confronted it with the words
of Frederick the Great: "All far-off acquisitions are a burden to the
State." This view he held until the last decade of his career.
Bismarck looked forward, however, to the germanisation of the Low
Countries, the absorption of which Cecil Rhodes declared to the German
Emperor he believed to be the destiny of Germany.
The spirit of Prussia was even instilled into Austria, and Prussian
example was emulated by the House of Hapsburg.
As Prussia set herself to the repression of Danish nationality in
Schleswig-Holstein and of French in Alsace-Lorraine, so Austria adopted
a policy of eradicating national traits in Hungary.
The national unity aimed at by Bismarck having been established,
Germany continued to thrive and grow during the peaceful years
following 1871; and the development of the trade of this infant amongst
nations is a world's phenomenon.
Yet as with Prussia in the past, so with the greater Germany of to-day,
history is a tale of one persistent struggle for possessions.
As is natural during times of peace, the population of Germany
increased at an enormous rate, growing from 35,500,000 in 1850 to
66,000,000 in 1912--an average of about 615,000 per annum--while the
present increase is roughly 900,000 per annum.
Between the years 1881 and 1890 German emigration amounted to 130,000
annually; but it was only 18,500 in 1913, and this was more than
counterbalanced by immigration from Austria, Russia, and Italy.
Over-population soon became a pressing question, and the obvious remedy
was expansion of frontiers or new territories for the accommodation of
the surplus.
German policy in a very few years became directed towards extension of
territories, for it was apparent that emigration to foreign countries
and dependencies only strengthened other nations.
An outlet for the surplus population was required; but in view of
the need for men to feed the military machine which had founded the
German Empire and upon which its strength depended, it was clear that
emigration to foreign countries and dependencies was an inexpedient
measure of relief, as it would be applied at the expense of the mother
country.
In the year 1882 the German Colonisation Society was started, with the
object of acquiring Colonies oversea and the establishment of a navy
and mercantile marine to form the link binding the isolated territories
to the motherland.
The society was formed by merchants and traders with the end in view
of extending trade; but to the militarist section the idea of Imperial
expansion presented itself, and to that party the Colonies appealed
rather from a strategical than a commercial standpoint.
The society received enthusiastic support, and, indeed, all Germany
began to look to Colonies which were to be purely German; and with this
enlarged horizon, policy settled down to the acquisition of oversea
territory, the ambition being naturally accompanied by an aspiration
towards a powerful navy, necessary, ostensibly, to keep communications
open.
The German Emperor held very determined ideas on the subject of
expansion, but the Chancellor, Bismarck, altered his views only so
far as to approve of the founding of Trade Colonies under Imperial
Protection.
Bismarck was loth to weaken his military machine by the emigration of
men; and the German ideal of colonisation was not, therefore, a policy
of settlement but one of commercial exploitation; inasmuch as Germany's
aim was to develop home industries in order to keep in employment at
home the men who formed the material of her armour.
Germans were required to remain Germans; and this object it was hoped
to attain by settlements in German Colonies, where compact centres of
German _kultur_ could be established to teach the art of order to the
remaining peopled kingdoms.
The German view being that the British oversea Empire was acquired
"by treachery, violence and fomenting strife," one cannot imagine,
especially with her Prussian traditions, a violent disturbance of the
"good German conscience" in contemplating means of attaining an object.
In the first Prussian Parliament Bismarck thundered out "Let all
questions to the King's Ministers be answered by a roll of drums," and,
in sneering at the ballot as "a mere dice-box," he declared: "It is not
by speechifying and majorities that the great questions of the day will
have to be decided, but by _blood and iron_."
Prussia had fought for and won her predominance; her greatness was
acquired by the sword; and the Bismarck cult has prevailed in that no
other means of expansion and nationalisation than by conquest presents
itself to the German mind. All negotiations with foreign nations,
therefore, have been conducted to the accompaniment of the rattle of
the sword in the scabbard.
Speaking of Colonies in his recent bombastic book, General von
Bernhardi said: "The great Elector laid the foundation of Prussia's
power by successful and deliberately planned wars"; and in justifying
the right to make war he says: "It may be that a growing people cannot
win Colonies from uncivilised races, and yet the State wishes to
retain the surplus population which the mother country can no longer
feed. Then the only course left is to acquire the necessary territory
by war."
Germany now proposed to tread the same path as England, but she had
arrived late in the day and the methods whereby she purposed making
up for lost time were not the methods whereby England had established
herself.
Behind German colonisation lies no record of great accomplishments
inspired by lofty ideals and high aspirations, carried into effect by
noble self-sacrifice on the part of her sons; the history conjures up
no pageant of romantic emprise nor vista of perilous undertakings in
unexplored parts of the globe by the spirits of daring and adventure;
it holds no pulse-stirring stories of the blazing of new trails;
and scattered over its pages we do not find imprints of the steps
of pioneers of true civilisation, nor are its leaves earmarked with
splendid memories.
Where England gave of the best of her manhood to establish in daughter
states in the four quarters of the globe her ideals of freedom,
justice, and fair commerce--that manhood whose inspiration and
incentive was their country's honour, but whose guerdon was in many
a case a lonely grave or a more imposing monument in the "sun-washed
spaces"--the ambassadors of German _kultur_ followed upon a beaten
track to seize at the opportune moment the material benefit of the crop
where the others had ploughed with the expenditure of their physical
energy, sown with the seeds of their intellect, and fertilised with
their blood.
Casting about between 1882 and 1884 for territory over which to
hoist her flag, Germany found that nearly the whole of the world was
occupied; and direct action of conquest not being expedient, Germans
were busy seeking to accomplish their aims by secret methods of
intrigue, always accompanied by deprecation of the infringement of the
vested rights of others.
Active steps for the acquisition of territory began to be taken in 1884.
Under pretext of being interested in the suppression of the slave
trade, Germany concerned herself in the affairs of Zanzibar, long
subject to the influence of the Portuguese and British; but Germany
later abandoned her ambitions in the island on the cession of
Heligoland.
Africa was the one continent which had not been partitioned, and
Germany's quest of territory brought about the "scramble for Africa."
Germany had annexed portions of the west coast (Togoland and Kamerun),
and the vacillating policy of the British Government during 1882-1883
enabled the Germans to annex an enormous tract of territory north of
the Orange River, which became known as German South West Africa.
Altogether the German Colonies in Africa acquired in 1884 amounted to
over 1,000,000 square miles.
By what is known as the "Caprivi Treaty" of the 1st July, 1890,
Great Britain and Germany agreed as to their respective "spheres of
influence" in Africa.
Great Britain assumed protection over the Island of Zanzibar, and ceded
to Germany in exchange the Island of Heligoland.
This exchange was regarded in Germany generally as a most
disadvantageous one; but the possession of Heligoland as a
fortress was of inestimable value to Germany--making possible the
Borkum-Wilhelmshaven-Heligoland-Brunsbüttel naval position, and the
German militarist section craved it in order to forestall France.
The territory of the Sultan of Zanzibar on the mainland of Africa was
ceded to Germany, with the harbour of Dar-es-Salaam; and the boundaries
were so delimited as to include in German East Africa the mountain of
Kilima 'Njaro, the German Emperor being supposed to have expressed a
wish to possess the highest mountain in Africa as a mere matter of
sentiment.
The Caprivi Treaty also defined the boundaries of South West Africa.
In 1884 Germany had also busied herself in the Pacific, and had hoisted
her flag on several islands as well as in North New Guinea, where the
Australasian Colonies had established settlements and vainly urged
annexation on the British Government.
In 1885 the sum of 180,000 marks was voted by the Reichstag "for the
protection" of these new German Colonies.
The opening of 1891 saw Germany with ample territory oversea to
accommodate surplus population; while we, secure in our own strength,
with amused tolerance, allowed her to climb to "her place in the sun."
It was not the intention of Germany, however, to use the Colonies as
dumping grounds, nor to encourage a policy of emigration--but rather to
exploit them as supports for home industry.
Many German industries depend upon foreign countries for the import of
a continual supply of raw material which cannot be produced in Germany;
while part of their necessaries are even obtained from abroad. They
also depend to a considerable extent upon foreign countries for the
sale of manufactures.
Their prosperity depends upon import and export trade; for while the
home industries provide work for masses of the population, all the
products cannot be consumed at home and markets have to be found
elsewhere if employment is to continue.
It can never be said to be an economic interest to encourage the
establishment of industries in Colonies--at least not manufactories of
articles made at home.
The establishment of such may be of interest to provide work for those
who emigrate; but from the point of view of countries like Germany,
whose existence depends on keeping their men at home, it is far
preferable to develop every possible industry at home, and retain the
Colonies only as markets and producers of raw material.
This Germany proceeded to do. Developing Colonial trade, she extended
her home industries. During eight years her Colonial trade rose from
scarcely £5,000,000 to £12,000,000, and the effect of the acquisition
of Colonies upon her home industries is marked in the fact that
she employed in those industries 11,300,000 men in 1907 as against
6,400,000 in 1882.
Germany, moreover, protects even her agriculture against the
competition of her own Colonies--shutting out their meat and their
grain.
Germany's conception of the idea of Colonies, therefore, was to build
up overseas a new Germany composed of daughter states, which would
remain essentially German and be the means of keeping her men at
home in remunerative employment by providing raw material for the
development of her industries.
A continental nation, surrounded by powerful neighbours, it seemed
in her case a suicidal policy to scatter her population abroad; and
therefore she exploited her Colonies in such a way as to help her to
concentrate her people at home, where she required men in time of
peace for economic development and in time of war for defence--and
offence.
As a natural sequence to the responsibility of oversea dominions, it
becomes a question of life and death to keep open the oversea commerce
protected by a powerful navy; and this point was strongly urged by the
National Party which, advocating colonisation, arose in Germany in 1892.
But with the growth of Germany's oversea trade and her navy, a new and
splendid vista unfolded itself--no less than Germany, from her place in
the sun, mistress of the world.
To quote von Bernhardi: "The German nation, from the standpoint of its
importance to civilisation, is fully entitled not only to demand a
place in the sun, but to aspire to an adequate share in the sovereignty
of the world far beyond the limits of its present sphere of influence."
Von Treitschke, the neurotic German historian and poet, again
"incessantly points his nation towards the war with England, to the
destruction of England's supremacy at sea as the means by which Germany
is to burst into that path of glory and of world dominion."[A]
"Treitschke dreamed of a greater Germany to come into being after
England had been crushed on the sea."[B]
To obtain their object no other means presented itself than the
Prussian militarist method.
Bismarck's object--the goal towards which he strove, to so amply secure
the position in Europe that it could never be questioned--seemed to
have been attained by the machine of militarism, the huge army created
and kept in being by national self-sacrifice. So to obtain what was now
aimed at, the instrument was to be an invincible fleet which would in
defiance of everyone keep sea communications open.
As early as 1896 the "world Power" idea had evolved, and at the
celebration in that year of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
foundation of the German Empire, the Emperor termed it a "world Empire."
On the question of the rights of others the German Emperor was at
all events satisfied, for he announced to the German Socialists: "We
Hohenzollerns take our crown from God alone, and to God alone we are
responsible," which leaves nothing more to be said on that point.
To German minds the domination of the world was a very real ambition
and quite in accord with the best Prussian traditions.
In 1905 the German Emperor visited Tangier to impress upon a cynical
brother Emperor the right to a place in Moroccan affairs; while in
1911 German diplomacy asserted that Germany was anxious to preserve
the independence and integrity of Morocco because of her important
interests in the country. As a matter of fact, German trade had
steadily lost ground in Morocco and "in 1909 was exactly equal to
1/1500th or one-fifteenth part of one single per cent of her whole
foreign trade."[C]
Anent the Agadir crisis in 1911, Von Bernhardi naively admits that it
was "only the fear of the intervention of England that deterred us from
claiming a sphere of interests of our own in Morocco."
The "sphere of interests" in Morocco consisted in coveting Agadir, the
best harbour on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, which would have been
of enormous importance to Germany and her Colonies because ordinarily
the German fleet would be tied to the North Sea for want of coaling
stations.
During Great Britain's time of stress with the South African Republics,
in the same way Baron Marshall von Bieberstein declared officially
that "the continued independence of the Boer Republics was a German
interest."
The interest of Germany, apart from the undoubted hope of making the
Republics German Colonies, it might simply be remarked, was that
Germany had in contemplation the construction of a railway line from
Pretoria to Santa Lucia Bay on the east coast, 800 miles nearer Europe
than the port of Cape Town.
German history holds no record of the integrity or independence of her
neighbours being either of German interest or concern, and her attitude
is in accord with her principle of concealing her real intention by
adopting a spirit of deprecation.
This is amply exemplified in the German Emperor's letter to Lord
Tweedmouth of 14th February, 1908, stigmatising as "nonsensical and
untrue" the idea that the German fleet was being built for any other
purpose "than her needs in relation with her rapidly growing trade."
The real obstacle to realisation of the great German dream was British
naval supremacy; and all German thought and energy was devoted to the
construction of a navy strong enough to challenge that supremacy. When
she could do that it was within the bounds of possibility that Germany
would indeed be _the_ world Power.
Roughly, the German Colonial Empire is five times as big as Germany,
with a population of about 14,000,000 natives; and the question of
German Colonial policy is a question of native policy.
It is in Germany's interest that the natives should be as numerous as
possible, for it is their labour, intelligence, and industry that makes
the Colonial Empire useful and necessary to Germany.
Individual settlers are not encouraged to emigrate, but the
plantations, ranches, etc., whence Germany drew her supplies of
raw material such as cotton, rubber, wool, etc., are developed by
chartered companies and trading firms, and the so-called settlers are
the managers of these.
Independent German farmers in her Colonies are few and far between, and
the settlements which were to be centres of German _kultur_ have not
eventuated. A new Germany has not been created oversea.
There was, moreover, no room in German Colonial expansion for
individualism, which has proved such a strength to England but was
suppressed in Germany. The individual German is not given scope but
subordinated to a system.
The truth seems to be that Germany had not got the class of men she
required for her scheme of Colonial development--or exploitation seems
the better word.
Germany's requirements were lands for growing raw material by native
labour, and markets from which she could not be excluded--and she
thought she had found them in her Colonies.
The Colonies cried out for European enterprise and European capital,
but they did not want individual settlers.
Under British rule the German has proved a most desirable Colonist, but
he has never thriven under his own Colonial administration.
He is by nature extremely assimilative, and in our Colonies he
prospers, not only competing with but outstripping the British trader
owing to the employment of undercutting methods which do not so
readily occur to the British mind, hampered as it usually is by a sense
of fair play.
In the eastern province of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, the
members of the German Legion who settled after disbandment about
King William's Town, Hanover, Stutterheim, etc., have developed into
prosperous farmers and merchants.
A sandy waste in the neighbourhood of Cape Town, once thought to be
worthless, was subdivided and taken up almost entirely by Germans, and
they have turned the land into one of the most productive portions of
the Cape Peninsula.
In America the German immigrants have readily assimilated, though in
Brazil they have formed separate centres.
In the German Colonies a set-back to development has been the fact that
they have never realised the importance of respecting local manners and
customs, but the home machinery has been applied in every particular to
conditions wholly dissimilar and unsuitable.
In South West Africa, for instance, Dr Bönn of Munich says they "solved
the native problem by smashing tribal life."
Being trained and accustomed to obey, moreover, the German cannot act
without orders, and lacks initiative and therefore administrative
ability.
Compulsory military service has been instituted, and the German
Colonial administration is cordially detested except where perhaps it
favours ill-treatment and oppression of natives.
Where the British have evolved a system of government which is a comity
of commonwealths within a monarchy, and hold their dependencies by
the sense of honour and appreciation, to which the attitude of South
Africa bears splendid witness, the German's grip was by the claws of
militarism and terrorism.
Under the circumstances it is perhaps not surprising that the Germans
should fall into the error that the British dependencies would embrace
an opportunity of "throwing off the British yoke"; and the assumed
disloyalty of British Colonies, with the further assumption, widely
distributed, that various peoples under the British flag were capable
of being tampered with easily, may well have been one of the most
cogent theories leading the German Emperor and his advisers to their
fateful decision.
With the extraordinary aptitude of the Germans for intrigue, perhaps
the war Lords were not altogether foolish in their conclusions.
There was a chance of seduction, especially with native races in
Africa, but it was a very small chance, and, like many another
well-laid scheme, this one failed because its authors did not
understand the material which was to be used to work it.
It failed in Africa because the African is more than the beast of
burden the German Colonists schooled and deluded themselves into
thinking. They did not understand the native; and, in a word, the
native hates the German, especially the officials.
Their methods of colonisation have good points in matter of detail,
routine work, etc.; but if colonisation be regarded as something more
than the exploitation of a subject race and the passive holding of its
territory, they must be written down a failure, for the extraordinary
efficiency of the administrative machinery falls far short of
compensating for the rottenness of the policy behind it.
A nation in whom a much-vaunted _kultur_ has produced an ideal of
national life whose highest expression is the atmosphere of a penal
settlement, is foredoomed to failure as a coloniser.