ALGERIA OF TO-DAY
"Le coq Gaulois est le coq de la gloire.
Il chante bien fort quand il gagne une victoire
Et encore plus fort quand il est battu."
Algeria is by no means savage Africa, even though its population is
mostly _indigène_. It forms a "_circonscription académique_" of France.
It has a national observatory, a branch of that at Paris, founded in
1858; a school of medicine and pharmacy; a school of law; a faculty of
letters and sciences, and three endowed chairs of Arabic, at Algiers
(founded in 1836); Oran (1850) and Constantine (1858).
Algeria has a great future in store, although it has cost France
8,593,000,000 francs since its occupation seventy years ago, and has
only produced a revenue of 2,330,000,000 francs, which represents the
loss of a sum greater than the war indemnity of 1870. The Algerian
budget balanced for the first time in 1901 without subsidies from home.
The entire population of Algeria is 4,124,732, of which 3,524,000 are
Arabs, Kabyles or
[Illustration: Algeria and its Provinces]
[Illustration: Algeria and its Provinces]
Berbers, and the subdivided races hereafter mentioned, leaving in the
neighbourhood of 600,000 Europeans, whose numbers are largely increasing
each year.
The rate of increase of the European population, from 1836, when the
French first occupied the country, has been notable. In 1836 there were
14,561 Europeans in the colony; in 1881, 423,881, of which 233,937 were
French, 112,047 Spanish, and 31,865 Italians, and to-day the figure is
over 600,000.
The Arab and Berber population, too, are notably increasing; they are
not disappearing like the red man. From 2,320,000, in 1851, they have
increased, in 1891, to 3,524,000.
In addition to the Arab and Berber population of Algeria, and the
"foreigners" and Europeans, there are the following:
Moors--(90,500), the mixed issue of the Berbers and all the races
inhabiting Algeria.
Koulouglis--(20,000), born of Turks and Moorish women.
Jews--(47,667), who by the decree of 1870 were made French. (This does
not include unnaturalized Jews.)
Negroes--(5,000), the former slaves who were freed in 1848.
The French colonist in Algeria, the man on the spot, understands the
Arab question better than the minister and officials of the Colonial
Office of the Pavilion Sully, though the French have succeeded in making
of Algeria what they have never accomplished with their other
colonies--a paying proposition at last. Still France governs Algeria
under a sort of "up-the-state," "Raines-law" rule, and treats the
_indigène_ of Laghouat or Touggourt as they would a boatman of Pontoise
or a farm labourer of Étampes. The French colonial howls against all the
mistakes and indiscretions of a "Boulevard Government" for the Sahara,
and even revile the Governor General, whom he calls a civilian dressed
up in military garb and no governor at all. _Que diable!_ This savours
of partisanship and politics, but it is an echo of what one hears as
"café talk" any time he opens his ears in Algiers.
All is peace and concord within, however, in spite of the small talk of
the cafés; and the Arab and European live side by side, each enjoying
practically the same rights and protection that they would if they lived
in suburban Paris.
The Caïd or Sheik or head man of a tribe is the go-between in all that
concerns the affairs of the native with the French government.
[Illustration: _Touggourt_]
The name Caïd was formerly given to the governors of the provinces of
the Barbary States, but to-day that individual has absolutely
disappeared, though he still remains as an administrator of French law,
under the surveillance of the military government. In reality the Caïd
still remains the official head of his tribe, and in this position is
sustained by the French authorities.
The Arab has adopted the new order of things very graciously, but he
can't get over his ancient desire to hoard gold; and, for that reason,
no Algerian gold coin exists, and there is no gold in circulation to
speak of. The Arab, when he gets it, buries it, forgets where, or dies
and forgets to tell any one where, which is the same thing, and thus a
certain very considerable amount is lost to circulation.
Paper money, in values of twenty and fifty francs, takes the place of
gold; the Arab thinks that it is something that is perishable, and
accordingly spends it and keeps the country prosperous. The French
understand the Arab and his foibles; there is no doubt about that. They
solved the question of a circulating currency in Algeria. New York and
Washington representatives of _haute finance_ might take a few lessons
here.
With regard to the money question, the stranger in Algeria must beware
of false and non-current coin. Anything that's a coin looks good to an
Arab, and for that reason a large amount of spurious stuff is in
circulation. It was originally made by counterfeiters to gull the
native, but to-day the stranger gets his share, or more than his share.
To replace the gold "_louis_" of France, the Banque d'Algérie issues
"shin-plasters" of twenty francs. They are convenient, but one must get
rid of them before leaving the country or else sell them to a money
changer at a discount. These Algerian bank-notes now pass current in
Tunisia, a branch of the parent bank having recently been opened there.
The commercial possibilities of Algeria have hardly, as yet, begun to be
exploited, though the wine and wheat-growing lands are highly developed;
and, since their opening, have suffered no lack of prosperity, save for
a plague of _phylloxera_ which set back the vines on one occasion, and a
plague of locusts which one day devastated almost the entire region of
the wheat-growing plateaux. It was then the Arabs became locust-eaters,
though indeed they are not become a cult as in Japan. With the Arab it
was a case of eating locusts or nothing, for there was no grain.
This plague of locusts fell upon the province of Constantine in 1885,
and from Laghouat to Bou-Saada, and from Kenchela to Aumale they were
brought in myriads by the sirocco of the desert from no one knows where.
For two years these great cereal-growing areas were cleared of their
crops as though a wild-fire had passed over them, until finally the
government by strenuous efforts, and the employment of many thousands of
labourers, was able to control and arrest the march of the plague.
During this period many of the new colonists saw their utmost resources
disappear; but gallantly they took up their task anew, and for the past
dozen years only occasional slight recurrences of the pest have been
noted, and they, fortunately, have been suppressed as they appeared.
Besides wheat and wine, tobacco is an almost equal source of profit to
Algeria. In France no one may grow a tobacco plant, even as an
embellishment to his garden-plot, without first informing the excise
authorities, who, afterwards, will come around periodically and count
the leaves. In Africa the tobacco crop is something that brings peace
and plenty to any who will cultivate it judiciously, for the consumption
of the weed is great.
Manufactured tobacco is cheap in Algeria. Neither cigars, cigarettes nor
pipe mixtures, nor snuff either, pay any excise duties; and even foreign
tobaccos, which mostly come from Hungary and the Turkish provinces, pay
very little.
Two-thirds of the Algerian manufactured product is made from home-grown
tobacco, and a very large quantity of the same is sent to France to be
sold as "Maryland;" though, indeed, if the original plants ever came
from the other side of the water, it was by a very roundabout route.
Certainly the broom-corn tobacco of France does not resemble that of
Maryland in the least. The hope of France and her colonies is to grow
all the tobacco consumed within her frontiers, whether it is labelled
"Maryland," "Turkish" or "Scaferlati." The French government puts out
some awful stuff it calls tobacco and sells under fancy names.
The tobacco tax in Algeria is _nil_, and that on wine is nearly so. Four
sous a _hectolitre_ (100 _litres_) is not a heavy tax to pay, though
when it was first applied (in 1907) it was the excuse for the retail
wine dealer (who in Algeria is but human, when he seeks to make what
profit he can) to add two sous to the price of his wine _per litre_.
There is a law in France against unfair trading, and the same applies to
Algeria. It has been a dead law in many places for many years, but when
a tax of four sous a _hectolitre_, originally paid to the state, by the
dealer, finally came out of the consumer's pocket as ten francs, an
increase of 5,000 per cent., popular clamour and threats of the law
caused the dealer to drop back to his original price. This is the way
Algeria protects its growing wine industry. Publicists and economists
elsewhere should study the system.
The African landscape is very simple and very expressive, severe but not
sad, lively but not gay. The great level horizon bars the way south
towards the wastes of the Sahara, and the mountains of the Atlas are
ever present nearer at hand. The desert of romance, _le vrai désert_, is
still a long way off; and, though there is now a macadamized road to
Bou-Saada and Biskra, and a railway to Figuig and beyond, civilization
is still only at the vestibule of the Sahara. The real development and
exploitation of North Africa and its peoples and riches is yet to come.
[Illustration: FARMING _OLD STYLE_]
As for the climate, that of California is undoubtedly superior to that
of Algeria, but the topographical and agricultural characteristics are
much the same. The greatest difference which will be remarked by an
American crossing Algeria from Oran to Souk-Ahras will be the distinct
"foreign note" of the installation of its farming communities. Haystacks
are plastered over with mud; carts are drawn by mules or horses hitched
tandemwise, three, four or five on end, and the carts are mostly
two-wheeled at that. There are no fences and no great barns for stocking
fodder or sheltering cattle; the farmhouses are all of stone, bare or
stucco-covered, and range in colour from sky-blue to pale pink and vivid
yellow. There is some American farming machinery in use, but the Arab
son of the soil still largely works with the implements of Biblical
times.
The winter of Algeria is the winter of Syria, of Japan, and reminiscent
to some extent of California; perhaps not so mild on the whole, but
still something of an approach thereto. Another contrast favourable to
California is that in Algeria there is a lack of certain refinements of
modern travel which are to be had in the "land of sunshine." Winter,
properly speaking, does not come to Algeria except on the high plateaux
of the provinces of Oran, Alger and Constantine, and on the mountain
peaks of the Atlas, and in Kabylie.
South of Algiers stretches the great plain of the Mitidja, which is like
no other part of the earth's surface so much as it is like Normandy with
respect to its prairies, "la Beauce" for its wheat-fields and its
grazing-grounds, and the Bordelais for its vineyards.
At the western extremity of the Mitidja commence the orange-groves of
Blida, the forests of olive-trees, and the eucalyptus of La Trappe. The
scene is immensely varied and suggestive of untold wealth and prosperity
at every kilometre.
Suburban Algiers is thickly built with villas, more or less after the
Moorish style, but owned by Europeans. Recently the wealthy Arab has
taken to building his "country house" on similar gracious lines; and,
when he does, he keeps pretty near to accepted Moorish elements and
details, whereas the European, the _colon_, or the _commerçant_ grown
rich, carries out his idea on the Meudon or St. Cloud plan. The Moorish
part is all there, but the thing often doesn't hang together.
To the eastward back of the mountains of Kabylie lies the great plateau
region of the Tell.
The Tell is a region vastly different in manners and customs from either
the desert or the Algerian littoral. The manners of the nomad of the
Sahara here blend into those of the farming peasant; but, by the time
Batna is reached, they become tainted with the commercialism of the
outside world. At Constantine there is much European influence at work,
and at the seacoast towns of Bona or Philippeville the Oriental perfume
of the date-palm is lost in that of the smells and cosmopolitanism
usually
[Illustration]
associated with great seaports. These four distinct characteristics mark
four distinct regions of the Numidia of the ancients, to-day the
wheat-growing region of the Tell.
The principal mountain peaks in Algeria rise to no great heights.
Touabet, near Tlemcen, is 1,620 metres in height; the highest peak of
the Grand Kabylie Range, in the province of Alger, is 2,308 metres; and
Chelia, in Constantine, 2,328 metres. They are not bold, rugged
mountains, but rolling, rounded crests, often destitute of verdure to
the point of desolation.
The development of the regions forming the _hinterland_--practically one
may so call the Sahara--is of constant and assiduous care to the
authorities. They have done much and are doing much more as statistics
indicate.
In the valley of the Oued-Righ and the Ziban, one of the most favoured
of these borderlands, the government statistics of springs and oases are
as follows (1880-90):--
Oases, 38
Springs, 434
Palms, 518,000
Other fruit-trees, 90,000
Value of crops, 5,500,500 fcs.
Inhabitants, 12,827
And as the population increases and fruit-growing areas are further
developed, the military engineers come along and dig more wells.
The following average temperatures and rainfall show the contrast
between various regions:--
January August Rainfall
(Centigrade) (Centigrade) (Millimetres)
{Tlemcen 9.2 26 524
Mountains {Fort Nationale 10.1 27 982
{Constantine 8.5 26 408
{Géryville 7.2 25.3 126
Plateaux {Djeefa 7.2 27.6 176
{Tebessa 8.1 27.7 251
It will be noted that, normally, there is very little difference in
temperature, and a very considerable difference in rainfall.
The extreme recorded winter temperatures are as follows:--
1906 Aumale 8° centigrade
Laghouat 45° "
1905 Laghouat 7° "
Biskra 47° "
1904 Aumale 3° "
Tunis 14° "
Algeria has something like 3,100 kilometres of standard gauge railway,
and various light railways, or narrow gauge roads, of from ten to fifty
kilometres in length, aggregating perhaps five hundred kilometres more.
Railway building and development is going on constantly, but they don't
yet know what an express train is, and the sleeping and dining car
services are almost as bad as they are in England. The real up-to-date
sleeping-car has electric lights and hot and cold water as well as steam
heat. They have dreamed of none of these things yet in England or
Africa.
The railway is the chief civilizing developer of a country. The railway
receipts in Algeria in 1870 were 2,500,000 francs. In 1900 they were
26,000,000 francs. That's an increase of a thousand per cent., and it
all came out of the country.
The "Routes Nationales" of Algeria (not counting by-roads, etc.), the
real arteries of the life-blood of the country, at the same periods
numbered almost an equal extent, and they are still being built. Give a
new country good roads and good railways and it is bound to prosper.
Four millions of the total population of Algeria (including something
over two hundred thousand Europeans) are dependent upon agriculture for
their livelihood. Wheat, wine and tobacco rank in importance in the
order named.
The growth of the wine industry has been most remarkable.
In 1872 4,994,000 gallons were produced
" 1880 9,504,000 " " "
" 1888 60,742,000 " " "
" 1898 100,194,600 " " "
None of it is sold as Bordeaux or Burgundy, at least not by the Algerian
grower or dealer. It is quite good enough to sell on its own merits. Let
Australia, then, fabricate so-called "Burgundy" and Germany
"Champagne"--Algeria has no need for any of these wiles.
Grapes, figs and plums are seemingly better in Algeria than elsewhere.
Not better, perhaps, but they are so abundant that one eats only of the
best. The rest are exported to England and Germany. The little
_mandarin_ oranges from Blida and about there, are one of the stand-bys
of Algerian trade. So are olives and dates.
[Illustration: _Tunisia_]