iSo POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the natives of the region where they live is but trifling, save in the 

 particular of their superior morality, which is believed to be an eleva- 

 ting example, while, like all Germans, everywhere, they grow in their 

 new soil towards liberal thought, being removed from the repressive 

 influence of European old age. They are not in any sense subjects 

 of German imperial power, but are the tenants of commercial com- 

 panies. So that, while they are German colonists, they are not colonies 

 of Germany. 



If the material results thus far accomplished by the German govern- 

 ment in its attempts at national colonization be the best that power 

 is able to produce, it will appear an empty vanity to attempt further 

 enterprises of the kind, save for the improvement of congested popula- 

 tions. In colonies of the empire, covering an area of 2,500,000 square 

 miles there is a white population of 6,000 souls, of whom 4,000 are 

 Germans, who in one year (1901) succeeded in producing a deficit of 

 $7,000,000 above an income of $8,000,000. American Consul Harris 

 at Eibenstock has said : " The ideal relation of a colony to the mother 

 country is that which permits the colony to produce the raw material 

 which the mother country will receive and return to the colony in a 

 manufactured condition; but, in accordance with an irresistible law 

 of economics, a colony with great material resources will gradually 

 emancipate itself from the mother country. It is doubtful whether 

 this will shortly be true of any of the present colonies of Germany. 

 In almost every part of the world where her acquisitions are situated, 

 there is in the same immediate neighorhood a colony of Great Britain 

 or some other country better able to produce colonial products." 



The only considerable collected German colonies, in other of the 

 Latin American republics, are in Guatemala, Chile and Argentina. 

 In Guatemala there is a German element of great respectability and 

 influence amounting to real power, which promises more for an ad- 

 vancing civilization of the entire mass of population than is apparent 

 in Chile or Argentina. But, in all three of these republics are German 

 populations, not included in colonies, which must be considered with 

 similar classes in every other Latin American state. These people are 

 distributed all through those states, but are found more generally in 

 the large towns and cities. They represent important material interests 

 and are the potent " leaven which leaveneth the whole lump." 



The influence of this portion on the communities in which they 

 live differs curiously from that of the French, as is seen illustrated in 

 the cities of Mexico and Panama, where the French have, during cer- 

 tain periods, been the controlling power in social life. The women 

 of the upper classes of those cities, which have known French influence, 

 no longer hesitate to appear on the streets clad in comely array, wearing 

 bright colors in dress, with hats or bonnets in place of the sombre black 

 suit of gown and mantilla. Thirty years ago, every woman in the 



