68 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Government to the administration fund of tlie African colonies 

 was $2,194,000 in 1896-'97. This does not include the expense of 

 maintaining the military and naval forces stationed in the African 

 settlements. The annual importations of all the colonies amounted 

 (in 1897) to $2,261,000, inclusive of New Guinea. So it costs 

 the Government more than one dollar to enable its citizens to do a 

 dollar's worth of trade. The population is estimated at 10,200,000. 

 What possibilities stretch out before us, if they could be made to 

 wear shirts or uniforms like the native police force, which has been 

 organized at Cameroon! The extent of the territory, however, pre- 

 cludes the possibility of successfully conducting the missionary 

 effort to induce them to wear clothes. The question also remains open 

 what return could be made, even if the recipients could be brought 

 to appreciate the advantage of a fuller covering of their nakedness 

 than the traditional one. 



France is in possession of territories in Africa, the population 

 of which is on a more advanced status. The territories of the 

 Senegal have been under French dominion for a period of two hun- 

 dred years and more, and trade relations with the Senegal and Soudan 

 liave been assiduously cultivated. In Asia, Tonquin and Annam 

 were to open the road to a very active trade with China. She has 

 held undisputed lodgment since 1814 in Pondicherry and other 

 towns in India that remained over to her from her East Indian em- 

 pire conquered by Dupleix and abandoned by Louis XV's weak 

 policy. Still, with all the tender care and an expenditure for the 

 colonial service, as per budget of 1898, of about 80,000,000 francs, 

 and not counting the colonial expense etat of the ministry of war 

 and of the navy, the entire export trade of France to her Asiatic 

 possessions is 35,000,000 francs; to her African dominions, outside 

 of Algiers, 22,000,000 francs; and to her American possessions, with 

 barely five hundred thousand inhabitants, 35,000,000 francs. The 

 territories to which this trade caters have a population of about 

 twenty-two million in Asia and twenty-five million in Africa. If we 

 include the French islands in America and French Guiana, the ex- 

 ports of French merchandise to all her colonies amount to about 

 95,000,000 francs. If we include the allowance for colonial service 

 from the naval and military budget, France has an expense that ex- 

 ceeds the amount of her colonial export trade. How much better 

 off France would be if she would drop this burden! She could do 

 the same trading and save her money, annually wasted, and her men 

 annually slaughtered to the mania of colonial expansion. 



The forty-five millions peopling the French possessions in Asia 

 and tropical Africa consume altogether about $30,000,000 worth 

 of foreign imports. The French share of this is about $11,000,000, 



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