162 FOREIGN COCONUT ENTERPRISE 



utterance thinks now of his judgment on the point. 

 Within a year of that declaration Germany hoisted 

 her flag over about half the unannexed part of that 

 vast island, which comprises some 312.000 square 

 miles the Dutch holding 151,789, the British 

 90,540, and the Germans 70,000 square miles. Not 

 only here but in Samoa, the Carolines, New 

 Hebrides, the Bismarck group, etc., the Germans 

 have been conspicuously active in the cultivation 

 of coconuts, usually in preference to most other 

 products, they having found them the most profit- 

 able and the easiest of all to cultivate. Moreover, 

 in their own colony of East Africa they are develop- 

 ing similar activity, and the entire German policy 

 in this connection is based upon the very practical 

 desire to save the immense sums which their 

 own consumption of coconut oil now compels them 

 to spend abroad. 



On the other hand, other countries are equally 

 impressed by the possibilities of the coconut 

 industry. In Chapter XVIII. we refer to the im- 

 portant part taken in the development of the nut 

 butter industry by leading French firms, especially 

 in Marseilles, which city imports vast quantities 

 of copra for manufacturing purposes. Indeed, 

 to-day France imports more copra than any 

 individual country in Europe. Not only are the 

 French largely interested as manufacturers, but in 

 certain French colonies, notably Madagascar and 



