LEADING ARTICLES. 



alone covers 60 acres of floor space, and 

 employs 9000 men : — 



The greatest sight of Detroit is the huge 

 plant for low-priced cars. Here, as nowhere 

 else, may you see automobiles turned out 

 veritably like sewing machines, brass beds, 

 or shoes. Here, literally, the raw material 

 comes in at one end and issues from the 

 other a finished product. One unloading 

 platform, to which are pushed daily train- 

 loads of pig-iron, brass, aluminium, rough 

 forgings, pressed-steel parts, and bodies; 

 two long shipping platforms, each with two 

 tracks, into whose box-cars are stowed 

 every working-day half a thousand auto- 

 mobiles or more ! The iron pigs unloaded 

 to-day will become cylinder castings to-mor- 



row. The next morning they will enter the 

 machine shop ; by night they will be fully 

 machined, and valves ground in, the crank- 

 shafts fitted, tlie motors assembled. Next 

 morning the motors will receive a bench run 

 under their own power. After lunoh they 

 will pass to the assembling-room, and in a 

 few hours the finished cars will go to the 

 shipping platform. A hundred cars being 

 assembled at once; an hour or so for the 

 job; a hundred cars an hour, if need be! 



The article must be read by all who 

 wish to appreciate the immense strides 

 achieved by this the latest of man's con- 

 trivances to minister to his comfort. 



GERMANY SEARCHING A "PLACE IN THE SUN." 



Our interest lies ni finding out what 

 are the chief factors in Germany's colo- 

 nial policy. Has she been successful or 

 unsuccessful '^ What is the future likelv 

 to bring ? What can we learn ? We 

 shall find that there is nothing hap- 

 hazard, no blundering into the best 

 places of this earth, no conquering half 

 of it in a fit of absent-mindedness — but 

 a " zielbewusste " policy. 



IN AFRICA. 



L. Hamilton emphasises, m the L iii- 

 ted Empire, the importance of the Ger- 

 man colonial movement in its relations 

 to the British Empire. We have a dim 

 idea that Germany is out on the quest 

 for trans-maritime possessions and the 

 much-vexed " place m the sun " ; yet we 

 forget that it is due to this natural and 

 instinctive movement on the part of a 

 great world-power that the British Em- 

 pire has considerably increased her 

 dominions. " Looking at the late parti- 

 tion of Africa, or at the parallel case of 

 New Guinea, it is obvious that Great 

 Britain has moved on mainly because 

 Germany has moved on. The new Bri- 

 tish annexation in Africa has been made 

 not so much because there was a strong 

 desire in England to take more of 

 Africa as because if it had not been 

 taken by the English it might, or would, 

 have been by the Germans." 

 IN NEW GUINEA. 



The effect of Germany in New Guinea 

 has been to assist materially in found- 

 ing the Commonwealth, or at least to 

 add weight to the necessity and aug- 



ment the feeling of unity between Aus- 

 tralia and the Mother Countr\- ; her pre- 

 sence m South-West Africa hastened the 

 final creation of the Union of South 

 Africa. It would be easy to multiply 

 examples. At the very outset, then, of 

 one's endeavour to gain an insight into 

 German colonial policy we are struck 

 by three salient facts which vitally affect 

 the British Empire ; Germany's becom- 

 ing a colonising power has tended to in- 

 crease the British Empire, to strengthen 

 the bonds of Empire, to make for union 

 within the Empire. Another fact be- 

 comes evident — namelv, that we have 

 been trying to keep German}- from " a 

 place in the sun " — perhaps not s)-s- 

 tematically, and more by instinct than 

 intention. German)' is to-day. however, 

 the third greatest colonial power in 

 Europe. " In the middle of 1884 Ger- 

 many had no possessions beyond the 

 seas ; earl\- in 1885 she found herself a 

 great colonial power, possessing an ex- 

 ternal empire of over 1,000,000 square 

 miles, and exercising dominion over 

 more than 10,000,000 subjects." 



THE TIDE OF CiERMAN EMIGRATION. 



The population of Germany is in- 

 (-reasing at the rale of about 800,000 

 annual!)'. On the surface it seems that, 

 according to present emigration figures 

 (under 30,000), this great and ever- 

 growing augmentation of jiopulation 

 will not result in a serious exit of Ger- 

 mans. Such an interpretation is short- 

 sighted. Crermany's most pressing need 

 was — and will .ig.iin be— a countrv to 



