THE COLONIAL EXPANSION OF FRANCE 237 



natives. The English and the Dutch have perhaps secured more 

 respect from the inferior races, but the French more love. 



For a long time Algeria had as its governor the distinguished gen- 

 tleman who now represents France so ably in the United States, 

 M. Jules Cambon. To him more than to any other living man, French 

 North Africa owes its encouraging advance. He has helped all to 

 secure the best advantages from the juxtaposition of two forms of 

 societ}' and two civilizations, with their conflicting aspirations. 



ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF FRENCH COLONIZATION 



It is an extraordinary fact tliat with an energetic utilitarian foreign 

 population, which, like all such aggregations, are impatient at any 

 obstacle to their gains, the natives in Algeria should have kept to 

 tliis day twelve-thirteenths of their soil. France has protected them 

 with a real solicitude. They are ruled by Moslem law and by their 

 own judges when they form homogeneous communities. The}' are 

 gradually assimilating something of tiie western spirit, and this to an 

 extent of which they are not conscious. The ])arts which are pre- 

 dominantly peopled by Europeans enjoy institutions almost identical 

 with those of France. It is her policy to give her colonists the same 

 institutional advantages which they would have enjoyed at home. 

 St Pierre has all the administrative and educational machiner}' of the 

 mother country. Catholics, Protestants, Hebrews, and Moslems in 

 Algeria receive similar state support. The educational machinery of 

 France has been extended there ; efficient common schools, academies 

 and colleges, schools of law, medicine, pharmacy, science, and belles- 

 lettres have been established. Young women have a lycee in Oran, 

 and able courses of secondary education are organized for them in 

 several cities. 



The economic condition is steadily improving. The railroads 

 which at the outset were considered the wildest sj)eculation are fast 

 api)roaching the remunerative point. Rich dei)Osits of i)hospliates 

 have been discovered in southern Algeria and Tunis. It is almost 

 certain that there are further south large quantities of nitrates. These 

 may jjrove to l;e the gold mines of North Ah'ica. 



Algeria and Tunis not only furnish their own food and that of 

 the French garrisons, but they have a large export account. In a 

 fair year it amounts to o or 4 million fpiintals of wheat, 4 or 5 mil- 

 lion hectoliters of wine, more than a million sheep, 60 or 80 thousand 

 oxen, \()()J)()() quintals of wool, large (juantities of tobacco, iron, zinc, 



