as large as Germany itself, and it
included territories which were, on the whole, richer than those of
France. The comparative smallness of its area was due to the fact that
Germany was actually the last to enter the race. She took no steps to
acquire territory, she showed no desire to acquire it, before 1883; if
she had chosen to begin ten years earlier, as she might easily have
done, or if she had shown any marked activity in exploring or
missionary work, without doubt she could have obtained a much larger
share of African soil.

These rich lands afforded to their new masters useful supplies of raw
materials, which were capable of almost indefinite expansion. They
included, in East and South-West Africa, areas well suited for white
settlement; but German emigrants, despite every encouragement, refused
to settle in them. An elaborately scientific system of administration,
such as might be expected from the German bureaucracy, was devised for
the colonies; officials and soldiers have from the beginning formed a
larger proportion of their white population than in any other European
possessions. Undoubtedly the government of the German colonies was in
many respects extremely efficient. But over-administration, which has
its defects even in an old and well-ordered country, is fatal to the
development of a raw and new one. Although Germany has, in order to
increase the prosperity of her colonies, encouraged foreign trade, and
followed a far less exclusive policy than France, not one of her
colonies, except the little West African district of Togoland, has ever
paid its own expenses. In the first generation of its existence the
German colonial empire, small though it is in comparison with the
British or the French, actually cost the home government over
100,000,000 pounds in direct outlay.

The main cause of this was that from the first the Germans showed
neither skill nor sympathy in the handling of their subject
populations. The uniformed official, with his book of rules, only
bewilders primitive folk, and arouses their resentment. But it was not
only official pedantry which caused trouble with the subject peoples;
still more it was the ruthless spirit of mere domination, and the total
disregard of native rights, which were displayed by the German
administration. The idea of trusteeship, which had gradually
established itself among the rulers of the British dominions, and in
the French colonies also, was totally lacking