THE BURDEN OF EMPIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 293, 10 December 1910, Page 4

THE BURDEN OF EMPIRE.

The cabled particulars of the disaster that has overtaken the French forces in "the W-e.stern Soudan may remind us once more of the dangers incurred by the civilized Powers that take up ''the. white man's burden" and eseay to subdue 'the uncivilized, races to their will. Nominally, Prance has control over an enormous extent of territory in Central Africa, but she has little real authority there. A force that at the outside does not number nearly 10,000 men is supposed to*Veep order in a, region perhaps six times the size of France itself, peopled by many millions of brave and warlike savages; and the recurrence of such calamities as this so-called "'battle" of YVadai must naturally be expected from time to time. The progress that civilization has ma-dc under British guidance in the Egyptian Soudan may help to account for the revival of active hostilities in the French sphere of influence -around Lake Tchad. For the slavers and raiders driven out of the. Egyptian Soudan by Kitchener and Wingate have gone westward, and the French provinces are now suffering that law and order may be maintained on the L'pper Nile, and that England's occupation of Egypt and the Soudan may be justified. France has certainly a difficult task to perform here, and it is not strange I hat her path lias not been one of uninterrupted and peaceful progress. It docs not appear that the French officers nave been able to organise; the friendly native tribes for military purposes with the same success as the English have achieved in West Africa. Certainly the French Colonial forces !uve nothing to show in any way cijual to tin- Haussa troops, who have played so distinguished a part in our ceaseless border wars in Nigeria.^'But in this special direction, the capacity for organic-' ill" and controlling subject races, while ■ retaining their sympathy and confidence,! and training tln-ni up to cn.-Urol and J manage themselves—the British race. seems to possess qualifications that j amount almu.-t to racial genius. Here j all our rivals in the arts of colonisation ' jan.l empire have- been eonspk-uously de-I Indent, awl France has added one more ] I failure to the list in Central Africa. j I -———— ——-——. —.— I