The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1934. MAKING AN EMPIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 70, 23 March 1934, Page 6

The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1934. MAKING AN EMPIRE.

For the cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs For the future in the distance, And the good that "40e can do

After a "war" which has proceeded on and off for 27 years the French, we were informed this week, havo finally pacified the whole of Morocco, and they now have a free passage through that country from Tunis to the shores of the Atlantic. To the ordinary tourist, as well as to the student of international politics, the French colonies of Northern Africa are fascinating. They are ideal health and holiday resorts. They have a wonderful winter climate, with every variety of landscape and scenery. Their ground is historic. There are the ruins of cities built 2000 years ago by the Carthaginians and the Romans, where Scipio fought, where St. Augustine preached, and where tyrannical proconsuls ruled.

After the war of 1870 France sought in colonial enterprise some compensation for her military disasters. She received the unexpected encouragement of Bismarck, who saw in the conquest of North Africa a magnificent opportunity of draining and wasting French resources in sterile enterprises and of embroiling the French Government with all its neighbours. He little thought that the African colonies would become a source of man power for the French armies, and that 400,000 disciplined units would fight against Germany in days to come. Bismarck was strongly opposed to colonial expansion for his own country, and France and Britain practically monopolised the partition of Africa. They started as opponents; they continued in friendly emulation; they ended in close co-operation.

The Frenchman who has won the highest fame in Morocco is Marshal Lyautey, who ranks among the greatest of colonial administrators. He endowed the Protectorate with fine towns, railways, roads, ports, public buildings and institutions of every kind. No such rapid development has yet been seen in any other new country. He respected the religion and customs of the Moors, and T?as able successfully to resist all German efforts to stir up trouble. His work was the more praiseworthy because there were no big French chartered companies such as the British Niger Company or the South African or the Rhodesian Companies to help him. The- French have nevei; regarded their colonies as a commercial investment. Instead of being an asset in a strict commercial sense, the French colonics have been a heavy fiscal and financial liability. The French have truly and literally taken up the white man's burden. Like the Romans, they have been builders of roads and bridges; they have cleared forests; they have organised sdiools; they have established law and order, and they have brought prosperity. On the whole, they have earned the good will of the subject population, whom they treat as equals. The test of Lyautey's administration came with the war. It might have been expected that the difficulties of the mother country would have encouraged the natives to rise against her. But instead of drawing away troops from the mother country, the French African possessions contributed large armies of loyal and efficient soldiers. The one weak feature of these possessions is that they contain very few French settlers. They are dependencies rather than real colonies. There are more Italians than Frenchmen in Tunis, which has been described as an Italian colony administered by the French Government.