Germany's Lost Colonies.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16407, 30 December 1918, Page 6

Germany's Lost Colonies.

The unnamed French statesman who told an American correspondent in Paris that the French considered the future of the perman colonies an exclusively British matter has, one imagines, said the word that will dominate the Peace Conference's attitude on the question. There will probably bo a good deal of discussion on the point by those who argue oither in favour of the colonies boing handed over to American control or of their being placed in the hands of an international Commission. But though the British War Cabinet is understood to have decided merely on insisting that the colonies should not he returned to Germany, more than one prominent member of the Government has expressed himself in favour of their retention by Great Britain —at least 60 far as thoso which were captured by British troops were concorned, and particularly those Pacific islands in which Australia and New Zealand are interested. France, according to the statesman referrod to above, will agree unquestioningly in any conclusion that Britain reaches in the matter, and with Britain and France of ono mind, any opposition to them would probably bo quite fruitless. There is no indication that the United States wants the islands or would take them if they were pressed on her, and as for international control, the object lessons afforded by the one or two instances in which a< condominium has been eet up have not been so startlingly successful as to prodispose the nations to such a system of government. There has been some talk of a delegation of American negroes going over to Paris with the object of inducing the Peace Conference to grant self-government as a republic, or as republics, to the colonies in Africa formerly possessed by Germany. . The Conference, we fancy, will waste little time in considering such a proposal if it ever comes before ( it. Ethnologically, the American negro has little more in common with the natives of SouthWest Africa or German East Africa than with the Esquimaux, or the natives of, say, the Marquesas. Apart •from this, the inhabitants of the colonies mentioned are not sufficiently advanced in civilisation to be fit for self-government, and two weak republics would sifuply become bases of German conspiracies. As for the reasons why the ex-German colonies should not .be returned to that Power, there are at least two which must override every other consideration. One is that Germany is not fit to be trusted with dominion over native races, "half-savage "and half-child." Her shameful record of cruelty in her African colonies proves that. Secondly, the future peace of the world will be far lees assured than would otherwise be the case if Germany possessed oversea bases. "Think for a moment," wrote a prominent German editor not many months ago, " how far more deadly the work "of German cruisers might have been " if Dar-es-Salaam, on the Indian " Ocean, or Luderitz Bay and Duala, "on the Atlantic, had been fully fitted- " out naval bases in which our ships " would have had facilities for getting " in fresh supplies or effecting repairs." Or, as another German put it, "In

n future wars Germany, if only by "using the new military weapons ac- " quired and perfcetod in this war, " would be ablo to threaten England's " colonial dominion to a far greater "extent." Think what it would hare meant to New Zealand and Australia if von Tirpitz, looking ahead further than was the ease, had established naval ■bases at Samoa and New Guinea, and supplied them with ocean-going submarines. As an English naval writer remarked, "With a few hundred sub- " marines wisely distributed, Germany '' could at her will hold the maritime ''nations of the world to ransom. Britain may not want particularly to take over the German colonies, and if the Pacific islands fall to the control of Australia and New Zealand they may prove a somewhat heavy responsibility. But for the sake of future peace, and of the safety of the IYipire_ and of ourselves, it is a responsibility which we cannot refuse to take.