FRENCH COLONIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 September 1938, Page 12

FRENCH COLONIES

THEIR PROTECTION AND USE. France has recently witnessed the separation of a small segment from her immense Empire. The Sanjak of Alexandretta, in the corner of the mandated terirtory of Syria, passed from the control of France to the League of Nations and from the League it seemed destined to fall under the control of Turkey, with what effect upon the uneasily balanced powers in the Eastern Mediterranean it is not yet easy to see. The move has had one result, however, in directing the attention of observers to the Empire that France now rules, writes Lansing Warren in the “New York Times.”

An active and enterprising Minister of Colonies, Georges Mandel, is notv engaged in strenuous efforts to reorganise that Empire with a twofold purpose: (1) To put the Empire as a whtfle and each colony in a position to resist outside encroachments; (2) to organise the Empire so as to give France the maximum assistance in men and materials in case of a new European conflict. The French Empire is by no means a negligible quantity. During the World AVar the colonies sent-to France 300,000 fighting men and 200,000 work troops. They contributed 1,000,000.000 francs toward the cost of the war, and supplied goods and raw materials to the extent of 2,500,000 tons. Their possibilities'in the case of, a’new conflict are thought to be very much greater both in wealth and manpower. .

The French Empire, like the British, encircles the globe. It constitutes one-sixteenth of the world’s land, with an area of close to 5,000,000 square miles. Only the British Empire and Russia surpass it in extent. The colonial population is more than 67,000,000, making with France’s almost stationary 42,000,000 inhabitants, a grand total of more than 109,000,. In population, therefore, France ranks fifth—after the British Empire, China, Russia, and the United States.

It is true that the French Empire has is limitations. It is widely scattered' and distant from the homeland, making it extremely difficult to defend. Nearly all the principal colonies lie within the tropics, making the climatic conditions unsuitable to Europeans and only Algeria, Tunis and New Caledonia have any considerable proportion of white residents. This prevents the French Empire, with its extraordinary mixture of racial, religious and cultural elements, from aspiring ever to become such a natural adjunct as the British Dominions.

But the French colonies are nevertheless a valuable source of human material, and they are capable of producing in quantity practically every product that the nation would require, with the possible exception of petroleum.

This is France’s third colonial empire. The great imperial domain she built up in the Mediterranean during the crusades in the Middle Ages crumbled during the Continental wars, but almost immediately French explorers and traders began building the second colonial empire, which included India, Canada, Louisiana, Egypt and much more. The wars of the eighteenth century and the Napoleonic wars cost the French most of these possessions ancT agrgandised others. SOURCE OF ACQUISITIONS. After the defeat of 1851 and' that of 187 France again began building up colonial domains, chiefly as a means of restoring national prestige. The French Empire as it stands to-day was largely acquired after 1830. It was obtained mostly by discovery, by generalship and by diplomatic successes in inducing native governments and leaders to throw in their lot with France. The World War gave France only that part of the Congo ceded to her by Germany in 1911, the mandate over part of the Cameroons and Togo and the mandate over Syria and Lebanon.

While Germany is seeking to gain strength by theories of racial superiority, France in her colonial propaganda is stressing humanitarian policies.

“Our country,” wrote M. Mandel in the preface to a recent decree, “has never practised a racial policy and has never made any distinction between the peoples of her empire. Regardless of their colour, they are treated as equals. Thus the colonial populations have come to understand that their future is linked with that of .France and that any threat to the mother country puts their liberties and their self-respect in danger.” In another decree M. Mandel spoke of the solidarity of France with the colonies and the homeland’s duty of defence.

“The time has passed,” he said, “wnen colonies are lost and won in wars on the European Continent. National defence no longer means only the defence of the homeland, but the defence of the entire empire.” That is why the country has just empowered colonial Governments in North Africa and Indo-China to issue national defence loans up to 600,000,000 francs. Steps are being taken to strengthen French colonial seaports, such as Bizerte in Tunis, and to put, the country in a state of preparedness. With Italy maintaining .100,000 troops in Libya, the French feel that Tunis is definitely menaced.

French interest in the railway from Jibuti to Addis Ababa has occasioned special measures and increases of native forces in French Somaliland. The French are also watching closelv Italian, operations in Sardinia, the Dodecanese Islands, Majorca and the Island of Doumoira on the Somali coast, a grave concern is for the protection of dense populations in Algeria and Moroccan cities in case of air bom ba rl inent s.

r lhe French are establishing a - r ong a lr base in Corsica, and-'most o the supplementary building proPrt. u b'Ki'" 1 '"<' re “ s «l nwlvltx or tlm "0 v w‘,M? d !« explained l>y the empire policy.