GERMANY'S FORMER COLONIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4872, 18 July 1936, Page 4

GERMANY'S FORMER COLONIES.

The German demand for colonies in Africa is causing Great Britain and France once more to take stock of their position there, particularly in regard to those areas ceded to them by Germany after the Great War. They are the Cameroons, which has been split up between Britain and France and administered as mandates by those countries; South-West Africa, a mandate under the Union of South Africa; and Tanganyika, a British mandate. Of these the last-named is undoubtedly the most important. It is a vast territory lying near the equator, but on its plateau are large areas of land suitable for settlement —and is, in fact, the only colony ever held by Germany that was suitable in this way. Yet at the present time the influx of Europeans to this area of 366,632 square miles of territory has been almost negligible. The total population is about 5,000,000, by far the greater bulk of which are African natives. Asiatics number about 32,000 and Europeans only 8300! Even of this number only a smaft proportion is British. The European population in the British Cameroons is almost negligible—lso—while in the French Togoland and Cameroons' mandate the European population is only about 2500. These areas will never be suitable for European settlement on a large scale. The same remark applies to South-West Africa. It is largely desert, though it has fairly valuable mineral deposits, and stockraising land in the east, but the population includes only 19,000 Europeans, nearly half of whom are Germans. The low proportion of European population in the colonies mentioned is, of course, not unique in Africa—outside the Union of South Africa and Egypt, the six nations interested in Africa, Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Portugal, have only 1,630,000 whites in their colonies. The natives' interests would, of course, have to be conserved if the League is going to consider returning the colonies to Germany—they were harshly treated in pre-war times. In view of the figures quoted of European populations, their welfare and strategic consideration seem to be the major points of consideration. South-West Africa lies immediately contiguous to South Africa and ships from her ports could play havoc with vessels bound to African and Australian ports. Tanganyika is in an even more important position, being within striking distance of India, South Africa, the Suez Canal traffic, and even of Western Australia. And if these African colonies are handed over, what of Japan and the great bloc of the Caroline and Marshall Islands, which she obtained from Germany as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, not to mention the mandated territory in New Guinea and Samoa administered by Australia and New Zealand.