AFRICA AND EUROPE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4426, 5 August 1901, Page 5

AFRICA AND EUROPE.

(By J. Heard.) The recent operations by the British, in the Transvaal and Orange Colonies have done ranch to bring (Southern Africa prominently before the eyes of the civilised world, and no one but the veriest tyro in the world’s politics would suppose Mr Kruger's appeal to the nations of Europe for mediation or intervention would meet with success. When we loolc at the Dark Continent, comprising within its seaboard and boundaries the enor> raous area of 11,900,000 square miles, over the greater part of which Great Britain, France, Italy, Portugal, Belgium ana Germany liave proclaimed their authority, it is by no means improbable that sooner or later diplomatic questions and transactions of the most important nature will take place and grave developments will inevitably follow. But whatever the future may bring forth, certain it is that no European Power would bo willing to « risk disturbing the cquilibiation which at present happily exists by any intervention or interference with the claims of another Power when such claims do not come into conflict with those of its own. Up to the present time, no rupture has happened between the nations which have partitioned off largo tracts of the vast Continent. Africa is beiug merged in the European system. During the last • twenty years Franco has enlarged her area in Africa to an. extent eight times greater than that which she possessed before that period elapsed, and Britain has done and is doing very much more. Tim partition of Africa must bo regarded as the greatest achievement of her colonising policy. Italy and Germany have for the first time in the history of those nations become possessed of a spirit of colonising enterprise in Africa. It would be difficult to imagine with any hope of being correct, and presumptuous to assert what effect all this may prow dues upon Europe in the future. It may be that trade and commerce as at present constituted will undergo an almost revolutionary change. New paths of ocean may be traversed and new trades and trade routes be opened up. It was North Africa that supplied the public granaries of old and wh* can say it is impossible that both north and south of the great Continent may not in the future serve modem Europe in the same capacity?

The resources of Africa are to us only partially developed. As known to us the chief productions are the date palm, wheat, maize and rice. There are groves of olive, orange and fig trees. The lotus, the castor oil and the dwarf palm also flourish. The ornamental trees are the arbutus, the pine, - ' the myrtle, the Cyprus, the oak, and the cork oak. The tropical parts produce the lemon, the custard-apple, tamarind, orange, the papaw and the banana. .The mangrove, oabbage/palm, shea butter tree, war-palm and the cotton tree. Several of the above are indigenous in some parts of Nubia. The. coffee plant flourishes to such an extent on the eastern coast that whole forests of it aro found there. Cassia, myrrh, cinnamon and frankincense ..ra in abundance towards the north-east. The swamps in the tropical parts abound with patyrus. The natives cultivate the ground nut, yam, pigeon/pea, cassava, from which they make a kind of bread. It has been said that the moral influence of Asiatic nations has not been an actual benefit to Europeans. Northern Africa, however, not only on account of her geographical position, but also in consequence of her intellectual knowledge, produced at various times mysterious and extraordinary influences for good. . Christopher Columbus thought of land beyond the Azores' (America) from the little African island of Porto Santo. Dr Halley saw from St. Helena the transit of Mercury across the sun, and in consequence he added to our stock of astronomical knowledge. It was in Africa that Lacaille measured an arc of the meridian, and Sir William Herschell made some of his important discoveries. In Africa the Moslems gained their power, and the Mohammedans arrived at the height of their glory. She presented to Europe "the letters Cadmus gave," sixteen in number, which formed the early Greek alphabet. Much might be said of the strange but powerful influence which the Dark Continent has exerted upon Europe; and new she places before us an almost interminable territory. With this in our possession, we can almost defy the world, provided we continue to hold the maritime power in our hand. This vast domain, extending/as it does so far north and south of the equator, possessing every variety of climate, will, when its -'“sunny fountains” are appreciated, its fields cultivated, its forests opened and utilised, and its mineral wealth unearth, ed, be to Britain not only a vast storehouse from which she may with every facility draw supplies; not only an almost unlimited territorv for future colonisation; not only n luxuriant garden. rivalling that of the ancient Hesperides, which I.adon, the hundred-headed dragon, guarded; but ipso facto she will gain a still higher position than that which even now she occupies in the eyes of the nations of Europe. 4