THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN AFRICA

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 4806, 8 November 1902, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN AFRICA

The incorporation of the two Boer States into British South African territory increases the British possessions on the African continent (including Egypt) to a total of about 3,300,000 square miles and this includes the richest part—from north-east to the south—of this great coming land. The French are the next largest territorial power, they have annexed vast tracts of land in. the arid, sparsely populated regions of Sahara. From the north to the south of this huge continent (says "Pielden’s Magazine”) the British have established a line of communicating territories, embracing the great coal beds of the Zambesi, the enormous iron deposits of Lake Tanganyika—which has' been emphatically pronounced the finest system of natural water-power on earth—through the tropical riches of the central belt, onward through the fertile Bahr-el-Ghazal to the ancient land of Egypt. The war has set the seal of unification on these vast territories and on British African policy. Henceforth South Africa will become more and more dislocalised, until it merges its distinctive name into that of Federated British Africa, which, stretching from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Southern Indian Ocean, must exercise a dominating influence upon, the world.