French Africa.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 9124, 11 August 1898, Page 3

French Africa.

The settlement of the West African dispute between England and France, which was signed, sealed, and delivered last month, has (says the New Zealand Herald) served to direct the attention, for the moment at least, to the enormous empire which France now possesses in Africa, and to the potentialities which lie therein. As showing the immensity of the French West African Empire, it is pointed out that, with the exception of certain great German and English, and other enclaves, the whole of the huge piece of Africa which bulges out on the map towards the west now belongs to France. She has all the connecting links, all that does not specifically belong to someone else, and she cuts ofl’ short the hinterlands of all the Powers with possessions on the West African coast. Let us begin at the most western point of the coast-line of Tripoli, in the Mediterranean, and travel round the coast, marking off all that is not French. First we come to Tunis—that is in the possession of France just as Egypt in our possession. Algiers comes next—that is French. Then Morocco. Morocco is at present independent, but at the back of Morocco all the land, he it desert or cultivable, is French. Next come a strip of Spanish coast, but it goes only a very little way inland, and all the back country is French. Next comes the great French colonies of Senegambia and Futa-Jallon, with two little colonies embedded in them, one belonging to us—the Gambia —and the other belonging to Portugal. Next come our Sierra Leone and independent Liberia, but here again the hinterlands are all French. Next comes the French Ivory Coast colony, then the British Gold Coast, then German Togoland, and then French Dahomey, Here again, all the hinterlands beyond, say,4oo miles inland, belong, since the signing of the Convention, to France. After that comes our colony of Lagos, then the German Caraeroons, and finally the French Congo, the last French possession in West Africa. Here, too, the hinterlands have been cut oft’by the French, and our colonies have been made into enclaves of the mighty French dominion. In short, West Africa, as a political and geographical expression, has, as the Spectator (from whom we quote) says, passed to France, though we no doubt have carved one very valuable piece out of it.