colonial possessions are very marked. Comparing, for instance, France, Germany and Japan—countries in which the area and population are not very different—it will be seen that the first (France) has annexed almost three times as much colonial area as the other two combined. But in finance-capital, France was also, at the beginning of the period we are considering, perhaps several times richer than Germany and Japan together.
Apart from and on the basis of purely economic causes, geographical conditions and other factors influence colonial development. However strong, during the last few decades, the process of equalisation of the world, of levelling up the economic and living conditions in different countries, under the pressure of heavy industry, exchange and finance-capital, great differences also remain between the six great powers. We see young capitalist powers (America, Germany, Japan) progressing very rapidly, while countries with an old capitalist development (France and Britain) have made much slower headway of late; and, finally, there is Russia, the most backward country economically, in which the latest imperialist capitalism is enmeshed, so to speak, in a thick web of pre-capitalist relations.
Alongside of the colonial possessions of these great powers, we have placed the small colonies of the small States, which are the next possible and probable objects of a new colonial "share-out." Most of these little States only keep their colonies thanks to conflicting interests which prevent them from being divided up amongst the strong.
As for the semi-colonised States, they give us an example of the transitionary forms which are
