Page:Imperialism (Lenin).djvu/108

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100
IMPERIALISM

ways follows "zealously" on the track of "British Imperialism," systematically recorded its progress. This is not all. French bourgeois literature raises the question in terms as wide and clear as it is possible to do so from the bourgeois point of view. Let us quote Ed. Driault, the historian, who wrote the following in his book, "Social and Political Problems at the End of the XIX Century," in the chapter on the great powers and the division of the world:

"During recent years, all the free territory on the earth, with the exception of China, has been occupied by the powers of Europe and North America. Many conflicts have already occurred over this matter, and many displacements of interest foreshadow in the near future conflagrations which will be much more terrible. For it is necessary to make haste. The nations which are not provided with colonies run the risk of never receiving their share, and never participating in the tremendous exploitation of the earth which will be one of the essential features of the next century (i.e., the 20th). That is why all Europe and America has lately become seized by the fever of the colonial expansion of 'imperialism,' that most characteristic and most noteworthy feature of the end of the 19th century." And the author adds: "In this partition of the world, in this furious pursuit of the treasure, and of the big markets of the earth, the comparative forces of the empires founded in the 19th century are totally out of proportion with the place occupied in Europe by the nations who founded them. The dominant powers in Europe, those which decide the destinies of the Continent, are not similarly preponderant in the