CHAPTER XII.
The Land and its Fruits.
With the exception of Abyssinia and "Liberia," the whole of Africa is now parcelled out among five European Powers and one State ruled by white South Africans. Of those five European Powers, France is politically responsible for the government of African territories one-third as large again as Europe; the Belgians, who number 7½ millions, are politically responsible for African territories 95 times larger than their own country, the Portuguese who number 5½ millions, are politically responsible for African territories 21 times larger than Portugal. No particular knowledge or prescience are required to predict that this represents an artificial state of affairs which cannot last. A far more important issue, however, than the future distribution of political control in Africa is the policy which the governing elements in the white races intend to apply to Africa in the years and generations to come. The white peoples of the earth have just experienced the severest convulsion in their history. Vast numbers of them are embarked upon uncharted seas. Their mental and spiritual outlook has been profoundly affected. What consequences will these events have upon the peoples of Africa, henceforth associated more closely than ever with Europe and America?
The previous chapters convey, inadequately enough, some notion of the debt of reparation which the white peoples owe to the blacks; some idea of the wrongs which have been inflicted by the former upon the latter. The quarter of a century which preceded the war, witnessed sincere and successful efforts in a number of parts of Africa to establish a different record. I shall have occasion to refer to these efforts in the present chapter. But it will not escape observation that precisely the same period is also noted, not merely for the revival of the old slave trade spirit "swinging back tc power," but for the actual perpetration in other and, unhappily,
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