not meet with eager approval by a number of the Belgian officials. And the Congo abuts upon British territory, upon the confines of the Union of South Africa. French action is replete with immeasurable consequences in Africa, and for Africa.
And what of the distinctively European issue? For the European democracy, this militarising of the African tropics and this introduction of African troops upon European soil is a terrific portent. The French militarists, whose schemes in Europe are a menace to the world, inform us that they intend to have a standing army of 200,000 coloured troops in France, 100,000 of which composed of primitive Africans. They will be used by the French militarists all over Europe in pursuance of their avowed purposes. They will garrison European towns. They will be billeted in European homes. They will kill Europeans who object to the policy of the French militarists. They will be used, no doubt, to fire upon French working-men should these at any time come into collision with the ruling classes in France. These are some of the vistas which this policy uncovers. And this is the military machine with which the British people are to conclude an alliance! Negroes, Malagasies, Berbers, Arabs, flung into Europe by the hundred thousand in the interests of a capitalist and militarist Order. That is the prospect—nay, that is the actuality—which the forces of organised European Labour have got to face, squarely.
••••••
What could a League of Nations do to protect the peoples of tropical Africa from these evils? Is any machinery provided in the Covenant for this purpose? Let us take the latter point first.
The Covenant postulates a measure of international control for Africa, both of a political and of an administrative kind. Politically, it professes to introduce what is termed the "mandatory system," although that expression is not found in the Covenant itself, which merely speaks of "mandatories." But the Covenant limits the applicability of this system to "those colonies and territories which, as a consequence of the late war, have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States
