ds far south in Portuguese territory, as I have
already stated.

[Sidenote: Development of tropical Africa retarded by diseases.]

In economic value this region ranks very high among the tropical
countries of the African continent, and probably no part of all Africa
has a climate or soil more suitable for the production on an immense
scale of copra, cocoanuts, coffee, sugar, sisal, rubber, cotton, and
other tropical products, or of such semi-tropical products as maize and
millet. In common with the rest of tropical Africa, its full development
is still retarded by the undefeated animal and human diseases,
especially malaria. But the time is not far distant when science will
have overcome these drawbacks, and when Central and East Africa will
have become one of the most productive and valuable parts of the
tropics. But until science solves the problems of tropical disease, East
and Central Africa must not be looked upon as an area for white
colonization. Perhaps they will never be a white man's country in any
real sense. In those huge territories the white man's task will probably
be largely confined to that of administrator, teacher, expert, manager,
or overseer of the large negro populations, whose progressive
civilization will be more suitably promoted in connection with the
industrial development of the land.

[Sidenote: The Germans discouraged white settlement.]

[Sidenote: Natives compelled to work for planters.]

[Sidenote: German system more profitable one.]

It is clear from their practice in East Africa that the Germans had
decided to develop the country not as an ordinary colony, but as a
tropical possession for the cultivation of tropical raw materials. They
systematically discouraged white settlement; the white colonists, with
their small farms, gradually building up a European system on a small
scale, who are a marked feature of British colonies, were conspicuously
absent. Instead, tracts of country were granted to companies,
syndicates, or men with large capital, on conditions that plantations of
tropical products would be cultivated. The planters were supplied with
native labor under a government system which compelled the natives to
work for the planters for a certain very small wage during part of every
year; and as labor was very plentiful, with seven and a half millions of
natives, the future for the capitalist syndicates seemed rosy enough. No
wonder that under this _corvee_ system East Africa