The
expansion Germany was seeking was that of trade and markets. And her
statesmen and people, like those of other countries, were under the
belief that, to secure this, it was necessary to acquire colonies. This
ambition, up to a point, she was able, in fact, to fulfil, not by force
but by agreement with the other Powers. The Berlin Act of 1885 was one
of the wisest and most far-seeing achievements of European policy. By it
the partition of a great part of the African continent between the Powers
was peaceably accomplished, and Germany emerged with possessions to the
extent of 377,000 square miles and an estimated population of 1,700,000.
By 1906 her colonial domain had been increased to over two and a half
million square miles, and its population to over twelve millions; and all
of this had been acquired without war with any civilized nation. In spite
of her late arrival on the scene as a colonial Power, Germany had thus
secured without war an empire overseas, not comparable, indeed, to that
of Great Britain or of France, but still considerable in extent and
(as Germans believed) in economic promise, and sufficient to give them
the opportunity they desired to show their capacity as pioneers of
civilization. How they have succeeded or failed in this we need not here
consider. But when Germans demand a "place in the sun," the considerable
place they have in fact acquired, with the acquiescence of the other
colonial Powers, should, in fairness to those Powers, be remembered.
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