millions of natives, the future for the capitalist syndicates seemed rosy enough.  No wonder that under this corvee system East Africa and the Kamerun were rapidly developing into very valuable tropical assets, from which in time the German Empire would have derived much of the tropical raw material for its industries.  The Germans realized better than most people that the value of tropical Africa lay not in any openings for white colonization, such as are being developed next door to their colonies in British East Africa, but in the plantation system, where white capital and black labor collaborate to establish an entirely different order of things.  Harsh as the German system undoubtedly is, I am not prepared to deny that it is perhaps the more scientific one, and that in the long run it is the more profitable form of exploiting the tremendous natural resources of the tropics.

With regard to tropical Africa, so vast in area, so great in resources, the first desideratum for its development is the opening up of communication.  The lakes, the Nile, and the Congo form the principal natural links in any chains of communication with the seaboard; and the question is, how far railways have come in or will come in to complete these chains.

[Sidenote:  Railways built in the Congo territory and connective.]

Two railways built during the war in the Congo territory have largely extended the communications from east to west, and from the center to the south.  These two railways have opened up many routes in Central and East Africa, and it is now possible to travel from the Indian Ocean at Dar-es-Salaam by the German Central Railway to Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika; by steamer across the lake to Albertville; thence by train to Kabalo; by steamer on to Kongolo; train to Kindu, and on by steamer and rail down the Congo to the Atlantic Ocean.

[Sidenote:  Railways in South Africa.]

Now, as to the communications in the south, one can travel from Cape Town by rail to Bukama, and thence by steamer and rail either to Boma on the Atlantic coast, or by rail and steamer to Dar-es-Salaam on the Indian Ocean.  Besides these through lines, there is the Uganda Railway from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean to the Victoria Nyanza, and there are in contemplation two other railways from the east coast to Nyasa, one from Kilwa, and one from Porto Amelia, in Portuguese East Africa.  A railway is also under construction from Lobito Bay on the Atlantic to the Katanga copper areas, already reached from the south and east by the railways from Cape Town and Beira.

[Sidenote:  Communications to the northward.]

The question remains as to communications northward to the Mediterranean.  One can travel to-day from Alexandria by rail and river to Khartoum, and thence by steamer up the Nile to Rejaf, near the Uganda border.  From Rejaf to Nimule, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, the Nile is impracticable for river transport, and therefore over that distance a railway will have to be built.  But from Nimule the river is again navigable up to Lake Albert.  The problem is to connect Lake Albert with the Central and South African systems.