M. Roume, the Governor-General of French West Africa, delivered a
speech at Timbuktu last month which is repro- duced in the N*che Coloniale and summarised in Thursday's Times. Timbuktu was the most active centre of the slave trade a few years ago, but the French occupation in 1894 has put an end to that traffic. But the pacification of the Niger Valley and the establishment of rapid communication between that district and the littoral only form part of the general French policy of expansion in Africa,—viz., the linking of West Africa across the Sahara with the French possessions on the Mediterranean ; and steady progress is being made in this direction by conciliating the Moorish and Touareg tribes on the left bank of the Niger, and by policing the desert with black Soudanese troops. M. Roume's survey of what has been done, and of the policy to be followed in the future, constitutes a remarkable proof of the colonising and adminis- trative capacity of the French.
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