The latest Report on the Colonies submitted to the French
Chamber enables us to realise the precise financial re- lation of those possessions to the mother-country. Strictly speaking, France owns no colonies,—that is, countries popu- lated by emigrants from her own shores. They are all tropical or semi-tropical dependencies, and though their extent is great, they are not commercially profitable. They are, if taken together, eighteen times the size of France, with a total population of thirty millions, but they cost the French Treasury 23,450,000 a year. Nor is this expenditure compensated by their trade, for they only purchase about £10,000,000 of French goods a year, and as dealers usually look for a 30 per cent. profit, they make almost exactly the amount France loses. No doubt a portion of the expenditure is paid to French employes abroad, but that is no relief to the taxpayer. France, nevertheless, is proud of her colonies, and hopes that ultimately she will reap a return from them all, even from Madagascar, where at present every pound of profit from trade is purchased by spending two pounds upon officials and soldiers.
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