THE INVASION OF AFRICA.
IT is not considered fitting just now to talk of the Provi- dential government of the world. One must write of the "progress of events," the "stream of tendency," or the "march of destiny," vague phrases which only conceal the absence of conclusions, but which are held to indicate mental emancipation. Our ancestors, however, perhaps in this respect wiser in their foolishness than ourselves, would undoubtedly have pointed to the situation growing-up in Africa as evidence that an external power, certainly sentient and presumably good, was urging Europe forward to a new and an immense task. Without any visible necessity, and with no immediate gain in prospect, she is beginning from all sides at once to open up, and ultimately conquer, the immense African conti- nent, which, since the fall of the Roman Empire, has been closed to civilisation, and has probably during the last five centuries —and especially during the last three, in which black slaves have been made profitable instruments of toil—distinctly retrogressed. Timbuctoo was a city, and is a kraal. The whole of the Northern coast of the Continent is falling under white influence. Morocco and Tripoli are still more or less independent ; but France has cast her eyes upon Morocco, and will in a very short time appear at Fez, while Italy must in the end be permitted to " protect herself " by the beneficial annexation of Tripoli. Those two imminent changes accomplished, the whole of Northern Africa, with its coast-line of 2,000 miles, to a depth probably of 600 miles into the in- terior, will be governed by civilised white men, who, whatever else they may fail to do, will restore communications, will place the dark tribes in contact with Europe, and will maintain the external order without which neither Moor nor Negro has a chance of progress. To the East of the Continent the British are occupying the River Nile—the long-stretching highway which reaches to the Lakes—sending troops fourteen hundred miles into the interior, and governing the Delta so strongly that no native has an independent initiative. They say they intend to retire, and they say it honestly ; but whenever the retirement begins, as it did two years ago, Destiny, or Providence, or the stream of events, interposes with an imperative order to remain. Passing down the East Coast, we find Italy casting covetous eyes on Abyssinia, Zanzibar submitting to European influence or perhaps to a European Protectorate, and Madagascar actually a subject of direct attack by French soldiers and ships. The whole of South Africa, from Simon's Bay to the Zambesi—an area equal to a third of Europe—is either directly in European hands, or sub- ject, in the last resort, to irresistible European influence ; the only free district, the North-West corner, being threatened by the German entrance on the scene at Angra Pequena. There remained the West-Central division, the hugest of all African sections, drained by the Niger and the Congo, a section entirely tropical, but splendidly fertile, and large enough to contain empires. The definition of the basin of the Congo makes it an oblong territory lying right across the continent, and larger than Latin Europe ; while the definition of the Niger makes its basin cover a territory wider than Bengal. The whole of this region has been assigned by the Berlin Conference to Europe, the basin of the Niger to England as the universal "Protector," and the basin of the Congo to Portugal, France, and the Power, whichever it is, which must in a few years inherit the rights and the dominions of that anomalous new "State" now fully recognised, the Inter- national African Association. The extent of the powers to be exercised by the Europeans is not defined, and the words used are intended to avoid direct annexation ; but it is under- stood, and indeed almost stated in the Conference, especially by Sir E. Malet, that practically the natives will be protected as if they were subjects, and that the Conference will deter- mine their political destiny. The rivers are to be made safe, i.e., the great highways are to be cleared, free trade is to be established as a principle, the slave-trade is to be suppressed, and we hope declared piratical, and every Power is to pledge itself to lenient treatment of the Negroes. " Protectorates" and "Tropical Colonies" and "trading settlements" all alike tend to grow, in obedience to the law which has carried Eng- land over India, and is carrying France over Northern Africa ; and with every great river in European hands, with nearly every great harbour flying a European flag, and with four Powers—England, France, Germany, and Portugal—spreading old or founding new dominions, the general invasion, or occupation, or conquest of the African Continent has not only commenced, but advanced far. Gordon from the North, and Stanley from the West, might the other day have met, each in command of forces, in the very centre of Africa. Within twenty years, if the process continues—as it bids fair to continue—cities governed by Europeans and reached by European steamers or railways, will be starting-up in the interior of a continent which has always been populous, yet which scarcely two centuries ago map-makers used to fill with figures of camels, elephants, and black men, in order to indicate their own utter ignorance.
That the total result will be beneficial to mankind we can hardly doubt. The chance that the peoples of Africa could advance without contact with the vigorous white race and tem- porary domination by them, is incalculably small. Independ- ence has in their case, as in the case of the Australian tribes, visibly failed. Fora .thousand years the people of Africa— excluding Egypt, which is essentially a bit of Asia, under strange conditions—have done as they pleased with them- selves, and have accomplished nothing, not even so much as the Indian tribes of America had effected in their isolation from the West. They have founded no empire, built no city, devised no communication, developed no art, not even an agri- culture, such as peoples equally secluded, e.g., those of Japan and Eastern Bengal, have carried so near perfection. The civilisation of Africans has remained, for the most part, as rude as that of Maories, while their moral nature has not risen to the Maori level,—Africa, broadly speaking, being the continent where murder is endemic, and cruelty universal. Contact with Europe must be beneficial, if only by introducing among such peoples the commerci virtues ; while European rule, simply by suspending mur- der and prohibiting slavery and inter-tribal war, must pro- duce a comparative softness in dispositions which, like those of the great Carnivore, have been deeply affected for the worse by misery continued for generations. The extent of the gain is a different matter, and one of which Europe is as yet in- competent to judge, because in its ignorance it classes all black men together. They are no more alike than white men are,—are, indeed, from the absence of a common creed and a common basis of civilisation, the sacredness of property, probably more widely differentiated. Not to mention the Africans with Arab blood in their veins—who invariably, whether called Moors, or Soudanese, or Zulus, display one high quality, magnificent physical courage, and one capacity, that for military organisation,—there are true Negroes of the most diverse types, characters, and degrees of mental capacity ; Negroes who look like monkeys, and Negroes who look like black Caucasians ; Negroes who can take high degrees in European Universities, and Negroes who cannot be taught to count; Negroes with an innate gentleness, and even refinement, and Negroes with an instinct for cruelty and blood. Europe must learn to separate them before it can form a just opinion on their future ; but the balance of evidence, as revealed in Jamaica, Louisiana, and Hayti, where the means of observa- tion have been complete, is that European contact raises Negroes to a certain level, that its withdrawal tends to degrade them, and that there are tribes among them in which this level is high, enough to give them, if they had only the fair . play resulting from inflexible law, an ascendancy. They possess courage, often in a high degree ; they can be faithful to leaders ; and they are receptive in a very remarkable way of higher faiths than their own, the Mahommedan attracting them most of all. It is not probable that they will de- velop original or governing qualities within a period which it is worth while to speculate about ; but it is quite possible that they may grow industrious, that they may learn to respect law, and that they may become as civilised as, say, Egyptians or Burmese. That would be an advance which, if it extended over a continent, would compensate much of the awful misery Europe has inflicted on Africans, and the suffer- ing which may accompany the necessary drill. Africa will in return add immensely to the general production of the world, and may reveal to it, as America did, new foods, new luxuries, and new excitements to commercial energy. We cannot, therefore, regret the invasion of Africa, though we hope Prince Bismarck, like Sir Edward Malet, will insist as strongly on the lenient treatment and. freedom of the natives, and the formation of some Council which can at least report authori- tatively on abuses, as he undoubtedly will upon free naviga- tion, free trade, and freedom for Europeans.
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