Imperial Valley press., 1914-08-20
Half the World At War
In People and In Area

{. frontage of about 400 miles on the
Indian ocean. Thus the route is near
ly all in British territory for the
Cape-to- Cairo railroad.
In the very heart of tropical At
RIGA lies the Congo Free State, with
nearly 100000 square miles, nomi-
nally {. Belgian dependency. 1t touches
British South Africa and also the
British Sudan holdings. 1t requires
no bold stretch of the Imagination To
conceive that the present great war
may change the map of Africa to a
considerable extent When the Great
Powers sit down around the council
table at the end of the conflict, Eng
land, in return for her support OF
Belgium against the Germans, might
easily ask that the sovereignty OF
the Congo Free State be entrusted
to. he r. '''-~~
France might well be expected to
assent to this, because her African
holdings would likely be consolidated
and considerably extended as the re-
suit Of her participation in the war.
With the Congo Free State in her
possession, Great Britain would then
hold great strip of Africa running
almost due north and south from the
Mediterranean to the Cape. She would
control the interior lake region of
the Dark Continent, whose vast bod
les Of navigable fresh water are fair
ly comparable to the Great Lakes of
the United States; the Congo valley,
the Cold and diamond reefs of South
Africa and practically every mile Of
the immense and rich valley of the
Nile
The consolidated British empire in
Africa, thus brought into being, would
exceed the British holdings in any
ether continent, not excepting Aus
tralia and the Dominion of Canada.
On the other hand, should Germany
be the dictator in the peace terms at
the end of the great struggle, she
would undoubtedly exact large part
of the French possessions in Africa
Besides the holdings in the Sahara.
the Congo and the Niger valley,
France owns the great island of
Madagascar. 1t is not improbable
that if Germany again, as in 1871,
were in a position to force terms on
France, she would exact her pound
of flesh" in choice bits of French CO.
lonial possessions, rather than in
cash.
One of the greatest colonizing pow
ers of the world is Holland, whose
empire in the east once included much
of what is now British India. Holland
still owns Borneo, which is nearly
one-third as large in area as the Ger
man empire; the Celebes islands, one
third as large as Borneo; Sumatra,
which is nearly as large as France;
Java, which, though only about as
large as Iowa, is one of the most
Gensely populated regions in the world.
numbering something like 30,000,000
inhabitants; Dutch Guiana, on the
north coast of South America, which
is about the size of Java, though hav-
ing much smaller population, and
various islands and groups of islands
in the South Seas.
Holland, Germany and England arc
about equal partners in the owner
ship of New Guinea, the second lar
gest island in the world, lying north
of Australia.
Though Holland has not declared
war, the enumeration of her colonial
possessions is important in this con-
rection, for she has ordered the mo-
Lilization of her army and IL Is hard
to see how, in the event of pro.
longation of the big war, how aay
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