The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1914-08-18

for all practical purposes both Upper
Egypt and Lower Egypt are British
possessions. The Soudan provinces
OF England now join the British ter
ritories in East Africa which include
a frontage Of about four hundred
miles on the Indian Ocean. Thus
the route is nearly all in British ter
ritory from the Cape to Cairo rail
road.
In the very heart of tropical At
RIGA lies the Congo Free State, with
nearly a million square miles, nomi-
nally a Belgian dependency 1t
touches British South Africa and
also the British Soudan possessions.
1t requires no bold stretch of the
imagination to conceive that the
present great war may change the
map of Africa to considerable ex-
tent. When the great powers sit
down around the council table at the
end of the conflict, England, in re-
turn for her support of Belgium
against Germany, might easily ask
that the sovereignty of the Congo
Free State be entrusted to her.
France might we'll be expected to
assent to this, because her African
holdings would likely be consolidat-
ed and considerably extended as
the result of her participation in the
war. With the Congo Free State in
her possession, Great Britain would
then hold a great strip of Africa rum
ming almost due north and south
from the Mediterranean to the Cape.
She would control the interior lake
region of the Dark Continent whose
vast bodies of navigable fresh water
are fairly comparable to the Great
Lakes of the United States; the Con
go Valley; the gold 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 other continent, not excepting
Australia and the Dominion of Can
ada.
On the other hand, should Ger
many be the dictator in the peace
terms at the end of the great strug-
gle, she would undoubtedly exact a
large part of the French possession
in Africa. Besides the holdings in
the Sahara, the Congo and Niger
Valley, France owns the great island
of Madagascar. 1t is not improbable
that if Germany again, as in 1871,
We're in position to force terms on
France, she would exact her pound
of flesh in choice bits of French
colonial possession, rather. than in
cash.
One of the greatest colonizing
powers of the world is Holland
whose empire in the east once in
Guided much of what is now British
India. Holland still owns Borneo
which is nearly as large in area as
| the German Empire; the Celebes
Islands, one-third as large as Bor-
neo; Sumatra which is nearly as
large as France; Java, though only
about as large as Iowa, is one of the
most densely populated regions in
the world, numbering something
like 100000 inhabitants; Dutch
Guiana, on the north coast of South
America. which is about the size of
Java, though having a much smaller
population and various groups of is
lands in the South Seas.
Holland, Germany ana England
are about equal partners in the own
ership of New Guinea, the second
largest 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-
nection, for she has ordered the
mobilization of her army and it is
hard to see how, in the event OF
a prolongation o3 the big war, any
lEuropean power with world inter
ests can keep out of it.