The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1917-07-17
FRENCRCOLON|ES
/ To- GIVE AID TO
mother COUNTRY
Possessions To Provide Large
Share Of Foods and Raw
ss@ h. Materials
COL NlAL TRADE HAS BEEN
NEGLECTED. SAYS DEPUTY
Undeveloped Resources of Lands
In Africa and Asia To Be
Made Productive

PARIS, July 6--French colonies and
prctectorates are going to furnish
France big part of the food and raw
materials she has been getting from
foreign countries, in the opinion Of
Albert Lebrun, deputy from the de-
partment of Meurthe and MoselIe and
former minister of colonies. France
will also, he thinks furnish a larger
part of the things her colonies buy.
France pays foreign countries
about 300,0o0,000 france a year for oil.
producing products, y he said to re.
preventative of The Associated Press,
while she has in Senegal, ON the,
Ivory Coast, in Dahomey, Gabon and
lndO- China, immense resources in these
products that are undeyeloped. Palm
trnes and coeoanut trees grow there
naturally, while the soil Is well adapt.
ed to the production Of peanuts which
produce a comestible oil greatly an
pFeciated not only in France. hut In
Germany. The Germans took 20. 900
tons Of peanuts from our colony in
Senegal during the first half of 1914.
The bean that produces castor oil, SO
essential to our aviation, also thrives
in our colonies. IS, ~
Congo Gould Furnish Coffee ~
"Vf 10000 tons of coffee consumed
lin France each year only about 1000
tons come from our colonies, vet our
/ Congo furnishes plants to renew the
plantations Of the Dutch Indies. The
same situation prevails in different de-
grees. with regard to cocoon, rubber and
cereals. 1875 sg..'f. ~. t,I ~
"of 100000 francs worth of 70.
baceo imported by France annually,
Algeria furnished 100000. The rest
comes from foreign markets, but we
have splendid tobacco land in. West
Africa Alongside that on which the
Germans had already developed planta-
tions in the Kamerun that gave good
crops of excellent quality. th9g,E
Paper Shortage In France n
France Is short of paper; she has
always been dependent upon Sweden
for pulp, yet the high plateaus OF Al
geria abound with fiber producing al.
ia and. the hillsides Of Benin and Coo.
hin, China are rich with bamboo and
papyrus that ought long ago to have
been utilized by our paper.makers.
Pulp mills there could not only fur.
nish what we require, but could ex-
port large quantities to foreign coun-
tries thus helping our exchange. FfH
France imports 3O5,300 tons of cot
ton per year, four-ffths from the Unit.
ed States and the rest, excepting
few hundred tons, from Egypt and
India. In the same latitude we have
immense spaces in our colonies where
cotton grows unaided in its wild state !;
it needs only little help to develop into
an important production. n NV
1.-THE jute, and flax Of Tonkin and
West Africa are used in primitive
ways by the, natives to make nets, cor
dage' and hats. Systematic improve
ment in the cultivation Of those re-
gions would bring an important re-
source to France.
Colonies Gould Aid Greatly -
'"There is nothing our Colonies pro.
duce that we cannot utilize to the best
advantage, yet France did only forty
per cent Of the trade of our colonies,
excluding Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco,
in 1918; two and one half per cent Of
their trade was between. themselves,
the rest, about flfty-seven per cent was
with foreign countries. Germany and
Austria were rapidly Increasing their
share of It before the, war. Their
trade was 30O00,0o0 francs in 1907. 1t
had grown to 70,0O0,000 francs a year
in 1912 Germany's trade was the
largest Of all; in some or dur colonies,
,nahomey, for, instance, coming even
before that with France. '..'
France, has the second colonial do.
miniOn of the world, comprising in
1914, 100000 square miles, inhabited
by more than 50,000,000 persons.
"Their general trade had reached
3,0O000O,000 francs year, or about
one.ffth of that of the mother country,
in 1913. During the war they have
been a great aid to. the home country
in the furnishing of oils, cereals, wool,
rice and livestock. Their role for the
future viii be to replace to great ex,
tent other foreign markets. on which
France depended before
- &c. Z ~.