The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-05-05
WARS SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICA
(John NJ. Springer in World OutIooE
 for ApriI.)

Eltsab ethville, doubling her out put of copper to meet war orders, or Likasi with thirty railway tracks and & great concentrating plant for the treatment of low-grade ores, may sound to the average American more like Arizona or Michigan than Central Africa. But that is because the average American knows so little about Africa.
 Of course he knows that there are diamond mines down Africaway, and rubber and ivory and ostrich feathers. But who in America knows that in the heart of Africa are a hundred and fifty hills so inn pregnated with copper that mo trees will grow there and cattle cannot eat the scanty grass which covers them? Or who knows of the all most untouched deposits of coal iron, tin, and anthony?
 And Africa is no less rich in plants than in minerals. The year ly products of Central Africa in veg etable oils, cocoa, sugar, cotton, and woods amount to nearly s1oo,oOo, 900.
 These natural resources have made the course of empire take a long leap southward and have com plicated the discussions of the Peace Conference. But the real fut- ure of the continent does not depend altogether upon whether a single na- ton or a League administers the colonies, or whether their oils go to make explosives for the Allies or soap for America. There is another most important factor-the native.
 In the past this native has lived in a matched hut which was eaten up by white ants in a year or two. He has had 9, goat and a few chick ems, maybe a slave or two. He had an ulcer on his leg, unidentified pains in his stomach, and fear in his heart. But witha1 he had a cheer full disposition. Also-like most men everywhere-he was as lazy as he dared be.
 Now "civilization" is coming to Africa, is coming for the diamonds and the palm oils. Often it comes with little thought for the African, and he, alone and unfriended, is no more capable of meeting modern in dustrial conditions than a child is of managing an eight-cylinder motor. Conditions in the Rand mining dis trict of the Transvaal have proved this fact.
 There every year half a million
 
 barrie life of jungle or weld. Twenty thousand of these half million re- cruits die, many of them of the white mans diseases and vices Tens of thousands of others find their way back to the kraals, brok- en in health and morals, civilized within an inch of he'll" as one ex- plorer expressed it.
 That is what "civilization" with out Christianity is doing for the Af- rican. At the same time Christian fty has come with quinine and blows. Its work has been less sen- sational. But as one traveller says, For a hundred miles around you can see the influence of a well-es- tablished mission station. The na- tives have more clothing and better food and less likely to die of starv- alton during a drought"
 Before the missionaries came chief buried two live slaves. a boy and a girl. in his mothers grave. but when his favorite wife died recently, the missionaries intervened. and there was no human sacrifice.
 Kabongo is a chief who wanted a mission station-wanted it so much that he sent out his women to clear the ground and his men to bring in poles and grass to build a house for the missionary who was to come. Then when the missionary came, Kabongo built a school, or rather he had it built by cannibaI prisoners he had captured red-handed and brought in to reform
 Thus the natives of the Belgian Congo show their desire for Chris tianity, but the Church has been slow in sending workers. We now have only fifteen missionaries in a territory the size of three states. The future of Africa depends upon how quickly the Church remedies this condition. Without Christianity the history now in the making in Africa will be sad story of exploitation The natives will be crushed by 8 material progress for which they were not prepared. They will be- come a liability to the world.
 With Christianity they may be- come an asset to civilization. But Christianity must come now in greater volume and power to accom- pany the industrial devefopment,