WHY GERMANY NEEDED COLONIES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1673, 10 February 1917, Page 2

WHY GERMANY NEEDED COLONIES.

IT was not in order to find an outlet for her surplus population that Germany needed colonies at any price. She has not enough manhood on the soil as it is, and she has to import labour every year. She has barely enough hands for the number and size of her factories. Emigration figures grow less every year, and are now negligible, amounting to only 25,500 in 1910, of whom all but 1,800 went to the United States. Moreover, although the birth-rate is higher than in England and France, it is decreasing more rapidly than in either of these countries; for instance, in Prussia the figure was, in 1900, 36.1 per 1,000; in 1910, 30.5. In Saxony, 38. Tin 1900, and 27.2 in 1910. In Bavaria, 36.8 in 1900, and 31.4 in 1910. Over the same decade the fall was from 28.2 to 25 per 1,000 in the United Kingdom, and from 21.4 to 19.6 in France. This fierce desire for colonies came from no excess of population penned within frontiers and struggling for breath. What German prospectors go hunting about the world for are mineral deposits. Germany wauls and must have raw' materials, also she needs corn, seeing Unit she has become to such an extent an industrial nation that she no longer grows enough cereals for her own consumption.