A GREAT LEADER.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 38, 15 February 1916, Page 4

A GREAT LEADER.

The fact th'at General Smuts has been placed in supreme command of the British forces in what was recently German East Africa is the greatest proof of Britain's methods of promoting succeessful colonisation. It is not very many years ago since General Smuts, and General Botha had their swords unsheathed against Britain, in the German engineered Boer war ,and now we find these two men among the most loyal of the Empire's citizens. General Smuts has successfully quelled rebellion in South and Africa and it is doubtful whether 'a more competent genei'al, or one with a better knowledge of the country and its people, German and natives, could be found for the work of clearing the Teutonic element right out of that part of the African Continent. General Smuts has been operating as successfully as any general in other war centres, and although the limelight of public interest lias not been so intense he has effected much as an Empire builder, and his name will not figure far behind other gre'at leaders in future history. The country in which he is fighting is little known to many people, still that does not alter the fact that in a few years to come it is destined to become a territory upon which the eye and the interest of the whole world will be drawn, and people will be as conversant with what East Africa and the Cameroons are doing in the economics of the world as they now are of

what South Africa or the Australian Commonwealth is doing. The latest Bulletin of the Imperial Institute on the economic resources of the German colonies deals with the German West African colonics —the Cameroens and Togoland. Germany annex-

ed their boundaries in 1911 at the ex- I pense of the French. The Bulletin ' says: "Its present area is about 290,- j 000 square miles, and the' internal communications are on the whole exce'lent, good roads connecting up most of the towns, while three railways have been built. The temperature, even in the unhealthy coast region, is not excessively high. Rubber is the chief exported product; next in i order of value are palm kernels, cocoa, and p'alm oil. Gum arabie,' kola and shea nuts are other exported products. The cultivation of tobacco has 'also been encouraged and the pros-

pects of success seem good. In this connection it is interesting to note that consignments of Cameroons tobacco from the captured territory are being offered for sale in England. As in other German colonies much attention has been paid to stock-breeding, despite the great difficulties caused by the tsetse fly. No useful mineral deposits that could be made the basis cf a mining industry have as yet been found to exist in the Cameroons, but a large part of the Protectorate is unexplored. The country may be said, however, to show promising indications of the existence of a number of economic minerals, which justify, at any rate, more systematic exploration." This portion cf German Africa, which is by no means the most valuable, produces that which the Empire urgently needs in establishing a selfcontained economic condition. Like most other tropical and subttropical virgin lands, it has its drawbacks, but these are fast being ameliorated, and some of the worst have already been conquered and eliminated by the German colonisers, Africa now bids fair to becoming very largely, if not almost solely, a British continent. With General Smuts' help all German rule in Africa is to be completely wiped out.