AFRICA IN 1957.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 28 November 1907, Page 3

AFRICA IN 1957.

11l the World's Work for September -Mr. S. i'. Verner makes out a strong case for the great improvements which i will take place in the Dark Continent in oil years. Cape Town, he says., should i thou have a population of over one million whites and half as many blacks; Kimberley will be as large as lSirminglur.il; Johannesburg as Sheilield; thilnwnyo as large as Leeds. At Victoria alls there will be another .Manchester. At Khartoum tnere will be a great naive],,;;-', in which English will be the at Stanleyville, probably an-utlii-v. where French' will iirevail. Victoria Kails will light liuluwayo and (lie I'pper Zamliesi Valley, and will be driving tramways, looms, and other industrial plant* in all that region. The cataracts of the Nile will annually spin 1.000,000 bales of cotton into fabric. At the head of the Livingstone Cataracts at Stanley Pool, a great dam will give the Congo' a loft draft for a thousand , -lies, and will deliver power to rail- . lys in four different directions. The and upper country of the Niger will be raising 3,000,000 bales of cotton •let- year. The production of rubber from the African Continent will have reached an annual total of £20,000,000. Fifty years hence there will, we are further told, be 150,000 miles of telegraphs and telephone wires, 110,000 miles of automobile roads, 40,000 miles of railways. There will be over 1000 steamboat* on the African rivers. In the Zambesi and Southern Congo region there will be an annual production of

pig-iron of the value of over £20,000,, 000. Thero will be lumlicr manufacturing establishments in the great equatorial" forests in (icrman and British East Africa nml in the Soudan. One will lie able to travel from London toOape Town, if he wish, oy way of Constantinople, Asia Minor, Jerusalem, and Cairo—all the way by rail. But 1957 is a long way oil, and it is easy to dream dreams.