[Editorial from The Sun, of Baltimore, October 25, 1881.]
The Continent of the Future.—The Supplement of “The Sun” to-day contains an article by Mr. William Coppinger, Secretary of the American Colonization Society, upon Africa, its condition from various points of view, its trade, mines, agricultural products and increased closeness of relation with the civilized world, which cannot fail to prove of interest to all persons concerned in the future of the mysterious “dark continent.” Americans can hardly conceive the importance attached by Europeans at present to the matters with which Mr. Coppinger so fully and entertainingly deals. The continental powers of Europe, perceiving the immense advantage possessed by England in having her Indian Empire and her colonies as outlets for her manufactures and excess of population, are seeking to imitate her example by founding claims to such territories yet unoccupied by Europeans as are unable to protect themselves from aggression backed by Krupp guns. After the pickings of Russia, England and France, there is little of Asia, besides, perhaps, the Corean peninsula, left to appropriate. The jealousy of the United States has deterred the nations of the Eastern hemisphere from attempts, like that of Maximilian in Mexico, to found claims upon territories in either North or South America. Africa remains, and is at their doors. Having an area of 9,858,000 square miles, and an estimated population, mostly barbarous, of about 201,787,000 souls, it offers, despite its unfavorable climate, great advantages to the European people who shall first appropriate its fertile interior, its trade in mineral and agricultural products, and open these up to European commerce by means of lines of steamboat and railway communications. Africa will perhaps at no distant day become to Europe what North and South America have been for the last two hundred years, the recipient of their overflow of population and their chief producer of food. Its capabilities are untried, but we know they are enormous. Explorers within recent years have traversed the continent in every direction, and have brought back reports generally favorable. The Sahara is shown to be by no means the barren waste it has been represented, and the Soudan has had its vast capabilities exploited. Behind the explorer comes the military post and European civilization. As was shown in “The Sun” some time ago, France has since 1854 been extending her acquisitions from St. Louis, on the West Coast, along the Senegal and Gambia rivers, eastwardly into the Soudan, until she now possesses a large area of country, and exerts a predominant influence over a territory comparable, it is said, in extent with that of England in India. It is to consolidate and strengthen her acquisitions that she proposes to add Tunis to Algeria, and it would be doing scant justice to her policy to suppose that the seizure of Tunis is a detached and insignificant incident. Mr. Coppinger narrates in detail the measures being taken to confirm her position in Africa, as against her various European competitors. A notable fact in connection with the Islamic movement, of which so much is said, is the large hold the Mohammedan religion already has in Africa. There are 51,170,000 of this faith to 145,225,000 heathen, 350,000 Jews and 4,535,000 Coptic and other Christians. Even in Liberia, out of a total population estimated by Mr. Coppinger at 1,400,000, fully 1,000,000 are Mohammedans, and of an aggressive character.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.