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had entrusted her with the administration of justice and the collection of taxes.

In spite of these disclosures, Schmidt was kept in Togoland, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, speaking in the Reichstag on December 3, 1906, declared that this campaign against German colonial officials must cease, if it were not to become impossible to find men for the administrative staff!

I have already mentioned the case of Captain Dominik, whose men drowned 52 babies in the Nachtigal rapids. The German Government commissioned a statue of Dominik from the sculptor, Karl Moebius, from whose hands came also the monument of another notorious brute: Peters. Dominik's statue was sent to the Cameroons in 1912, and a replica of it set up in Jaunde on May 5, 1914.

At this same station of Jaunde another German official held sway, Lieutenant Schenneman, who had three natives castrated because he suspected them of relations with his mistress.

We have not yet completed this gallery of German colonial officials, for there is Captain Kannenberg, who fired into a hut close by to silence a woman and a child whose crying kept him awake, and had two village chiefs scourged to death for not answering some questions satisfactorily. Kannenberg was condemned to three months' imprisonment, then immediately pardoned and given his full pension by Stuebel, the Director of Colonies. A department official who ventured to raise doubts as to the legality of this pension was brought before a disciplinary court and discharged.

Next we get Captain Brandeis, another flogging expert, who meted out this punishment to the Marshall Islands natives whenever he felt so disposed, but left no records of it in his registers of judicial penalties.

for form's sake Brandeis was reprimanded-and presented with a Prussian decoration.

Then, too, Captain Kamptz, mentioned already, who shot down Cameroons natives with a machine-gun at three feet distance; captain Thierry, who hunted natives like game; and Karl Mezger, who fired into every village he passed through, killing or wounding the natives just to win respect for German might.

In Togoland also we find Doctor Gruener, Herr von Doering, and Doctor Kase, whom the natives nicknamed the monster of Manga. In the annals of the crimes committed in this unhappy colony are cases of "punishment at the stake," a form of torture with which our men have made acquaintance in German prison camps.

II.

At a time when Germany still possessed a conscience this unbroken series of crimes and cruelties committed in her colonies provoked indignant protests in the Reichstag.

On March 15, 1906, Deputy Arendt stated that the colonies were merely a refuge for men of damaged character. On March 13, 1906, Bebel said:

"There is not a single one of our colonies, whether in Africa, or in the Pacific islands, or in Australasia, which is not the scene of revolts. The Governor of East Africa, Count Goetzen, has himself admitted that the hut-tax, the veto on opening up the forests and hunting game, and forced labour for road making, etc., have contributed to this unrest. But flogging has done more than anything else to bring about this rebellious spirit. In one year, in the Kilwa district, 434 floggings are recorded, and in the colonies taken together, 4,783, not counting those of an unofficial character. The instrument of torture, a rhinoceros-hide whip, breaks the skin at the first blow. Severe illness, and, in many cases, death, follows. The employment of such a means of punishment exasperates the natives and rouses their anger to a terrible pitch-a matter not to be wondered

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at. It would be a miracle were things otherwise. Moreover, in 1914, 13 natives were sentenced to death, 223 to more than one year's imprisonment, 429 to six to twelve months, and 6,154 to less than six months."

Bebel then read out a letter that appeared in the Strasburger Post, in which the writer describes an incident in which he took part:

"On August 23rd, at 5 a.m., we surprised the natives at Kibata, just as they were endeavouring to cross the river. There was at the spot a narrow bridge of lianas, which they had to negotiate, so we got into them nicely. Seventy-six of them were killed, without including those who fell wounded into the river. Many tried to swim across, but were torn to pieces by the crocodiles which swarm there. In the middle of the river there was a sand-bank, on which those who escaped the crocodiles tried to rest, but our bullets found them all right. What a sight it was! I was on the river bank, behind a fallen tree. I fired 120 rounds. The prisoners were hung in every case.

Bebel protested against this hideous way of waging war. On March 17, 1906, he returned to the charge. He examined the case of Peters, who had his young servant girl hanged for stealing a few cigars, and his concubine on suspicion of infidelity; who sacked and burned villages; and was guilty of such a succession of crimes that the traveller, Eltz, a German who happened to be in Africa at the same time as Peters, wrote in the Voss Gazette: "You, Doctor Peters, have committed acts such as Germany will not thank you for."

On March 20, 1906, Bebel related how, at Duala, Police Inspector Wieck distributed petroleum and matches among his men, to set fire to native houses which the Road Department wanted out of the way, so that new streets might be laid out. The Socialist leader disclosed the fact that the instruments used for flogging were soaked in tar and then rolled in sand, to increase their cutting powers.

"That is pure barbarism, an act of cruelty perpetrated in the name of civilisation and Christianity, against which we protest

with all our might. The things we hear of as happening in our colonies match the deeds of Oriental despots. How can people, who pride themselves on their civilisation, be guilty of such acts?

"I am quite convinced that, if a conspiracy of silence were not the rule, we should hear yet worse things. A man who lived in the Cameroons told me that every clerk who disclosed any scandal might regard himself as done for. All means were employed to get him recalled. As for the officials, they are firmly bound by the ties of comradeship."

On December 1, 1906, Bebel described the scandalous contracts of the Tippelskirch and Woermann firms, whose business had so profited by the Herrero war that, in common with all German merchants of S.W. Africa, they regarded the war as a very fine thing. Bebel took advantage of this occasion to quote the following proclamation by General von Trotha:

"I, the great general of the German soldiers, send this letter to the Herreros. The Herreros are German subjects no longer. They have killed, stolen, cut off the ears and other parts of the body from wounded soldiers, and now are too cowardly to want to fight any longer. I announce to the people that whoever hands over to me one of the chiefs shall receive 1,000 marks, and 5,000 marks for Samuel Maherero. The Herrero nation must now leave the country. If it refuses, I shall compel it to do so with the 'long tube' (cannon). Any Herrero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them. Such are my words to the Herrero people."

Returning to the Peters business, Bebel related how Councillor Hellwig, who had informed against Peters, was retired by Secretary of State von Richtofen. Murmurs ran through the Reichstag, and when it was called to order Bebel exclaimed: "All the calls to order in the world will not efface the shameful fact of the corruption of the German Empire."

On March 7, 1914, the Socialist Deputy Dittmann stated in a speech from which we have already quoted :

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"The German Empire has now pursued a colonial policy for thirty years but what we know of our colonies gives us little reason to hold jubilee. A member of the Centre, who speaks annually on colonial questions, has himself admitted that if things continue as they are, Germany can no longer accept the responsibilities of her colonial policy.'

Deputy Dittmann drew a moving picture of the forced labour imposed on the negroes, of the bad faith shown by German colonists, backed up by the authorities, who kept back for themselves the larger part of the wages promised. He disclosed the fact that, whereas the East African Company's dividends rose to 15 per cent. in 1912, the black's wages had risen only a centime a day between 1907 and 1912.

The natives preferred to take to the bush or emigrate to adjacent colonies. The German authorities

then hunted them and threw recalcitrant labourers into chains. In conclusion, Herr Dittmann said:

"Gentlemen, I believe that level-headed people must regard our colonial policy as the product of a mad-house." (The speaker was here called to order by the President for insulting the Secretary of State for the Colonies, but continued) : "Who can deny that this development of oppression, the offspring of capitalism and exploitation, is at the bottom of the evil, and that the only way of improving matters is to prevent these profit-hunters from battening on the colonies? If a poll-tax be introduced in Ruanda and Urundi to compel the natives to work, and a revolt is the result, it is to be feared that the tragedy of the Herreros in South-West Africa will appear a mere bagatelle beside the massacres which will take place in the north-west corner of East Africa. In South-West Africa it was a matter of but 80,000 Herreros: in Ruanda and Urundi, one has to do with 3,500,000 natives.

"Peaceful colonisation is possible, however. I would remind you of the Jesuit State of Paraguay, and refer you to the experiences of missionaries and explorers of Africa. You will see that the prosperous condition of the British colony of Nigeria is due to the very complete economic independence of the black population. While our cocoa plantations in the Cameroons yielded us 4 million marks' worth of produce in 1912, the independent peasant proprietors of Nigeria sent 40 million marks' worth into the world's markets.”