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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/314

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310
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

generation; the same holds for Russian Poland and the Baltic provinces. Russia has better claims to reconstruct an autonomous Poland and annex parts of Austria.

We may hope in the interest of future peace that the map of Europe will not be considerably altered. The chief changes are likely to be in Africa where apart from the English and Dutch in the south there are no real colonies, only exploiting "protectorates." Great Britain controls nearly 2,800,000 square miles, France some 2,300,000 square miles, Germany nearly 1,000,000 square miles; Belgium, Portugal and Italy possess large areas. If Germany loses in the war, Great Britain is almost certain to seize German East Africa to control the path from the Cape to Cairo. France, Belgium, Italy and Portugal will probably increase their holdings at the cost of Germany. If Germany should dominate Europe, it will seek to control Africa and to increase instead of losing its possessions in the far east. It will aim to supplant Great Britain as a world-wide empire. But the time has probably gone by when Germany can establish colonies as Great Britain did. It may rule subject races as Great Britain does in India, but it can not supply men for colonies such as Canada and the Australian commonwealth. In 1850 German-born residents of the United States outnumbered a hundredfold those born in Austria-Hungary, Russia and Italy together, now the immigration from each of these nations is ten times that from Germany. There are some 13,000,000 Germans in North and South America, but the total emigration from Germany to the United States has decreased

From the N. Y. Evening Post.

Boundaries of Central Europe and the Distribution of Races.