EUROPE AND AFRICA
colonial empires, in order to secure commercial power and the
control of trade centers. As time went on, however, their
point of view changed; and the movement, within the last
two decades, has become economic and commercial, rather
than territorial. Narrow and selfish ideas of colonial poli-
tics and economics have given place to broader and saner
conceptions of the relations of the mother countries to their
offspring and to one another. The European powers have
realized that the acquisition of vast territories is not in itself
genuine national expansion, and that these great possessions
cannot be maintained without a scientific study of their
peoples, customs, and institutions, and the proper de-
velopment of their governments and natural resources.
This places a great burden upon the home country, as it
involves the expenditure of immense sums of money and the
employment of hundreds of its best citizens. And the
nations have learned that, after all, the world is a small place
where the interests of all constantly overlap, and where it
is no longer wise or possible to maintain exclusive trade
monopolies.
Previous to 1880, the European governments were too
much occupied with local affairs, and too weak financially
and economically, to think seriously of colonial empires.
When the smoke of those vital conflicts of the nineteenth
century — the Franco-Prussian War and the Russo-Turkish
struggle of 1877-78 —had cleared away, and the map of
Europe had been adjusted for a time with a fair degree of
satisfaction, the statesmen were able to rise above the petty
strife for military glory and local territorial aggrandize-
ment, and to take a saner, broader view of a nation’s des-
tiny. And a transformation was begun which was to lift
European diplomacy out of its Mediterranean leading-strings
and place it upon a plane as wide as the world. Man’s
political horizon was elevated until European and American