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