EUROPEAN EXPANSION AND WORLD POLITICS 138 
ity. Infact, the movement was so ill-conceived and so care- 
lessly undertaken, while the greatest ignorance prevailed as 
to local conditions, that in both the Tonquin and the Al- 
gerian campaigns there was a great waste of life and money; 
and it was many years before the French reaped any bene- 
fits from their new possessions. 
For a decade after the Franco-Prussian War, all colonial 
progress was stopped by the weakness and poverty of the 
Government, by the long strife between the political parties 
which more than once brought the country to the verge 
of war or disrupture, and by the lack of scientific knowledge 
and modern methods of managing colonies. The system 
of home rule accompanied by universal suffrage and repre- 
sentation in the French Parliament, which had been given 
to the colonies by the First and Second Republics, and which 
had been the source of endless troubles, particularly in 
the Antilles, was replaced, from 1854 to 1866, by the more 
efficient rule of governors with almost full powers and sup- 
ported by troops. Yet the service in many places remained 
so inefficient and slovenly that the French earned the repu- 
tation of poor colonizers. 
It remained for Jules Ferry to stir his compatriots to an 
active and sane participation in foreign politics, and to 
arouse a genuine interest and national pride in colonial 
undertakings, through the Tunis episode. It was in the 
eighties before France had scientific and popular colonial 
organizations of sufficient importance and backing to pre- 
pare the way for the creation of a genuine colonial empire. 
Then, for the first time, was the study of colonial methods 
and the customs, conditions, and peoples of the new lands 
entered upon with intelligence, seriousness, and enthusiasm. 
The whole system of colonial administration, from the Colo- 
nial Office down to the management of the smallest colony, 
was gradually but thoroughly reorganized and readjusted,