(2) The Lack of Demand.—We saw in an earlier chapter that busi ness there is a demand which can be satisfied by a supply of some kind of goods. In Africa the demand for the goods of the great manufacturing countries of the other continents is very slight. The people live comfortably enough according to their own standards. They do not need expensive clothing, houses, and furni ture. They are satisfied with their own kind of food. On the other hand, the demands of the world for the products of Africa are not yet very insistent. "What the world wants chiefly is staple products like cotton, wool, wheat, iron, coal, and other commonplace articles. Its demand for these is almost unlimited. But for the articles which the great central part of Africa is chiefly able to supply, such as palm oil, cocoa, ivory, copra, and rubber, the demand is still limited. It can be met more easily in the tropical regions of southeastern Asia, the East and West Indies, and northern•South America than in central Africa. Those regions are more accessible than Africa because of the relative length of their seacoasts in proportion to their area. So long as they can supply the world's demands Africa is likely to he neglected. The United States almost completely neglects Africa, the exports to this country amounting to only 3 per cent of the African total. We satisfil our need for tropical products almost entirely in other regions.
(3) The Inadequacy of labor is well known to be inefficient, the reason being largely the actual physical incapacity of the people to work in the northern fashion. With this goes the fact that they have few needs and hence have little desire to work. Africa is particularly handicapped in this respect. The Negro races of tropical Africa will often work much better out of loyalty and affection for their foremen than from any desire for more pay. In fact kindness and good
humor will often persuade the Africans to work heartily for long hours when a mere offer of pay or any attempt to compel them to work will have the opposite effect.
(4) The Health of the White same conditions which make the Negro inefficient weaken the white man. In the old days a popular rhyme among sailors went as follows: "Beware of the Bight of Benin.
Few come out, though many go in." Even now, with all that has been done in medical science, the white man cannot live permanently on the equatorial coasts of Africa. Whether he can live in the highlands is still a disputed question. Cer tainly his health suffers there far less than in the lowlands, but it is still doubtful whether there can be any genuine white colonization on a scale such as in South Africa, where there is one white man to four natives, or in Algeria, where the ratio is one to six. Unless there is a , fairly large white population it will be difficult for Africa to hold any great place in the world's business, especially while there are such undeveloped possibilities in tropical regions that are more easily acces sible. But even if Europeans should settle in Africa there is grave danger that in competition with the black men and under the influence of the unfavorable climatic and social environment many of them would deteriorate into " poor whites." Even in South Africa this has hap pened to a dangerous degree, and many of the less competent whites are being displaced by blacks. This gives rise to the most serious problem of that dominion. Europe took possession of Africa because of its natural resources on the one hand and the weakness of its political system of the other. And Europe finds that tropical Africa is on the whole a burden. Yet the countries of Europe have been willing to fight for possessions in that continent.