After the war with Spain in 1898 we placed a protectorate over Cuba. Because it lies at our very door we were interested in its sugar crop, and wanted to right its wrongs. Our acquisition of the island possessions of the Philippines and Porto Rico, however, had little geographic cause except in so far as Spain's weakness and cor ruption were of geographical origin. As for Guam, we were glad to get it because of its location where a coaling station was needed if we were to maintain much intercourse with the Philippines. Since then we have annexed the Panama Canal Zone and have established a mild protectorate over the Republics of Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Santo Domingo. We have not done this from any desire for expan sion, but simply because our location near these countries has obliged us to use our strength in forwarding the great international enter prise of the canal and in protecting our own people or others from the misgovernment of weaker countries. The Virgin Islands fall in a group by themselves. We bought them from Denmark because the United States is coming to feel that it should not run the risk of letting islands guarding the approaches to Panama fall into unfriendly hands.
(4) The Expansion of France.—France is another of the countries located in a region of highly stimulating climate. She, too, has ex panded into regions occupied by weaker people, but not in the same way as Britain, Russia, and the United States. She has not had much surplus population with which to establish colonies like those of Britain. Her frontiers, unlike those of Russia, have been bordered by strong countries so that she could not expand into neighboring terri tory. Soon after the discovery of America she made her first colonial attempt in the same way as Great Britain. Many of her people settled in Canada, and Louisiana, and India. These places she lost, chiefly to England, because of the English energy and sea power and because being a self-supporting agricultural country with no excess population she did not really need colonies. All that she holds to-day in these regions is a few tiny bits like the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off Newfoundland and the port of Pondicherry in India. In thus losing her early American and Indian colonies France suffered the same fate as Holland and Portugal.
During the nineteenth century, when the need of raw materials and of markets started all the great countries of Europe on a new hunt for colonies France again made an attempt. This time she did not expand from her Atlantic coast where she had failed before and where she would have had to compete with England. Instead she went out from her Mediterranean coast to Tunis and Algeria, the nearest land that was not held by a strong nation and hence was weakly governed.
Then she expanded into the Sahara and eventually took the bulk of west Africa. To-day her possessions in the continent of Africa are twenty times the size of France, while even the island of Mada gascar, off the southeast coast, is larger than all of the home coun try. Finally the French turned again toward Asia, and there, unlike Great Britain, they entered upon a deliberate plan of conquest in Indo-China. To-day the French possessions are larger than the United States and have half as great a population. England alone has a larger colonial empire. Strangely enough all this territory is commercially tributary to the Mediterranean coast of France, and although Paris is the capital, Marseilles is the great colonial port.
(5) The Expansion of Japan.—Among the nations of Asia Japan is the only one which is strong because of its location in a region of cyclonic storms. The example of other strong nations convinced her of the value of colonies. The growth of her own population made her feel the need of them. The weak and poorly governed regions of Formosa and Korea only a little distance from her coasts gave her the desired opportunity for expansion. They were not enough to satisfy her, however, and as Manchuria is the nearest easily accessible region she expanded rapidly there.
Japan's expansion is the result of a real need. Not more than one-fifth of her territory can be cultivated because it is so moun tainous. • That fifth, comprising only 21,000 square miles, supports 55,000,000 people, or 2500 to the square mile. As the population increases and the standard of living rises, the Japanese must have new means of support. They have thought they could obtain these by acquiring new lands, and hence have adopted a policy of attempt ing to control China. At the end of the Great War, they tried to cling to Shantung, which they had wrested from the Germans, and at the same time acquired new concessions farther south in Fukien.
How Japan Can Best Solve Her Chinese Problem.—The expe rience of France and of most countries that have colonies shows, how ever, that the real solution does not lie in political control. It lies in cultivating friendly relations so that a profitable trade may develop between countries like Japan and China. In Japan the geographical conditions cause manufacturing and commerce to be of ever-increas ing importance. In China the lower degree of initiative among the people and the presence of great natural resources cause that country to offer its chief possibilities as a source of food and raw materials. Political domination of weaker nations by those that are stronger is needed only to prevent misgovernment. It is needed in China far less than in India.