Pages: 83-86

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VICTOR BÉRARD. "ENGLAND AND IMPERIALISM"

Victor Bérard:
"England and Imperialism."
Paris
1900.
(381 pp.)
From the review, it is evident that this book represents something like a collection of newspaper articles: brisk, highly brisk journalism, but extremely superficial. A story, chatter, no more. "Joseph Chamberlain" is the first chapter. Quotes from his speeches, his career, his fame, etc., etc. "Imperialism" is the second chapter (or section: neither the name "chapter" nor their numbering is there), also a "newspaper" story: "Markets, markets," a darkness of examples and figures (on the decline of English trade, etc.) from "blue books," but all this is fragmented, feuilletonistic, and after Hobson and Schulze-Gaevernitz it is something like a high school notebook.... Also about the competition of Germany, etc., etc. Nothing. Nothing.
Except for a couple of examples, which may be useful:
From the arguments against imperialism:
"These same statistics also show that the occupation of any territory by His Majesty's troops is often beneficial only to foreigners, and very little to British subjects: in Egypt, after 1881, only German and Belgian trade really increased: imports of English products into Egypt 1870 — 8,726 thousand pounds sterling; 1880— 3,060; 1892 — 3,192; 1897 — 4,435, while German imports from 21,000 livres (Egyptian = 25 francs 60) in 1886 reached 281,000 in 1896, and Belgian imports during the same period rose from 86,000 to 458,000 livres," (p. 249).
"After France invented beet sugar, it became the leading power in the world in the sugar industry: in 1870 it still held a monopoly. Then Germany sets to work. Having studied and compared French crops, it establishes that, like northern France, it has suitable soil and a suitable climate near coal mines. But its soil is less fertile; its climate is considerably harsher. The struggle against the French will therefore be very unequal. However, starting in 1882, French sugar producers began to cry out: German sugar is penetrating even into the French market... German beet yields 12% of its weight in sugar; French planters declare that they cannot give more than 7%" - the Germans transformed agriculture, fertilizers, selection, etc., etc.
"Not even twelve years of German competition had passed when France, which discovered the beet, lost the income from its invention. Its 1884 law on sugar is dictated to it by scientific Germany, which from then on is the queen of sugar and, in addition, the queen of alcohol," (pp. 311-312).
the book is dated at the end November 1898 — April 1900.