Imperialism, War, and Revolution, 1881–1920 531dustrialists to covet cheaper, more manageable, colonial
labor. Financiers needed to find markets for investing
the capital accumulating from industrial profits. As a
leading French imperialist, Jules Ferry, said, “Colonial
policy is the daughter of industrial policy” (see docu-
ment 27.1). The new imperialism, however, cannot be
explained entirely by economics. Colonies cost impe-
rial governments sums of money for military, adminis-
trative, and developmental expenses that far exceeded
the tax revenues they produced. Many private enter-
prises also lost money on imperialism. In the early
twentieth century, the five largest banks in Berlin ap-
pealed to the government to stop acquiring colonies
because they were losing ventures. Individual investors
usually lost money in colonial stocks; they frequently
paid neither dividends nor interest and were sold as pa-
triotic investments. Some businesses, and the elites who
controlled them, did make great profits from captive
markets; textile towns and port-cities prospered in this
way and championed imperialism. A few individuals
made staggering fortunes overseas, as Cecil Rhodes did
in the African diamond fields. Rhodes was a struggling
cotton farmer who bought a diamond claim and hired
Africans to work it. When he died, he was consideredNig
erR
.Ni
leCa
nalSu
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Ocean
Mediterranean SeaIndian
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AN
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REMOROCCO
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ORO ALGERIATUNISIALIBYA
EGYPTSUDAN ERITREAETHIOPIASOMALILANDKENYAUGANDACONGOCAMEROONSNIGERIATOGO
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LIBERIACOASTGOLD MUNISIERRA
LEONEGUINEAGAMBIASENEGAL
WEST AFRICAEQUATORIAL
AFRICAEQUATORIAL
AFRICAANGOLASOUTH
WEST
AFRICASOUTH
AFRICA BASUTOLANDSWAZILANDMADAGASCARMOZAMBIQUEBECHUANALANDTRANSVAALSOUTHERN
RHODESIANORTHERN
RHODESIAGERMAN
EAST
AFRICACape of Good Hope
Possessions, 1914
Spain
Portugal
Great BritainFrance
Germany
ItalyBelgium
Independent
Boer Republic0 750 1500 Miles0 750 1500 2250 KilometersCairoAlexandriaOmdurmanMafeking PretoriaKhartoumFashoda AdowaTangier TunisMAP 27.2
Africa in 1914