ABSTRACT
WHEN the German colonial empire was established in 1884 Bismarck repeatedly expressed the view that chartered companies should be responsible for the administration of newly acquired overseas possessions. He argued that while senior Prussian civil servants and non-commissioned officers in the army performed their duties admirably at home they did not have the experience which would enable them to undertake the entirely different task of governing native peoples in Africa or the Pacific. Bismarck believed that it was merchants from Hamburg and Bremen-with their long experience of trading in the Cameroons, at Zanzibar and in Samoa-who should be prepared to shoulder the responsibilities of colonial admi.nistration because they alone had the necessary knowledge of the territories in which protectorates were being established.
