ABSTRACT
It is true that when the colonies were acquired it was thought that some of them would become regions of white settlement that might attract German immigrants. The drive for German colonies coincided with a rapid increase in population and an exceptional wave of emigration. The population rose from 41 millions in 1871 to nearly 50 millions in 1890 and the proportion of the total popUlation living in urban communities of more than 2,000 persons increased in the same period from 31.6 per cent. to 42.5 per cent. The birthrate per 1,000 of the population (excluding stillbirths) reached the high level of 39.2 in the period between 1876 and 1880. The increase in population came at a time of industrial depression and more Germans than ever before left the country. In the three years 1880-2, half a million people emigrated and most of them settled in the United States. It was natural that colonial enthusiasts should hope that the possessions overseas which Germany secured between 1884 and 1890 would attract a part of this stream of emigrants. But they were disappointed, for the colonies proved to be unsuitable for large-scale white settlement. The unhealthy tropical climate of the Cameroons and Togoland, the lack of water in parts of South West Africa, the long absence of adequate communications, the reluctance of capitalists to invest in colonial enterprises, and the hostility of many of the native tribes were some of the factors which discouraged settlement. Over a million Germans emigrated between 1887 and 1906, and, as in the early eighties, they nearly all went to the U.S.A. By the early years of the present century, however, the emigration problem had ceased to be a serious one. In 1900 only 22,000 Germans emigrated. Indeed emigration was now counterbalanced by
the immigration of foreigners. In 1905 there were over a million foreigners in Germany. Some were agricultural labourers in the eastern provinces of Prussia, while others were industrial workers in the Rhineland manufacturing region. There were only about 23,500 Germans in the colonies in 1913, half of them being in South West Africa. Many were not permanent settlers but were civil servants, soldiers and policemen.'
