ABSTRACT
THE GERMAN COLONIES, 1884-1914 A FEATURE of the development of Germany's overseas possessions between 1884 and 1914 was the way in which economic progress was hampered by lack of capital. The German investing public seldom supported colonial ventures. An analysis of the distribution of the long-term foreign investment of the Reich in 1914 shows that more German money was invested in Europe than in all other continents together. German investments in Africa (including the Reich's colonies) were only two-thirds of those in Austria-Hungary.l And in Africa the mines of the Rand had in the nineties attracted as much German capital as was sunk (by 1914) by private investors in all Germany's colonies. 2 The reluctance of the German public to invest in colonial enterprises may be illustrated by the experience of the first syndicate formed to build the Northern Railway in the Cameroons. It required £850,000. Preference shares, without any government guarantee of interest, proved to be difficult to place, and only £300,000 was raised in this way.3 Even the vigorous propaganda of Dr. Dernburg, the former Director of the Darmstadt Bank who was Colonial Minister in 1907-10, had only a limited success in inducing German capitalists to support colonial enterprises. '
