the ranks of the exploiters there arose continually black men
and mulattoes, but these dark men were also exploiters. They
had the psychology of the exploiters. They looked upon the
mass of people as means of wealth. The mass therefore had
no leadership. There was no one in the colony except the
unrisen and undeveloped blacks who thought of the colony
as developing and being developed for its own sake and for
the sake of the mass of the people there. Everyone of intelligence thought that Senegal was being developed for the sake
of France and inevitably they tended to measure its development by the amount of profit.
If this sort of thing goes on will not France find herself in the same profit-taking colonial industry as England? Indeed, unless she follows English methods in African colonies can she compete with England in the amount of profit made, and if she does not make profit out of her colonies how long will her industrial masters submit without tremendous industrial re- turns? Or if these industrial returns come, what will be the plight of black French Africa? Batouala voices it. In the depths of the French Congo one finds the same exploitation of black folk as in the Belgian Congo or British West Africa. The only mitigation is that here and there in the Civil Service are black Frenchmen like René Maran who can speak out; but they seldom do.
For the most part, as I have said, in French Africa, educated Africans are Europeans. But if education goes far and develops in Africa a change in this respect must come. For this, France has a complete theoretical system of education beginning with the African village and going up to the colleges and technical schools at Goree. But at present it is, of course, only a plan and the merest skeleton of accomplishment. On the picturesque island of Goree whose ancient ramparts face modern and commercial Dakar I saw two or three hundred fine black boys of high school rank gathered in from all Senegal by competitive tests and taught thoroughly by excellent French teachers in accordance with a curriculum which, as far as it went, was equal to that of any European school; its graduates could enter the higher schools of France. A few hundred students
