Manda-Urundi on Border of Tanganyika and The Belgian Congo Van Zeeland, the former Belgian Premier, has an alternative to offer to Germany's colonial claims.
In the economic report which he has prepared for Mr. Chamberlain and M. Chautemps, he is understood tó advocate the exploitation of colonial territories, without change of ownership, by chartered companies in which "unsatisfied" nations like Germany and Italy would hold large interests, says Patrick Balfour in the "Evening Standard."
Such companies are already operating in the Belgian Congo.
Germany's colonial claims are no academic question for Mr. Van Zeeland. For Belgium herself holds one the "former "German colonies, the all bút popülous territory of funda-Urundi, on the border of nganyika and the Belgian Congo.
Small as it is, the district played big part in Germany's pre-war j ior Tanganyika. From its dense population was to come the labour to exploit the wealth of the Coastal plains. But the war ended that idea.
"Many years ago Manda and ihe neighbouring Urundi were conquered by an Ethiopic race, tall, imperious and of oriental features, to which the African natives of the country owe vassalage.
But unlike the Amharic conquest of Abyssinia, it was a peaceful invasion, effected with cattle rather than with arms, over a peasant people to whom the bull is the ultimate symbol of wealth and prestige.
The native of Manda and Urundi worships his cattle as a miser worships. his gold. A cow, to him, is worth more than a wife.
Such, indeed, is his veneration that he Would no more think of selling his cattle for meat than an English sportsman would eat his favourite race horse,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.