The native ruler of Tunis is Sidi Ahmed Bey (born 1862).

The army of occupation consists of 25,000 men with 1,150 officers.

There are large fertile valleys in the mountainous north, excellent land for fruit culture in the northeast peninsula, high tablelands and pastures in the center, and famous oases and gardens in the south, where dates grow in profusion. The chief industry is agriculture, and wheat, barley, oats, olives, grapes and dates are produced in abun

dance, besides almonds, oranges, lemons, shaddocks, pistachios, alfa grass, henna and cork. Lead, iron, phosphate and zinc are the most important minerals.

Textiles, manufactured metals, and minerals comprise the chief imports; agricultural products, olive oil, and minerals are the principal exports. Governmental receipts (1940) were 811,198,000 francs; expenditures 810,954,000.

(For information on the French protectorate of Morocco, see Morocco).

French West Africa reaches from the Atlantic Ocean at about 17° west longitude across Africa to the Soudan at about 15° east longitude and from the southern desert boundaries of Morocco, Algeria, Tanis and Italian Libya to the Gulf of Guinea and the indeterminate boundary of French Equatorial Africa. It has been formed by consolidation of seven colonies.

The population included 26,614 Europeans. The capital, Dakar, has about 40,000 population. The governmental budget for 1938 was estimated to balance at 1,126,264,486 francs.

The colonies export fruits, palm nuts and oil, rubber, cotton, cacao, timber, and peanuts. The chief imports are foodstuffs, textiles, machinery

French Equatorial Africa is in the heart of Africa and has a seacoast on the South Atlantic Ocean between Spanish Guinea and the Belgian Congo. Its other neighbors are the Cameroons, AngloEgyptian Soudan, Libya, French West Africa and Nigeria. French acquisition began (1841) and its territory has since been extended by exploration and occupation. That part (107,270 square miles) ceded to Germany as compensation for acknowledgment of the Morocco protectorate (1911) was restored to France in the Treaty of Versailles and incorporated in this territory. The capital is Brazzaville. The constituent colonies are:

Madagascar, an island off the east coast of Africa from which it is separated by the Mozambique Channel (240 miles wide at its narrowest part), is about 980 miles long and 360 miles wide at its greatest breadth. It is nearly as large as the State of Texas. Its area is 241,094 square miles; its population (1936, including Mayotte and Comoro Islands) 3,797,936. The capital is Tananarivo. To Madagascar is attached for government the prosperous archipelago of the Comoro Islands with an area in all of about 790 square miles, and with, in 1931, 130,253 inhabitants.

Madagascar came under a French protectorate (1885) and was declared a French colony (1896). More than 3,000,000 acres are under cultivation, the chief crops being rice, manioc, beans, vanilla, corn, coffee, cloves, tobacco, sugar cane and cocoa. The forests are rich in cabinet and tanning wood, raffia, resins, gums and beeswax.

Agriculture and stock-raising are the chief industries. Minerals found include graphite, mica, phosphates, gold and radium.

The estimated budget (1939) balanced at 343,660,000 francs.

Area:

Cochin-China

Annam

Cambodia

Tonkin

Laos

Kwangchow

26,476 sq. m. 56,913 sq. mi. 50.663 sq. mi.

40.530 sq. m.

84,457 sq. mi.

Population:

6,211,228 2,046,432 8,970,464 1,011,695 220,000

325 sq. m. Total 260,034 sq. mi. 22,853,861 French Indo-China, situated in the southeastern part of Asia with China on the north, Siam on the west and the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Sea on the east and south, comprises five states, as shown above. It is as large as Texas. The population includes about 42,000 Europeans. The capital is Hanoi, Tonkin.

Under the terms of settlement (1941) of a border dispute, French Indo-China ceded 21,750 square

French Indo-China was placed under the armed protection of Japan (1941) according to an agreement reached by the French Government (Vichy) and Japan. Under the terms of the accord Japan occupied military and navy bases in Indo-China.

The whole country was under a Governor-General with a Secretary-General and a superior Council, and each state had a head, that of the colony being a Governor, and those of the protectorates being called Residents Superior. There was a common budget for Indo-China, which (1940) balanced at 134,678,870 piastres. The piastre was stabilized (1920) at 10 francs (39.2 cents gold).

The chief exports are rice, rubber, fish, coal, pepper, cattle and hides, corn, zinc and tin. The principal imports are cotton and silk tissues, metal goods, kerosene and motor cars.

FRENCH French Guiana is on the north coast of South America on the Atlantic Ocean, with Dutch Guiana on the west and Brazil on the east and south. The country has lost heavily in population in the last several decades, the census of 1911 returning 49,009 inhabitants as compared with 37,005 in 1936 (including the hinterland of Inini, separated territoThe area of rially from Guiana July 6, 1930). Guiana is 34,740 square miles. The area of Inini is 30,301 square miles. Guiana sends one Deputy to the Chamber at Paris. The colony has a Governor and a Council General of 16 elected members.

MIQUELON

service is maintained with North Sydney and Halifax. A telegraph cable connects St. Pierre with The French Europe and the American continent. franc. is the medium of exchange. The budget (1940) was balanced at 13,738,690 francs.

The St. Pierre group has an area of 10 square miles; Miquelon, 83 square miles. The population is-St. Pierre: 3,396; Miquelon: 520; total: 3,916. The capital is St. Pierre.

GUIANA

France has a famous penal colony there since 1885, known as Devil's Island. It has (1938) nearly 6,000 prisoners. The capital is Cayenne.

Immense forests of rich timber cover the territory. Very little of the land is cultivated. The principal crops are rice, corn, manioc, cocoa, bananas, and sugar cane. Placer gold mining is the most important industry. Exports comprise cocoa, bananas, various woods, gold, fish glue, rum, rosewood essence, balata and hides. Trade is chiefly with France.

The franc is the monetary unit. The budget (1938) balanced at 17,704,755 francs.

The French possessions, widely scattered in the southern Pacific Ocean, were grouped together (1903) as one homogenous colony under one Governor, with headquarters at Papeete, Tahiti, one of the Society Islands The other groups are the Marquesas, the Tuamoti Group, the Leeward Islands, the Gambier, the Tubuai, and Rapa Islands. Tahit is picturesque and mountainous with a productive coastland bearing cocoanut, banana and orange trees, sugar-cane, vanilla and other tropical fruits. Preparation of copra, sugar and rum are the chief industries. Trade is largely with France.

The area of the islands administered at Tahiti is 1,520 square miles; the population is 39,920.

New Caledonia, with an area of 8,548 square miles and a population (census of 1936) of 53,245, is 248 miles long and has an average breadth of 31 miles. It is about half way between Australia and the Fiji Islands. Its dependencies are: The Isle of Pines, the Wallis Archipelago, the Loyalty

Islands, the Huon Islands, Fortuna and Alofi. The group was acquired by France (1854), and a penal colony was maintained on Nou Island until 1896.

The Colony is administered by a Governor and an elective council general. Noumea is the capital.

Mining is the chief industry. Chrome, cobalt, nickel, iron and manganese abound. Other minerals found are antimony, mercury, cinnabar, silver, gold, lead and copper. Agricultural products include coffee, copra, cotton, manioc (cassava), corn, tobacco, bananas and pineapples.

The New Hebrides, 250 miles northeast of New Caledonia and 500 miles west of Fiji, is a group with an aggregate area of 5,700 square miles, having a native population estimated at about 60,000, and a white population, (1930): British, 219; French, 931. The group has been a condominium since 1906 and administered jointly by High Commissioners of France and Great Britain. Chief products are copra, cotton, cacao and coffee.

*The official count of the 1939 census was announced as 79,375,281.

The Free State of Waldeck was absorbed by Prussia (April 1, 1929). The Free States of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz were united as Mecklenburg (Jan. 1, 1934).

There are 29 universities in Germany including the University of Vienna (founded in 1356) and Heidelberg (founded in 1386). There is compulsory military training in Nazi storm detachments and a one-year term of manual labor for all male undergraduates. Elementary education is compulsory. When the German Emperor abdicated and fled to Holland (Nov., 1918) the self-constituted Council of People's Commissioners took over the government and proclaimed a republic. A call was issued for the election of a National Assembly. It met at Weimar (Feb. 6, 1919) and elected Friedrich Ebert President of the republic (Feb. 11). His term was extended to June 30, 1925.

The National Assembly adopted a Constitution (July 31, 1919). It is known as the Weimar Constitution.

Ebert died (Feb. 28, 1925) and was succeeded by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (re-elected 1932). In this election Hindenburg received 19,359,642 votes to Adolf Hitler's 13.417,460.

The result of the election (March 5, 1933) as compared with the election (Nov. 6, 1932). is shown in the following table:

The National Socialist German Labor Party, to give its full name, though familiarly known as Nazis, was founded (1920) in Munich by Hitler (then 31 years old). Austrian-born, he had served throughout the war in the German Army and in consequence had lost his Austrian citizenship. He later obtained German citizenship and took the oath to support the constitution when the State of Brunswick (Feb. 22, 1932) gave him a position in its diplomatic service.

The Nazis were a small group, anti-Semitic, with vague socialist leanings but strongly opposed to the Social Democrats and the Republican Constitution of the Reich. With Hitler and Gen. Ludendorf as leaders, it staged the so-called "Beer Hall Putsch" in Munich (Nov. 8-9, 1923). This proved abortive and Hitler was sentenced to five years imprisonment-a sentence soon quashed. The party was reorganized but was reduced by intag election (1924) the party joined with a party ternal dissensions to insignificance. In the Reichscalled Movement for German Racial Freedom and the combination won 32 seats. But the next year the Nazis cut loose and reorganized again. The economic crisis and widespread discontent gave Hitler, a magnetic speaker, renewed opportunity. The growth of the Nazis is shown in the following table.

People's Party.

Agrarians...

432,234 47.723

2

1

Totals

20,883,524

342

262

Germ'n Soci'l Dem. 7,177,294

Catholic Centre... 4,423,319

1,156,841

Chris. Soc. People's

384,146

4

413,144

State Party.....

333,619 5

338,542

Economic Party.

110,343

Peasants' Party...

114,237

149,005

27262130

5

Mar. 5, 1933 17,269,629

The Nazi vote increased by 5,532,544, 44% of the total, and the 288 seats which they won, in combination with the 52 seats of the Nationalists. gave them an absolute majority of the Reichstag. Hitler became Chancellor.

The new Reichstag promptly passed an Enabling Act (March 5, 1933) by which absolute power was conferred on Chancellor Hitler and his cabinet. The Reichstag continued (Jan. 31, 1937) the Enabling Act until April 1, 1941. Deriving authority from this act, Hitler has completely personalized government in Germany. He has absolute control of all activities throughout the country-political, economic, industrial, commercial, cultural. Freedom of speech and of the press has been abolished. Equality before the law applies only to Aryans, the only people in Germany who have full citizenship rights which are restricted by the Gestapo (secret police).

Hitler got 88.1% of the August vote. He got 93.5% of the vote in November.

In the plebiscite (March 29, 1936) on his foreign policy, Hitler was credited with 44,409,523 votes out of 44,952,476 votes cast, being 98.5% of the eligible voters.

Prussia's autonomous rights as a Federated State were wiped out (Feb. 6, 1933) by decree of President von Hindenburg. Hitler took personal control with Goering as Minister of the Interior in command of the police and later as Premier. Bavaria's premier was thrown out by storm troopers (March 9) and Wurttemberg. Saxony, Baden, Hesse, Schaumberg-Lippe and Bremen likewise came under control.

The nine other states had either purely Nazi governments or coalition governments dominated by Nazis.

The President was empowered on nomination by the Chancellor, to appoint the Governors (Statthalters) of the 17 States.

The anti-Semitic campaign carried on ruthlessly by Storm troopers by boycotts and violence resulted in the arrest and detention of 80.000 to 90,000 Jews, and more than 90,000 Jews fled the country, mostly in poverty. Sweeping laws ousted nearly all Jews from the professions and the public service and from the universities, also from the German Labor Front and even the Chess League. A "nonAryan" was defined as "a person descended particularly from Jewish parents or grandparents." The census (1933) returned 499,682 (0.7%) Jews. It was estimated that as defined the "non-Aryan" total would reach 2,500,000.

All Jewish cultural activities, it was decreed, must be united in one officially recognized Jewish Cultural Organization to which directly or through one of its affiliated societies all non-Aryan doctors, writers and actors must belong in order to exercise their profession.

The number of German grammar schools and pupils decreased (1939), schools at the rate of 0.7 per cent and pupils 1.4. In the old Reich territory, exclusive of Austria, the Sudeten provinces and the former Polish territories, there were (1939) 50,592 schools and 186,582 classes and 7,503,195 pupils, taught by 177,303 teachers. For every 10,000 population there were 7.3 schools, 1,078 pupils and 25.4 teachers. There was an average of 40.3 pupils to a class and 42.4 pupils to a teacher. For every 100 girls there were 101.2 boys, which is regarded as the average relationship.

The decrease in the number of Jewish pupils (1939) was 80 per cent of the 1938 total. There were 2,008 Jewish pupils attending grammar schools (1939) as against 10,069 (1938). Including private schools there were (1939) 8,962 Jewish pupils as against 19,913 the previous year.

In Austria the count (1939) showed 4,721 public schools with 657,000 pupils; the Sudeten provinces

counted 2,957 schools and 274.000 pupils.

The government sought (1934) to bring the various Lutheran churches into a single German Evangelical Church under the direction of a proNazi bishop and, failing in this, promulgated a law (Sept. 24, 1935) giving absolute powers in church matters to the Minister for Church Affairs. In the course of the conflict more than 700 Lutheran pastors were arrested. Conflict with the Roman Catholic Church developed over control of education of youth organizations, the administration of which was guaranteed to the Church under the terms of the German-Vatican concordat of July 20, 1933.

Recent ordinary budgets, in millions of gold marks, have been:

The budget law for the fiscal year (1939-40) contains no figures since none has been issued since 1935. It presents this blanket order:

"The Reich Minister of Finance is authorized, in agreement with competent Reich ministers, to allot to the respective Reich administrations the necessary working funds and to determine their utilization." The budget decree is signed by Chancellor Hitler and Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk, Finance Minister.

Germany does not report officially its expenditures, although the Government does make public its revenues. The following table from Foreign Commerce Weekly, published by the United States Department fo Commerce, gives Germany's finan cial conditon:

Tax re- for expenceipts

ditures

Fiscal years

At end

during

of

Increase during

ditures

during

period

period

period

period

1 Estimates of Reich Statistical Office.

71,000 79,700

He

E. W. Schmidt, director of the Deutsche Bank, reported (Feb. 7, 1941) that the German people were paying an annual war-time tax bill of 34,000,000,000 reichsmarks out of an estimated 100,000,000,000 reichsmarks national income. also reported that after the payment of the cost of civil administration there remained approximately 20,000,000,000 reichsmarks a year available for war finance. Neutral quarters estimated (1941) that the war was costing Germany 60,000,000,000 reichsmarks annually. Schmidt said the national debt was covered by various types of loans, averaging 212 per cent interest. Surplus cash is brought about, he said, through limitations on what the populace may buy (rationing).

The Nazi government has endeavored to assure the country's economic self-sufficiency by producing synthetic substitutes for many of the necessaries of life. To conserve Germany's few natural resources, the public has been encouraged to salvage anything that industry might use, from old razor blades to dog bones. Storm troopers, the Hitler Youth, and school children everywhere are mobilized in the service, with 150,000 boys and girls from Berlin alone. Bottle caps and toothpaste containers are wanted for light metals; human hair for felt and cardboard manufacture and carpets; bones for fodder, fats, fertilizer and glue.

Coffee grounds yield wax and resin and a powder useful in filling dolls and pillows. Garbage is steamed and sterilized and used as hog feed.

To conserve tin, foods are packed in transparent plastic containers. The scientists have made a wool substitute from a mixture of fish albumen and cellulose; also from casein, a milk derivative and from German beech wood. Sugar is extracted from wood. "Pumpkin milk" competes with cow's milk; potato starch is used in bread; and "fish sausage" vies with the real thing.

The unit of currency is the Reichsmark. It averages around forty cents in value in United States money.

Germany has had social insurance since 1883 and the law makes mandatory the insurance of workingmen against sickness (including maternity), accidents, unemployment, old age and infirmity. Workers pay two-thirds of the contributions to the State and employers one-third.

The network of motor highways spreading over Germany-Reichsautobahnen as they are calledis one of the marvels of modern engineering. They are completely free from obstructions and fast motoring on them is not hindered either by passing through villages, level crossings or cross-roads. Two lines of traffic are separated by a verge of 1612 ft. wide planted with grass or bushes. Hence there is a special roadway 241⁄2 ft. wide for traffic in each direction on which three cars can travel abreast. There is also a firm embankment 612 ft.