Rosa Luxemburg, "Does Germany Need Colonies?" (1899) With the help of trade statistics, Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) simply asks whether acquiring German colonies was really in the best interest of the German economy. Her skepticism about German armament policies and her anti-imperialist philosophy made her a contentious political figure. She was often imprisoned for her views.
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page 1 of 2 As is well known, the primary reason given for the new naval and colonial plans is trade interests. In response to this, we must quote Mr. Bounderby from Dickens’s Hard Times, calling out loud and clear: Facts and figures! Figures and facts! The latest statistical data on Germany’s foreign trade, published in the official Statistik des Deutschen Reichs [Statistics of the German Reich], presents this issue in an interesting light. In 1898, our trade with individual parts of the globe was as follows: In 1,000 Marks Imports from Exports to Europe 3,577,999 3,429,917 America 1,329,216 541,774 Asia 339,336 172,157 Africa 101,168 67,362 Australia 88,295 35,081 More than nine-tenths of all foreign trade was conducted with countries in Europe and America. We did not initiate trade with these partners by means of torpedo boats, nor is it possible for us to use torpedo boats to expand and strengthen these relations. Rather, the expansion of trade with these countries has always been directly related to our trade policy, which has been characterized by a decrease in exports to America from 609 million marks in 1897 to 541.8 million marks in 1898 – undoubtedly the result of a prohibitive customs policy for industrial goods that was the American counterpart to our protective agricultural duties. But it is even more interesting to learn that even in that part of the world where we already have colonies, these “protectorates” play only a tiny role in trade. German trade with the most important African regions developed as follows over the last decade: In Millions of Marks Imports from Exports to 1889 1898 1889 1898 Egypt 2 24.6 2.9 11.7 Cape Colony 13.6 19.8 7.5 14.7 British, French, and Portuguese West Africa 16.1 33.4 4.4 11.3 British, French, and Portuguese East Africa 2.9 5.5 1.3 3 German West and Southwest Africa 4.4 3.8 4.2 7.3 German East Africa 0.3 0.6 0.3 3.3
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