Secondly, she must impress on these colonists the imperative necessity of keeping on friendly terms with the natives, who are, after all, the real owners of the soil, and of obtaining their co-operation in the development of the country. The Arab, remember, unlike the negro, cannot be bullied and domineered with impunity, Germany's African colonies providing significant examples of the failures which invariably result from ill-treatment of the native population. Thirdly, there must be no “absentee landlordism,” the future of the colony largely depending, to my way of thinking, upon frugal, hard-working peasant farmers, owning their own farms, whose prosperity will thus be indissolubly linked with that of the colony. Lastly, all local questions of administration should be taken entirely out of the hands of Rome and left to “the man on the spot,” for history is filled with the chronicles of promising colonies which have been ship-wrecked on the rocks of a highly centralised form of government. If the Italians will take these things to heart, I believe that their conquest of Tripolitania will prove, in the end, for the country's own best good, contributing to its peace and to the welfare of its inhabitants, native as well as foreign, and that it will promote the opening up of the dark places to civilisation, if not to Christianity—for the Moslem does not change his faith. When, therefore, all is said and done, I cannot but feel that the cross of the House of Savoy portends more good to Africa in general, and to Tripolitania in particular, than would ever the star and crescent. CHAPTER V THE LAND OF BEFORE-AND-AFTER This is the story of how a handful of white men jerked a nation out of the desert and the depths of despair, as though by its collar, set it on its feet, and taught it to play the game. It is the story of how northeast Africa—a region which God had seemingly forgotten—has been transformed into a prosperous and self-respecting country by giving it two things which it had always needed and had never known—justice and water. It is the chronicle of a thirty years' struggle, under disheartening conditions, against overwhelming odds, and when you have finished it you will agree with me, I think, that it is one of the wonder-tales of history. It is a drama in which English officials and Egyptian pashas and Arab sheikhs all have their greater or their lesser parts, and it is as full of romance and intrigue and treachery and fighting as any moving-picture play that was ever thrown upon a screen.