Page:Karl Kautsky - The Road to Power - tr. A. M. Simons (1909).pdf/78

 One sees how much greater has been the building of railroads in the new region where capitalism has been growing than in older countries since 1880, and especially since 1890.

At the same time the means of ocean transportation have grown with leaps and bounds. The carrying weight of ocean steamers is in tons:

These figures reflect the tremendous extension of the world market during the last two decades, which made possible the absorption during this period of an increased mass of goods. As a result of this fact the attention of all industrial countries was fixed upon this world market, and, naturally, as a result, upon colonial politics, as a means of extending the foreign market. To be sure, the acquisition of new and distant markets has done very little to extend the foreign market since the '80s. The later colonial politics of this period have been directed almost exclusively toward Africa, where alone there still remains a large extent of what the European powers call "free" land—that is, land that is not possessed by any powerful nation.

It is only necessary to refer to the foregoing table showing the progress of railroad construction to recognize how little Africa has been touched by this extension. To be sure, the length of its railroads during the years from 1880 to 1906 has grown from 4,600 to 28,000 kilometers, but what does this signify beside the growth in Asia during the same period from 16,000 to 88,000 and for America of from 171,000 to 473,000. Even in Africa itself the