Bolgian Congo 97 ] EXPORTS ; IMPORTS a and of the total for the year Belgium supplied 66 per cent . , the United Kingdom 10 and Germany 8 , while in 1911 Germany had only 5 per cent. to the United Kingdom's 12. There is also a considerable trade with Rhodesia and the Union of South Africa, and the total of British imports rose in 1912 to 17 per cent. as against 15.8 per cent. in the previous year. France and Holland come next, then Portugal and then Angola, but the total amount of imports in these cases is comparatively small . The goods imported for the natives are of the usual type , cotton fabrics, loincloths, blue and white striped prints, indigo blue drill , scarlet baize, cotton covers, ready-made and second-hand clothing of the cheapest kind, German slippers, straw hats, and a few sun hats of British manufacture. Of other imports for native use Germany supplied in 1912–13 nearly all the perfumes and perfumed soap, padlocks, scissors, pocket-knives, imitation pearl beads, mirrors, machetes, and beer.

Other articles in demand are matches, pipes from Gouda, condensed milk , biscuits (mainly of British or French manufacture ), Portuguese sardines, Dutch gin , Portuguese wines, Belgian sugar, American or Austra lian corned beef, American tobacco, Austro-Hungarian flour and Dutch crockery, soap , starch , and rice.

The import trade is small in relation to the size of the country and number of its people, but it must develop largely with the opening of the country to free trade, and it is impossible not to recognize the energy shown by the Germans in their endeavour to capture the market, by sending representatives to the different centres to exhibit their wares and solicit orders. British firms have done much less work in this direction , and in 1912 Manchester goods were meeting with serious competition from German cheap prints.

1 Cd . 7048–77 , pp . 9, 10. German trade made its first great advance in 1911 (when Germany ousted France from the third place) by the energy of Hamburg agents (cf. Cd . 6665—1 , pp . 6, 7 ) .

H