Little is known of these outposts of Deutschtum outside
Germany ; and even in that country slight attention was
paid to them till quite recent times. The later German
settlements in South America, especially those in Brazil
and Argentina, have attracted more remark, because they
seem to offer greater potentialities, even a way of evading
the prohibitions of the Monroe Doctrine. Of late the
tendency has been to regard all such settlements as possible
nuclei from which German influences, economical and
poUticaJ, may radiate ; and the remarkable persistency
with which, in some cases after many generations, these
settlers have preserved their national language, habits, and
ideas undoubtedly lends support to such views. More-
over, these settlements now fall into their place as parts of
that scheme of ' peaceful penetration ' which has of late
been pursued with such success in Holland and Belgium,
in Italy, in Northern France, and even in some parts of the

C 2



20 THE NEED OF COLONIES

British Empire. But, whatever value these colonies might
eventually acquire, they were of no great immediate im-
portance. It was something of a very different kind that
Germany began, in the latter part of the last century, to
require.
