French In North Africa.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 17, 1912:
Admiral Mahan Praises Their Material Successes in Algeria and Tunis.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    You recently mentioned editorially the difficulties confronting "The French in Morocco" and their successes in Algeria and Tunis. Certain particulars concerning those successes may interest your readers, to many of whom they are probably as unknown as they were to myself until recently led to the knowledge by particular circumstances. In 1830, the year of the conquest, the entire commerce of Algiers, export and import, was under $1,000,000. To-day it amounts to $200,000,000. Tunis, at the date of occupation, 1881, had a commerce of $8,000,000. It has now risen to $40,000,000. As an indication of the methods underlying such development, in the same thirty years 2,000 miles of good roads have been constructed in Tunisia.  
    The "successes," therefore, are not merely of the sword or of possession. They mean the material redemption of unimproved properties to the benefit of mankind at large.
        A. T. MAHAN.
        Quogue, L. I., Aug. 15, 1912.