Seeking cheap mineral resources in West Africa, then exploiting the price gap between manufactured goods and raw materials to reap considerable profits for industrial development—this was hardly an uncommon practice.
Britain's industry was now following precisely this path. When the economic crisis erupted, prices for industrial goods plummeted, and raw material prices fell along with them. However, the relationship between the two fluctuated. If industrial goods declined less sharply than raw materials, losses could be turned into profits.
Britain itself controlled a vast number of colonies and could therefore squeeze down raw material production costs. Take India, for example: it possessed abundant agriculture and mineral resources, while labor costs were extremely low. This gave Britain a way to force down the prices of Indian raw materials. Its overseas colonies in East Africa did not have such conditions.
Besides East Africa's sparse population, the more important point was that its people were primarily immigrants, with a higher political status than Indians under British rule.
If West Africa could become economically integrated with East Africa, this problem could be resolved quite well. The region had substantial cheap labor resources, as well as the minerals and energy East Africa needed.
February 2, 1934, Berlin.
After enduring a prolonged economic depression, Berlin's economy finally showed clear signs of recovery in early 1934. Factories resumed operations, workers found employment again, Berlin's industrial machine started turning once more, and consumption was driven up as well.
The direct force behind all of this was Prime Minister Adolf, who had taken office only last year. Now, Adolf had handed in an economic report card that satisfied most German citizens, and his approval rating rose once again.
If, when Adolf first took office last year, the German Labor Party and the German Social Democratic Party had still possessed