Virginia Woolf's Research for "Empire and Commerce in Africa" (Leonard Woolf, 1920)

[...]departing from the main focus of the book, there was a section on the Belgian Congo, designed to present a factual account of King Leopold II's brutalities there. What followed was a new political and national ideology of naked economic imperialism, characteristic of Cecil Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlain. [...]the statesmen who played for and won and lost Egypt, Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco all believed that commerce was the greatest of political interests, and on the Niger, the Congo, and the Zambezi they put their beliefs into practice: but in Egypt, Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco their economic imperialism was never pure; it was always mixed with considerations of European strategy and alliances and the balance of power. At this decisive point Nature herself has dug a lake which offers an area of 15,000 hectares, 1300 of which are sufficiently deep to float the largest vessels. [...]one of the finest ports in the world is situated at one of the world's most important points. British goods in particular coped with ill-success against those of Germany & Austria, especially as the latter, though intrinsically inferior, look the same & are in prices lower. [...]slowly but surely, are we being pushed out of these markets, a fact which should make us consider how to render our position less untenable.