Colonial railroad investment failed to advance the federation’s economic development

Evidence

Part of Dakar’s interpretation of the mission civilisatrice was the belief that railroads were the means from which all other forms of progress, including trade, would follow. Railroads, Roume repeatedly insisted, would almost single-handedly deliver Africa from the barbarism resulting from insufficient commerce with the West, and produce the market integration upon which a successful policy of civilizing mise en valeur ultimately depended. These same notions persisted unaltered under his successor, William Panty. Panty in 1911 would request, and receive approval in Paris for, Dakar’s third loan, in the amount of 167 million francs, to be devoted exclusively to infrastructure. Despite appearing to further the economic needs of the Government General, such an exclusive emphasis upon railroads, ironically, did little to advance the federation’s economic development between 1902 and 1914. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 229