FOOTNOTES:

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FOOTNOTES:[39]See the first edition ofHenry the Navigator, by R. H. Major, who, with the enormous wealth of his knowledge, vigorously defends the claim to Portuguese priority; although I do not quite agree with him on the value of the absence of evidence in disproving the French claim I am deeply indebted to him for the mention of references on the point.[40]This is an interesting case of the alteration that has taken place in Portuguese place names in West Africa. Angra des Ruives in English is Gurnard Bay, and this name was given to it by the Portuguese because of the quantity of this fish found there. In theWest African Pilotyou find the place called Garnet Bay, and thePilotsays â€œfish are abundantâ€; but as it does not say that garnets abound there, nor that it was discovered by Lord Wolseley, I think there is reason to believe that its name is Gurnard Bay, in translation of Angra des Ruives.[41]Prince Henry the Navigator; Major.[42]Labat,Afrique occidentale, vol. iv. p. 8. 1724.[43]Equal to nearly Â£30 English per annum.[44]A Relation of the Coasts of Africa called Guinea collected by Sieur Villault, Escuyer, Sieur de Bellfond, in the years 1666-1667.London: John Starkey, 1670.[45]Vas Conseloâ€™sLife of King JoÃ£o.[46]Duke of Devonshireâ€™s speech at Liverpool, June, 1897.[47]Labat. At present the Isle of St. Louis, and what is called the Niger, is the river Sanagaâ€”or Senega and Senegal, as the French corrupt it.â€”Astley, 1745.[48]An extent of thirty leagues and six leagues within the land.â€”Labat, p. 19.[49]John Law was the eldest son of an Edinburgh goldsmith, born about 1681. â€œBred to no business, but possessed of great abilities, and a fertile invention,â€ he, when very young, recommended himself to the Kingâ€™s ministers in Scotland to arrange fiscal matters, then in some confusion from the union of the Kingdoms. His scheme, however, was not adopted. Great at giving other people good advice on money matters, he failed to manage his own. After a gay career in Edinburgh, and gaining himself the title of â€œBeau Law,â€ he got mixed up in a duel, and fled to the Continent. He was banished from Venice and Genoa for draining the youth of those cities of their money, and wandered about Italy, living on gaming and singular bets and wagers. He proposed his scheme to the Duke of Savoy, who saw by this scheme he could soon, by deceiving his subjects in this manner, get the whole of the money of the kingdom into his possession; but as Law could not explain what would happen then, he was repulsed, and proceeded to Paris, where, under the patronage of the Duc dâ€™Orleans, they found favour with Louis XIV. When his crash came he was exiled, and died in Venice in 1729.[50]Notice de Senegal, Paris, 1859, p. 99.[51]For an interesting account of Timbuctoo and its history, seeTimbuctoo the Mysterious, by M. Felix Dubois. 1897.

[39]See the first edition ofHenry the Navigator, by R. H. Major, who, with the enormous wealth of his knowledge, vigorously defends the claim to Portuguese priority; although I do not quite agree with him on the value of the absence of evidence in disproving the French claim I am deeply indebted to him for the mention of references on the point.

[40]This is an interesting case of the alteration that has taken place in Portuguese place names in West Africa. Angra des Ruives in English is Gurnard Bay, and this name was given to it by the Portuguese because of the quantity of this fish found there. In theWest African Pilotyou find the place called Garnet Bay, and thePilotsays â€œfish are abundantâ€; but as it does not say that garnets abound there, nor that it was discovered by Lord Wolseley, I think there is reason to believe that its name is Gurnard Bay, in translation of Angra des Ruives.

[41]Prince Henry the Navigator; Major.

[42]Labat,Afrique occidentale, vol. iv. p. 8. 1724.

[43]Equal to nearly Â£30 English per annum.

[44]A Relation of the Coasts of Africa called Guinea collected by Sieur Villault, Escuyer, Sieur de Bellfond, in the years 1666-1667.London: John Starkey, 1670.

[45]Vas Conseloâ€™sLife of King JoÃ£o.

[46]Duke of Devonshireâ€™s speech at Liverpool, June, 1897.

[47]Labat. At present the Isle of St. Louis, and what is called the Niger, is the river Sanagaâ€”or Senega and Senegal, as the French corrupt it.â€”Astley, 1745.

[48]An extent of thirty leagues and six leagues within the land.â€”Labat, p. 19.

[49]John Law was the eldest son of an Edinburgh goldsmith, born about 1681. â€œBred to no business, but possessed of great abilities, and a fertile invention,â€ he, when very young, recommended himself to the Kingâ€™s ministers in Scotland to arrange fiscal matters, then in some confusion from the union of the Kingdoms. His scheme, however, was not adopted. Great at giving other people good advice on money matters, he failed to manage his own. After a gay career in Edinburgh, and gaining himself the title of â€œBeau Law,â€ he got mixed up in a duel, and fled to the Continent. He was banished from Venice and Genoa for draining the youth of those cities of their money, and wandered about Italy, living on gaming and singular bets and wagers. He proposed his scheme to the Duke of Savoy, who saw by this scheme he could soon, by deceiving his subjects in this manner, get the whole of the money of the kingdom into his possession; but as Law could not explain what would happen then, he was repulsed, and proceeded to Paris, where, under the patronage of the Duc dâ€™Orleans, they found favour with Louis XIV. When his crash came he was exiled, and died in Venice in 1729.

[50]Notice de Senegal, Paris, 1859, p. 99.

[51]For an interesting account of Timbuctoo and its history, seeTimbuctoo the Mysterious, by M. Felix Dubois. 1897.

Concerning the reasons that deter this writer from entering here on a general history of the English, Dutch and Portuguese in Western Africa; to which is added some attempt to survey the present state of affairs there.

Lack of space, not lack of interest, prevents me from sketching the careers of other nations in West Africa even so poorly as I have that of France; but the truth is, the material for the history of the other nations is so enormous that in order to present it with anything approaching clearness or fairness, folio volumes are required. I have a theory of the proper way to write the history of all European West African enterprisesâ€”a theory I shall endeavour to put into practice if I am ever cast ashore on an uninhabited island, with a suitable library, a hogshead of ink, a few tons of writing paper, accompanied by pens, and at least a quarter of a century of uninterrupted calm at my disposal. The theory itself is short, so I can state it here. Pay no attention to the nasty things they say about each otherâ€”itâ€™s the climate.

The history of the Portuguese occupation of West Africa is the great one. The material for its early geographico-historical side is in our hands, owing to the ability of Mr. Major and his devotion to the memory of Prince Henrythe Navigator. But the history of Portugal in West Africa from the days of the Navigator onwards wants writing. Sir A. B. Ellis fortunately gives us, in his history of the Gold Coast, an account of the part that Portugal played there, but, except for this region, you must hunt it up second-hand in the references made to it by prejudiced rivals, or in scattered Portuguese books and manuscripts. While as for the commercial history of Portugal in West Africa, although it has been an unbroken one from the fifteenth century to our own time, it has so far not been written at all. This seems to me all the more deplorable, because it is full of important lessons for those nations who are now attempting to exploit the regions she first brought them into contact with.

It must be noted, for one thing, that Portugal was the first European nation to tackle Africa in what is now by many people considered the legitimate way, namely, by direct governmental control. Other nations left West African affairs in the hands of companies of merchant adventurers and private individuals for centuries. Nevertheless, Portugal is nowadays unpopular among the other nations engaged in exploiting Africa. I shrink from embroiling myself in controversy, but I am bound to say I think she has become unpopular on account of prejudice, coupled with that strange moral phenomenon that makes men desirous of persuading themselves that a person they have treated badly deserves such treatment.

The more powerful European nations have dealt scandalously, from a moral standpoint, with Portugal in Africa. This one could regard calmly, it being in the nature of powerful nations to do this sort of thing, were it not for the airs they give themselves; and to hear themtalking nowadays about Portugalâ€™s part in African history is enough to make the uninitiated imagine that the sweet innocent things have no past of their own, and never knew the price of black ivory.

â€œOh, but that is all forgiven and forgotten, and Portugal is just what she always was at heart,â€ you say. Well, Portugal at heart was never bad, as nations go. Her slaving record is, in the point of humanity to the cargo, the best that any European nation can show who has a slaving West African past at all.

The thing she is taxed with nowadays mainly is that she does not develope her possessions. Developing African possessions is the fashion, so naturally Portugal, who persists on going about in crinoline and poke bonnet style, gets jeered at. This is right in a way, so long as we donâ€™t call it the high moral view and add to it libel. I own that my own knowledge of Portuguese possessions forces me to regard those possessions as in an unsatisfactory state from an imperialistic standpoint; a grant made by the home government for improvements, say roads, has a tendency toâ€”well, not appear as a road. Some oneâ€”several people possiblyâ€”is all the better and happier for that grant; and after all if you do not pay your officials regularly, and they are not Englishmen, you must take the consequences. Even when an honest endeavour is made to tidy things up, a certain malign influence seems to dodge its footsteps in a Portuguese possession. For example, when I was out in â€™93, Portugal had been severely reminded by other nations that this was the Nineteenth Century. Bom Diosâ€”Bother it, I suppose it isâ€”says Portugalâ€”must do something to smarten up dear Angola. She is over 400 now, and hasnâ€™t had any new frocks sincethe slave trade days; perhaps they are right, and itâ€™s time this dear child came out. So Loanda, Angola, was ordered street lampsâ€”stylish things street lamps!â€”a telephone, and a water supply. Now, say what you please, Loanda is not only the finest, but the only, city in West Africa. â€œLagos! you ejaculateâ€”you donâ€™t know Lagos.â€ I know I have not been ashore there; nevertheless I have contemplated that spot from the point of view of Lagos bar for more than thirty solid hours, to say nothing of seeing photographs of its details galore, and I repeat the above statement. Yet for all that, Loanda had no laid-on water supply nor public street lamps until she was well on in her 400th year, which was just before I first met her. During the past she had had her water brought daily in boats from the Bengo River, and for street lighting she relied on the private enterprise of her citizens.[52]The reports given me on these endeavours to develope were as follows. As for the water in its laid-on state, it was held by the more aristocratic citizens to be unduly expensive (500 reis per cubic metre), and they grumbled. The general public, though holding the same opinion, did not confine their attention to grumbling. Stand-pipes had been put up in suitable places and an official told off to each stand-pipe to make a charge for water drawn. Water in West Africa is womanâ€™s palaver, and you may say what you please about the down-troddenness of African ladies elsewhere, but I maintain that the West African lady in the matter of getting what she wants is no discredit to the rest of the sex, black, white, or yellow. In this case the ladies wanted that water, but did not go so far as wantingto pay for it. In the history given to me it was evident to an unprejudiced observer that they first tried kindness to the guardian officials of the stand-pipes, but these men were of the St. Anthony breed, and it was no good. Checked, but not foiled, in their admirable purpose of domestic economy, those dear ladies laid about in their minds for other methods, and finally arranged that one of a party visiting a stand-pipe every morning should devote her time to scratching the official while the rest filled their water pots and hers. This ingenious plan was in working order when I was in Loanda, but since leaving it I do not know what modification it may have undergone, only I am sure that ultimately those ladies will win, for the African ladyâ€”at any rate the West coast varietyâ€”is irresistible; as Livingstone truly remarked, â€œthey are worse than the men.â€ In the street lamp matter I grieve to say that the story as given to me does not leave my own country blameless. Portugal ordered for Loanda a set of street lamps from England. She sent out a set of old gas lamp standards. There being no gas in Loanda there was a pause until oil lamps to put on them came out. They ultimately arrived, but the P.W.D. failed to provide a ladder for the lamplighter. Hence that worthy had to swarm each individual lamp-post, a time-taking performance which normally landed him in the arms of Aurora before Loanda was lit for the night; but however this may be, I must own that Loandaâ€™s lights at night are a truly lovely sight, and its P.W.D.â€™s chimney a credit to the whole West Coast of Africa, to say nothing of its Observatory and the weather reports it so faithfully issues, so faithfully and so scientifically that it makes one deeply regret that Loanda has not got a climate thatdeserves them, but only one she might write down as dry and have done with it.

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The present position of the Angola trade is interesting, instructive, and typical. I only venture to speak on it in so far as I can appeal to the statements of Mr. Nightingale, who is an excellent authority, having been long resident in Angola, and heir to the traditions of English enterprise there, so ably represented by the firm of Newton, Carnegie and Co. The trade of Ka Kongo, the dependent province on Angola, I need not mention, because its trade is conditioned by that of its neighbours Congo FranÃ§ais and the Congo Belge.

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The interesting pointâ€”painfully interestingâ€”is the supplanting of English manufactures, and the way in which the English shipping interest[53]at present suffers from the differential duties favouring the Portuguese line, the Empreza Nacional de NavigacÃ£o a Vapor. This line, on which I have had the honour of travelling, and consuming in lieu of other foods enough oil and olives for the rest of my natural life, is an admirable line. It shows a calm acquiescence in the ordinances of Fate, a general courteous gentleness, combined with strong smells and the strain of stringed instruments, not to be found on other West Coast boats. It runs two steamers a month (6th and 23rd) from Lisbon, and they call at Madeira, St. Vincent, Santiago, Principe and San Thome Islands, Kabinda, San Antonio (Kongo), Ambriz, Loanda, Ambrizzette, Novo Redondo, Benguella, Mossamedes and Port Alexander, everyalternate steamer calling at Liverpool. The other steamboat lines that visit Loanda are the African and British-African of Liverpool, which run monthly, in connection with the other South-west African ports; and the Woermann line from Hamburg. The French Chargeurs-Reunis started a line of steamers from HavreviaLisbon to Loanda, Madagascar, Delagoa Bay, touching at Capetown, when so disposed, but this line has discontinued calling in on Loanda. The other navigation for Angola is done by the Rio Quanza Company, which runs two steamers up that river as far as Dondo; but this industry, Dondo included, Mr. Nightingale states to be in a parlous state since the extension of the Royal Trans-African Railway Company[54]to Cazengo, â€œas all the coffee which previously cameviaDondo by means of carriers, now comes by rail, the town of Dondo is almost deserted; the house property which a few years ago was valued at Â£200,000 sterling, to-day would not realise Â£10,000.â€ I may remark in this connection, however, not to raise the British railway-material makersâ€™ feelings unduly, that all this railwayâ€™s rolling stock and material is Belgian in origin. This seems to be the fate of African railways. I am told it is on account, for one thing, of the way in which the boilers of the English locomotives are set in, namely, too stiffly, whereby they suffer more over rough roads than the more loosely hung together foreign-made locomotives; and, for another, that English-made rolling stock is too heavy for rough roads, and that roads under the conditions in Africa cannot be otherwise than rough, &c. It is not, however, Belgian stuff alonethat is competing and ousting our own from the markets of Angola. American machinery, owing to the personal enterprise of several American engineering firms, is supplying steam-engines and centrifugal pumps for working salt at Cucuaco, and machinery for dealing with sugar-cane. Mr. Nightingale says the cultivation of the sugar-cane is rapidly extending, for the sole purpose of making rum. The ambition of every small trader, after he has put a few hundreds of milreis together, is to become a fazendeiro (planter) and make rum, for which there is ever a ready sale. But regarding the machinery, Mr. Nightingale says: â€œUp to the present time no British firm has sent out a representative to this province. There is a fair demand for cane-crushing mills, steam engines and turbines. A representative of an American firm is out here for the third time within four years, and has done good business; and there is no reason why the British manufacturers should not do as well. The American machinery is inferior to British makes, and cheaper; but it sells well, which is the principal thing.â€

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It is the same story throughout the Angola trade. No English matches come into its market. The Companhia de Mossemedes, which is only nominally Portuguese, and is worked by German capital, has obtained from the Government an enormous tract of country stretching to the Zambesi, with rights to cure fish and explore mines. Cartridges made in Holland, and an iron pier made in Belgium, an extinct trade in soap and a failing one in Manchester goods,[55]and gunpowder, are all sad items in Mr.Nightingaleâ€™s lament. Small matters in themselves, you may think, but straws show which way the wind blows, and it blows against Englandâ€™s trade in every part of Africa not under Englandâ€™s flag. It would not, however, be fair to put down to differential tariffs alone our failing trade in Angola, because our successful competitors in hardware and gunpowder are other nations who have to face the same disadvantagesâ€”Germany, Holland, and Belgium. Portugal herself is now competing with the Manchester goods. She does so with well-made stuffs, but she is undoubtedly aided by her tariff. The consular report (1949) says: â€œThe falling off in Manchester cotton since 1891 shows a diminution of 1,665,710 kilos. Cotton, if coming from Manchester via Lisbon, 1,665,710, duties 80 per cent, or 250 reis per kilo, equal 333,144 milreis (about Â£51,250); cotton coming from Portugal, 1,665,710 kilos, duties 25 reis per kilo, equal to 41,642 dollars, 750 reis(about Â£6,400), showing a difference in the receipts for one year of Â£44,850.â€

There is in this statement, I own, a certain obscurity, which has probably got into it from the editing of the home officials. I do not know if the 1,665,710 kilos, representing the difference between what England shipped to Angola in 1891 and what she shipped in 1896, was supplied in the latter years from Portugal of Portuguese manufacture; but assuming such to have been the case, the position from a tariff point of view would work out as follows: 1,665,710 kilos of cottons from Manchester would pay duty, at 250 reis per kilo, 416,427Â½ milreis. Taking the exchange at 3s.sterling per milreis, this amounts to Â£62,464. If this quantity of Manchester-made cottons had gone to Lisbon, and there become nationalised, and sent forward to Angola in Portuguese steamers, the duty wouldhave been 80 per cent. of 250 reis per kilo, or say 333,142 milreis, equal to Â£49,971; but if this quantity were manufactured in Portugal, and shipped by Portuguese steamers, the duty would be 25 reis per kilo, equal to Â£6,246. The premium in favour of Portuguese production on this quantity is therefore Â£56,218, a terrific tax on the Portuguese subjects of Angola, for one year, in one class of manufactures only.

The deductions, however, that Mr. Nightingale draws from his figures in regard to Portugal and her province are quite clear. He says, â€œThere is no doubt that the province of Angola is a very rich one. No advantages are held out for merchants to establish here, and thus bring capital into the place, which means more business, the opening up of roads, and the development of industries and agriculture. Generally the colony exists for the benefit of a few manufacturers in Portugal, who reap all the profit.â€ Again, he says, â€œThe merchants are much too highly taxed, a good fourth part of their capital is paid out in duties, with no certainty when it will be realised again. Angola, with plenty of capital, moderate taxes and low duties, might in a few years become a most flourishing colony.â€

Now here we come to the general problem of the fiscal arrangements suitable for an African colony; and as this is a subject of great importance to England in the administration of her colonies, and errors committed in it are serious errors, as demonstrated by the late war in Sierra Leone,â€”the most serious even we have had for many years to deal with in West Africa,â€”I must beg to be allowed to become diffuse, humbly stating that I do not wish to dogmatise on the matter, but merely toattract the attention of busy practical men to the question of the proper system to employ in the administration of tropical possessions. This seems to me a most important affair to England, now that she has taken up great territories and the responsibilities appertaining to them in that great tropical continent, Africa. There are other parts of the world where the suitability of the system of government to the conditions of the governed country is not so important.

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It seems to me that the deeper down from the surface we can go the greater is our chance of understanding any matter; and I humbly ask you to make a dive and consider what reason European nations have for interfering with Africa at all. There are two distinct classes of reasons that justify one race of human beings interfering with another race. These classes are pretty nearly inextricably mixed; but if, like Mark Twainâ€™s horse and myself, you will lean against a wall and think, I fancy you will see that primarily two classes of reasons existâ€”(a), the religious reason, the rescue of soulsâ€”a reason that is a duty to the religious man as keen as the rescue of a drowning man is to a brave one; (b), pressure reasons. These pressure reasons are divisible into two sub-classesâ€”(1) external; (2) internal. Now of external pressure reasons primarily we have none in Africa. The African hive has so far only swarmed on its own continent; it has not sent off swarms to settle down in the middle of Civilisation, and terrify, inconvenience, and sting it in a way that would justify Civilisation not only in destroying the invading swarm, but in hunting up the original hive and smoking it out to prevent a recurrence of the nuisance, as the Roman Empire was bound to try and do with its Barbarians.Such being the case,[56]we can leave this first pressure reasonâ€”the war justificationâ€”for interfering with the Africanâ€”on one side, and turn to the other reason,â€”the internal pressure reasons acting from within on the European nations. These are roughly divisible into three sub-classes:â€”(1) the necessity of supplying restless and ambitious spirits with a field for enterprise during such times as they are not wanted for the defence of their nation in Europeâ€”Franceâ€™s reason for acquiring Africa; (2) population pressure; (3) commercial pressure. The two latter have been the chief reason for the Teutonic nations, England and Germany, overrunning the lands of other men. This Teutonic race is a strong one, with the habit, when in the least encouraged by Peace and Prosperity, of producing more men to the acre than the acre can keep. Being among themselves a kindly, common-sense race, it seems to them more reasonable to go and get more acres elsewhere than to kill themselves off down to a level which their own acres could support. The essential point about the â€œelsewhereâ€ is that it should have a climate suited to the family. These migrations to other countries made under the pressure of population usually take place along the line of least resistance, namely, into countries where the resident population is least able to resist the invasion, as in America and Australia; but occasionally, as in the case of Canada and the Cape, they follow the conquest of an European rival who was the pioneer in rescuing the country from savagery.

I am aware that this hardly bears out my statement that the Teutonic races are kindly, but as I have said â€œamong themselves,â€ we will leave it; and to other people, the original inhabitants of the countries they overflow, they are on the whole as kindly as you can expect family men to be. A distinguished Frenchman has stated that the father of a family is capable of anything; and it certainly looks as if he thought no more of stamping out the native than of stamping out any other kind of vermin that the country possessed to the detriment of his wife and children. I do not feel called upon to judge him and condemn, for no doubt the father of a family has his feelings; and as it must have been irritating to an ancestor of modern America to come home from an afternoonâ€™s fishing and find merely the remains of his homestead and bits of his family, it was more natural for him to go for the murderers than strive to start an Aboriginesâ€™ Protection Society. Though why, caring for wife and child so much as he does, the Teuton should have gone and planted them, for example, in places reeking with Red Indians is a mystery to me. I am inclined to accept my French friendâ€™s explanation on this point, namely, that it arose from the Teuton being a little thick in the head and incapable of considering other factors beyond climate. But this may be merely thickness in my own headâ€”a hopelessly Teutonic one.

However, the occupation of territory from population pressure in Europe we need not consider here; for it is not this reason that has led Europe to take an active interest in tropical Africa. It is a reason that comes into African affairs onlyâ€”if really at allâ€”in the extreme north and extreme south of the continentâ€”Algeria and theCape. The vast regions of Africa from 30Â° N. to 20Â° S., have long been known not to possess a climate suitable for colonising in. â€œMenâ€™s blood rapidly putrifies under the tropic zone.â€ â€œTropical conditions favour the growth of pathogenic bacteriaâ€â€”a rose called by another name. Anyhow, not the sort of country attractive to the father of a family to found a home in. Yet, as in spite of this, European nations are possessing themselves of this country with as much ardour as if it were a health resort and a gold mine in one, it is plain they must have another reason, and this reason is in the case of Germany and England primarily commercial pressure.

These two Teutonic nations have the same habit in their commercial production that they have in their human production,â€”the habit of overdoing it for their own country; and just as Lancashire, for example, turns out more human beings than can comfortably exist there, so does she turn out more manufactured articles than can be consumed there; and just as the surplus population created by a strong race must find other lands to live in, so must the surplus manufactures of a strong race find other markets; both forms of surplus are to a strong race wealth.

The main difference between these things is that the surplus manufactured article is in no need of considering climate in the matter of its expansion. It stands in a relation to the man who goes out into the world with it akin to that of the wife and family to the colonist; the trader will no more meekly stand having his trade damaged than the colonist will stand having his family damaged; but at the same time, the mere fact that the climate destroys trade-stuff is, well, all the better for trade, and trade, moreover, leads the trader to view the native population froma different standpoint to that of the colonist. To that family man the native is a nuisance, sometimes a dangerous one, at the best an indifferent servant, who does not do his work half so well as in a decent climate he can do it himself. To the trader the native is quite a different thing, a customer. A dense native population is what the trader wants; and on their wealth, prosperity, peace and industry, the success of his endeavours depends.

Now it seems to me that there are in this world two classes of regions attractive to the great European manufacturing nations, England and Germany, wherein they can foster and expand their surplus production of manufactured articles. (1) Such regions as India and China. (2) Such regions as Africa. The necessity of making this division comes from the difference between the native populations. In the first case you are dealing with a people who are manufacturers themselves, and you are selling your goods mainly against gold. In the second the people are not manufacturers themselves except in a very small degree, and you are selling your goods against raw material. In a bustling age like this there seems to be a tendency here and in Germany to value the first form of market above the second. I fail to see that this is a sound valuation. The education our commerce gives will in a comparatively short time transform the people of the first class of markets into rival producers of manufactured articles wherewith to supply the worldâ€™s markets. We by our pacification of India have already made India a greater exporter than she was before our rule there. If China is opened up, things will be even worse for England and Germany; for the Chinese, with their great power of production, will producemanufactured articles which will fairly swamp the worldâ€™s markets; for, sad to say, there is little doubt but they can take out of our hands all textile trade, and probably several other lines of trade that England, Germany, and America now hold. India and China being populated, the one by a set of people at sixes and sevens with each other, and the other by a set of people who, to put it mildly, are not born warriors, cannot, except under the dominion and protection of a powerful European nation, commercially prosper. But England and Germany are not everybody. There is France. I could quite imagine France, for example, in possession of China, managing it on similar lines to those on which she is now managing West Africa, but with enormously different results to herself and the rest of the world. Her system of differential tariffs, be it granted, keeps her African possessions poor, and involves her in heavy imperial expenditure; but the Chinamanâ€™s industry would support the French system, and thrive under her jealous championship. This being the case, it is of value to England and Germany to hold as close a grip as possible over such regions as India and China, even though by so doing they are nourishing vipers in their commercial bosoms.

The case of the second class of marketsâ€”the tropical Africanâ€”is different. Such markets are of enormous value to us; they are, especially the West African ones, regions of great natural riches in rubber, oil, timber, ivory, and minerals from gold to coal. They are in most places densely populated with customers for Englandâ€™s manufactured goods. The advantages of such a region to a manufacturing nation like ourselves are enormous; for not only do we get rid there of our manufactured goods, but weget, what is of equal value to our manufacturing classes, raw material at a cheap enough rate to enable the English manufacturers to turn out into the markets of the civilised world articles sufficiently cheap themselves to compete with those of other manufacturing nations.

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The importance to us of such markets as Africa affords us seems to me to give us one sufficient reason for taking over these tropical African regions. I do not use the word justification in the matter, it is a word one has no right to use until we have demonstrated that our interference with the native population and our endeavours for our own population have ended in unmixed good; but it is a sound reason, as good a reason as we had in overrunning Australia and America. Indeed, I venture to think it is a better one, for the possession of a great market enables thousands of men, women and children to live in comfort and safety in England, instead of going away from home and all that home means; and this commercial reason,â€”for all its not having a high falutin sound in it,â€”is the one and only expansion reason we have that in itself desires the national peace and prosperity of the native races with whom it deals.

It seems to me no disgrace to England that her traders are the expanding force for her in Africa. There are three classes of men who are powers to a Stateâ€”the soldier, the trader, and the scientist. Their efforts, when co-ordinated and directed by the true statesmanâ€”the religious man in the guise of philosopher and poetâ€”make a great State. Being English, of course modesty prevents my saying that England is a great State. I content myself by saying that she is a truly great people, and will become a great State when she is led by a line of great statesmenâ€”statesmen who are not only capable, as indeed most of our statesmen have been, of seeing the importance of India and the colonies, but also capable of seeing the equal importance to us of markets.

Englandâ€™s democracy must learn the true value of the markets that our fellow-countrymen have so long been striving to give her, and must appreciate the heroism those men have displayed, only too often unrequited, never half appreciated by the sea-wife, who â€œbreeds a breed of rovinâ€™ men and casts them over sea.â€ Those who go to make new homes for the old country in Australia and America do not feel her want of interest keenly; but those heroes of commerce who go to fight and die in fever-stricken lands for the sake of the old homes at home, do feel her want of interest.

I am not speaking hastily, nor have I only West Africa in my mind in this matter; there are other regions where we could have succeeded better, with advantage to all concernedâ€”Malaya, British Guiana, New Guinea, the West Indies, as well as West Africa. If you examine the matter I think you will see that all these regions we have failed in are possessed of unhealthy climates, while the regions we have succeeded with are those possessed of healthy climates. The reason for this difference in our success seems to me to lie mainly in our deficiency of statesmanship at home. We really want the humid tropic zone more than other nations do; a climate that eats up steel and hardware as a rabbit eats lettuces is an excellent customer to a hardware manufacturing town, &c. A region densely populated by native populations willing to give raw trade stuffs in exchange for cotton goods, which they bury or bang out on stones in the course of washingor otherwise actively help their local climate to consume, is invaluable to a textile manufacturing town. Yet it would be idle to pretend that our Government has realised these things. Our superior ability as manufacturers, and the great enterprise of our men who have gone out to conquer the markets of the tropics, have given us all the advantages we now enjoy from those markets, but they could do no more; and now, when we are confronted by the expansion of other European nations, those men and their work are being lost to England. Our fellow-countrymen will go anywhere and win anywhere to-day just as well as yesterday, where the climate of the region allows England to throw enough of them in at a time to hold it independent of the home government; but in places where we cannot do this, in the unhealthy tropical regions where those men want backing up against the aggression on their interests of foreign governments, well, up to the present they have not had that backing up, and hence we have lost to England in England the advantages we so easily might have secured.

An American magazine the other day announced in a shocked way that I could evidently â€œswear like a trooper!â€ I cannot think where it got the idea from; but really!â€”well, of course I donâ€™t naturally wish to, but I cannot help feeling that if I could it would be a comfort to me; for when I am up in the great manufacturing towns, England properly so called, their looms and forges seem to me to sing the same song to the great maker of Fateâ€”we must prosper or England dies. And there is but one thing they can prosper onâ€”for there is but one feeding ground for them and all the thousands of English men, women and children dependent on themâ€”the open market of the World. To me the life blood of England is her trade. Her soul, her brain is made of other things, but they should not neglect or spurn the thing that feeds themâ€”Commerceâ€”any more than they should undervalue the thing that guards themâ€”the warrior.

But, you will say, we will not be tied down to this commercial reason as Englandâ€™s reason for taking over the administration of tropical Africa. My friend, I really think on the whole you had betterâ€”itâ€™s reasonable. I grant that it has not been the reason why English missionaries and travellers have risked their lives for the good of Africa, or of human knowledge, but as a ground from which to develop a policy of administering the country this commercial one is good, because it requires as aforesaid the prosperity of the African population; and your laudable vanities in the matter I cannot respect, when I observe right in the middle of the map of Africa an enormous region called the Congo Free State. I have reason to believe that that region was opened up by Englishmenâ€”Livingstone, Stanley, Speke, Grant and Burton. If you had been so truly keen on suppressing Arab slavery and native cannibalism, there was a paradise for you! Yet, you hand it over to some one else. Was it because you thought some one else could do it better? orâ€”but we will leave that affair and turn to the consideration of the possibility of administering tropical Africa, governmentally, to the benefit of all concerned.

FOOTNOTES:[52]Loanda has now a gas company, and the installation is well under way, under Belgian supervision.[53]Referring to cotton goods, the Foreign Office report on the trade of Angola for 1896 (1949) says the same cottons coming from Manchester would pay 250 reis per kilo in foreign bottoms, and 80 per cent of 250 reis if coming in Portuguese bottoms and nationalised in Lisbon.[54]Angola also has a small railway from Catumbella to Benguella, a distance of 15 kiloms. and is contemplating constructing an important line from either Benguella or Mossamedes up to Caconda.[55]The imports in 1896 from England being 978,745 kilos, against 2,644,455 in 1891â€”a difference of 1,665,710 kilos against Manchester.â€”Foreign Office Annual Series, Consular Report, No. 1949.[56]In saying this I am aware of the conduct of Carthage and of the Barbary Moors. But neither of these were primarily African. The one was instigated by Greece, the other by the Vandals and the Arabs.

[52]Loanda has now a gas company, and the installation is well under way, under Belgian supervision.

[53]Referring to cotton goods, the Foreign Office report on the trade of Angola for 1896 (1949) says the same cottons coming from Manchester would pay 250 reis per kilo in foreign bottoms, and 80 per cent of 250 reis if coming in Portuguese bottoms and nationalised in Lisbon.

[54]Angola also has a small railway from Catumbella to Benguella, a distance of 15 kiloms. and is contemplating constructing an important line from either Benguella or Mossamedes up to Caconda.

[55]The imports in 1896 from England being 978,745 kilos, against 2,644,455 in 1891â€”a difference of 1,665,710 kilos against Manchester.â€”Foreign Office Annual Series, Consular Report, No. 1949.

[56]In saying this I am aware of the conduct of Carthage and of the Barbary Moors. But neither of these were primarily African. The one was instigated by Greece, the other by the Vandals and the Arabs.

Wherein it is set down briefly why it is necessary to enter upon this discussion at all.

Now, you will say, Wherefore should the general public in England interest itself in this matter? Surely things are now governmentally administered in Englandâ€™s West African Colonies for the benefit of all parties concerned.

Well, that is just exactly and precisely what they are not. The system of Crown Colonies, when it is worked by Portuguese, does, at any rate, benefit some of the officials; but English officials are incapable of availing themselves of the opportunities this system offers them; and therefore, as this form of opportunity is the only benefit the thing can give any one, the sooner the Crown Colony system is removed from the sphere of practical politics and put under a glass case in the South Kensington Museum, labelled â€œExtinct,â€ the better for every one.

I beg you, before we go further in this matter, to look round the world calmly, and then, when you have allowed the natural burst of enthusiasm concerning the extent and the magnificence of the British Empire to pass, you will observe that in the more unhealthy regions England has failed. I say she has failed because of the Crown Colonysystemâ€”failed with them even during days wherein she has had to face nothing like what she has to face to-day from the commercial competition of other nations.

In order to justify myself for holding the view that it is possible for any system of English administration to fail anywhere, I would draw your attention to the fact that the system used by us for governing unhealthy regions is the Crown Colony system. The two things go together, and we must assign one of them as the reason of our failure. You may, if it please you, put it down to the other thing, the unhealthiness. I cannot, for I know that no race of men can battle more gallantly with climate than the Englishâ€”no other race of men has shown so great a capacity as we have to make the tropics pay. Still to-day we stand face to face with financial disaster in tropical regions.

If you will look through a list of Englandâ€™s tropical unhealthy possessions, leaving out West Africa, you will see nothing but depression. There are the West Indies, British Guiana, and British Honduras. All of these are naturally rich regions and accessible to the markets of the world. There is not one of them hemmed in by great mountain chains or surrounded by arid deserts, across which their products must be transported at enormous cost. They are all on our highwayâ€”the sea; nor are they sparsely populated. Their population, according to the latest Government returns, is 1,653,832, and this estimate is acknowledged to be necessarily imperfect and insufficient. But with all these advantages we find no prosperity there under our rule. Nothing but poverty and discontent and now pauperisation in the shape of grants from the Imperial Exchequer. You say, â€œOh! but that is on account of the sugar bounties and the majority of the population not beingEnglish;â€ but that argument wonâ€™t do. Look at the Canary Islands. They were just as hard hit by aniline dyes supplanting cochineal. Their population is not mainly English; but down on those islands came an Englishman, the Spanish Government had the sense to let him have his way, and that Englishman, Mr. A. L. Jones, of Liverpool, has, in a space of only fifteen years, made those islands a source of wealth to Spain, instead of paupers on an Imperial bounty. â€œBut,â€ you say, â€œwe have other regions under the Crown Colony system that are not West Indian.â€ Granted, but look at them. There are the West African group; a group of three in the Mediterranean, Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus, two fortifications and a failure; away out East another group, which are prosperous from the fact that they are surrounded by countries whose fiscal arrangements are providentially worse than their own, and this seems to be the only condition which can keep a Crown Colony on its financial legs at all. For all our Crown Colonies adjacent to countries who can compete with them in trade matters are paupers, or their efficiency and value to the Empire is in the sphere of military and naval affairs, as posts and coaling stations. These possessions of the Gibraltar, Malta, and Hong-Kong brand should be regarded as being part of our navy and army, and not confused with colonies, though essential to them.

â€œStill,â€ you say, â€œyou are forgetting Ceylon, the Fiji Islands, the Falklands, and the Mauritius.â€ I am not. Ceylon is part of India and practically an Indian province, so is out of my arguments. I present you with the others wherefrom to build up a defence of the Crown Colony system. Say, â€œSee the Falklands off Cape Horn, with apopulation of 1,789, and heaps of sheep and a satisfactory budget.â€ I can say nothing against them, and may possibly be forced to admit that for such a region, off Cape Horn, and with a population mainly of sheep, the Crown Colony system may be a Heaven-sent form of administration. But I think England would be wiser if she looked carefully at the West Indian group and recognised how like their conditions are to those of the West African group, for in their disastrous state of financial affairs you have an object lesson teaching what will be the fate of Crown Colonies in West Africaâ€”Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Lagosâ€”if she will be not warned in time to alter the system at present employed for governing these possessions. It is an object lesson in miniature of what will otherwise be an infinitely greater drain on the resources of England, for West Africa is immensely larger, immensely more densely populated, and immensely more deadly in climate than the West Indies. For one Englishman killed by the West Indies West Africa will want ten; for every Â£1,000, Â£20,000â€”and all for what? Only for the sake of a systemâ€”a system intrinsically alien to all English ideals of governmentâ€”a system that doddered along until Mr. Chamberlain expected it to work and then burst out all over in rows, and was found to be costing some 25 per cent. of the entire bulk of white trade with West Africa; a system that, let the land itself be ever so rich, can lead to nothing but heart-breaking failure.

Now I own the Crown Colony system looks well on paper. It consists of a Governor, appointed by the Colonial Office, supported by an Executive and Legislative Council (both nominated), and on the Gold Coast with two unofficial members in the legislative body. These Councils, as far as theinfluence they have, are dead letters, and legislation is in the hands of the Governor. This is no evil in itself. You will get nothing done in tropical Africa except under the influence of individual men; but your West African Governor, though not controlled by the Councils within the colony, is controlled by a power outside the colony, namely the Colonial Office in London. Up to our own day the Colonial Office has been, except in the details of domestic colonial affairs, a drag-chain on English development in Western Africa. It has not even been indifferent, but distinctly, deliberately adverse. In the year 1865 a Select Committee of the House of Commons inquired into and reported upon the state of British establishments on the western coast of Africa. â€œIt was a strong Committee, and the report was brief and decided. Recognising that it is not possible to withdraw the British Government wholly or immediately from any settlements or engagements on the West African Coast, the Committee laid down that all further extension of territory or assumption of government, or new treaties offering any protection to native tribes, would be inexpedient, and that the object of our policy should be to encourage in the natives the exercise of those qualities which may render it possible for us more and more to transfer to them the administration of all the governments with a view to the ultimate withdrawal from all, except, perhaps, Sierra Leone.â€[57]

Remember also this. This one in 1865 was not the first of those sort of fits the Colonial Office had in West African affairs. It was just as bad after the Battle of Katamansu in 1827, and had it not been for the English traders our honourto the natives we had made treaties with would have been destroyed, and the Gold Coast lost whole and entire.

This policy of 1865 has remained the policy of the English Government towards West Africa up to 1894. In spite of it, the English have held on. Governor after Governor, who, as soon as he became acquainted with the nature of the region, has striven to rouse official apathy, has been held in, and his spirit of enterprise broken by official snubs, and has been taught that keeping quiet was what he was required to do. It broke many a manâ€™s heart to do it; but doing it worked no active evil on the colony under his control, the affairs of which financially prospered in the hands of the trading community so well, that not only had no West African colony any public debt, except Sierra Leone, which was a philanthropic station, but the Gold Coast, for example, had sufficient surplus to lend money to colonies in other parts of the world. But at last the time came when the aggression on Africa by the Continental powers fulfilled all the gloomy prophecies which the merchants of Liverpool had long been uttering; and one possession of ours in West Africa after another felt the effects of the activity of other nations and the apathy of our own. They would have felt it in vain, and have utterly succumbed to it, had it not been for two Englishmen. Sir George Taubman Goldie, who, when in West Africa on a voyage of exploration, recognised the possibilities of the Niger regions, and secured them for England in the face of great difficulties; and Mr. Chamberlain. Concerning Sir George Goldieâ€™s efforts in securing a most important section of West Africa for England, I shall have occasion to speak later. Concerning Mr. Chamberlain, I may as well speak now; but be it understood, both these men,whatever their own ideas on their work may be, were men who came up at a critical point to reinforce Liverpool and Bristol and London merchants, who had fought for centuriesâ€”not to put too fine a point on itâ€”from the days of Edward IV. for the richest feeding grounds in all the world for Englandâ€™s manufacturing millions. The dissensions, distrust and misunderstandings which have raged among these three representatives of Englandâ€™s majesty and power, are no affair of mine, as a mere general student of the whole affair, beyond the due allowance one must make for the grave mischief worked by the human factors. Well, as aforesaid, Mr. Chamberlain alone of all our statesmen saw the great possibilities and importance of Western Africa, and thinking to realise them, forthwith inaugurated a policy which if it had had sound ground to go on, would have succeeded. It had not, it had the Crown Colony systemâ€”and our hope for West Africa is that so powerful a man as he has shown himself to be in other political fields, may show himself to be yet more powerful, and formulate a totally new system suited for the conditions of West Africa, and not content himself with the old fallacy of ascribing failure to the individuals, white or black, government official or merchant or missionary, who act under the system which alone is to blame for Englandâ€™s present position in West Africa; but I own that if Mr. Chamberlain does this he will be greater than one man can ever be reasonably be expected to be, and again it is, I fear, not possible to undo what has been done by the resolution of 1865.

Possibly the greatest evil worked by this resolution has been the separation of sympathy between the Merchants and the Government. Since 1865 these two English factors havebeen working really against each other. Possibly the greatest touch of irony in modern politics is to be found in a despatch dated March 30th, 1892, addressed to the British Ambassador at Paris, wherein it is said, â€œThe colonial policy of Great Britain and France in West Africa has been widely different. France from her basis on the Senegal coast has pursued steadily the aim of establishing herself on the Upper Niger and its affluents; this object she has attained by a large and constant expenditure, and by a succession of military expeditions. Great Britain, on the other hand, has adopted the policy of advance by commercial enterprise; she has not attempted to compete with the military operations of her neighbour.â€[58]I should rather think she hadnâ€™t! Let alone the fact that France did not expand mainly by military operations, but through magnificent explorers backed up by sound sense. While, as for Great Britain â€œadopting the policy of advance by commercial enterpriseâ€â€”well, I donâ€™t know what the writer of that despatchâ€™s ideas on â€œadoptionâ€ are, but suppression would be the truer word. Had Great Britain given even her countenance to â€œcommercial enterprise,â€ she would have given it by now representation in her councils for West Africa, a thing it has not yet got. True, there is the machinery for this representation ready in the Chambers of Commerce, but these Chambers have no real power whatsoever as far as West African affairs are concerned; they are graciously permitted to send deputations to the Colonial Office and write letters when they feel so disposed, but practically that is all.

Truly it is a ridiculous situation, because West Africa matters to no party in England so much as it matters to the mercantile. I am aware I shall be told that it isimpossible that one section of Englishmen can have a greater interest in any part of the Empire than another section, and, for example, that West Africa matters quite as much to the religious party as it does to the mercantile. But, to my mind, neither Religion nor Science is truly concerned in the political aspect of West Africa. It should not matter, for example, to the missionary whether he works under one European Government or another, or a purely native Government, so long as he is allowed by that Government to carry on his work of evangelisation unhindered; nor, similarly, does it matter to the scientific man, so long as he is allowed to carry on his work; but to the merchant it matters profoundly whether West Africa is under English or foreign rule, and whether our rule there is well ordered. For one thing, on the merchants of West Africa falls entirely the duty of supplying the revenue which supports the government of our colonies there; and for another, it seems to me that whether the Government he is under is English or no does matter very much to the English merchant. His duty as an Englishman is the support of the population of his own country, directly the support of its manufacturing classes. Everything that tends to alienate his influence from the service of his fellow-countrymen is a degradation to him. He may be individually as successful in trading with foreign-made goods, but as a member of the English State he is at a lower level when he does so; he becomes a mere mercenary in the service of a foreign power engaged in adding to the prosperity of an alien nation. Again, in this matter the difference between the religious man and the commercial shows up clearly. Letthe religion of the missionary be what it may, his aim is according to it to secure the salvation of the human race. What does it matter to him whether the section of the human race he strives to save be black, white, or yellow? Nothing; as the noble records of missions will show you. Therefore I repeat that West Africa matters to no party in the English State so much as it matters to the mercantile. With no other party are true English interests so closely bound up.

West Africa probably will never be a pleasant place wherein to spend the winter months, a holiday ground that will serve to recuperate the jaded energies of our poets and painters, like the Alps or Italy; probably, likewise, it will never be a place where we can ship our overflow population; and for the same reasonâ€”its unhealthinessâ€”it will be of no use to us as a military academy, for troops are none the better for soaking in malaria and operating against ill-armed antagonists. But West Africa is of immense use to us as a feeding-ground for our manufacturing classes. It could be of equal value to England as a healthy colony, but in a reverse way, for it could supply the wealth which would enable them to remain in England in place of leaving it, if it were properly managed with this definite end in view. It is idle to imagine that it can be properly managed unless commercial experts are represented in the Government which controls its administration, as is not the case at present. It is no case of abusing the men who at present strive to do their best with it. They do not set themselves up as knowing much about trade, and they constantly demonstrate that they do not. Armed with absolutely no definite policy, subsisting on official and non-expert trade opinion, they drift along, with some nebulous sort of notion in their heads about â€œelevating the African in the plane of civilisation.â€

Now, of course, there exists a passable reason for things being as they are in our administration of West Africa. England is never malign in intention, and never rushes headlong into a line of policy. Therefore, in order to comprehend how it has come about that she should have a system so unsuited to the regions to which it is applied, as the Crown Colony system is unsuited to West Africa, we must calmly investigate the reason that underlies this affair. This reason, which is the cause of all the trouble, is a misconception of the nature of West Africa, and it must be considered under two heads.

The thing behind the resolution of 1865 is the undoubted fact that West Africa is no good for a Colony from its unhealthiness. There is no one who knows the Coast but will grant this; but surely there is no one who knows, not only the West Coast of Africa but also the necessities of our working classes in England, who can fail to recognise that this is only half an argument against England holding West Africa; because we want something besides regions whereto we can send away from England men and women, namely, we want regions that will enable us to keep the very backbone of England, our manufacturing classes, in a state of healthy comfort and prosperity at home in England, in other words, we want markets.

Alas! in England the necessity for things grows up in a dumb way, though providentially it is irresistibly powerful; once aroused it forces our statesmen to find the required thing, which they with but bad grace and grievous groans proceed leisurely to do.

This is pretty much the same as saying that the English are deficient in statesmanship, and this is what I mean, and I am convinced that no other nation but our own could have prospered with so much of this imperfection; but remember it is an imperfection, and is not a thing to be proud of any more than a stammer. External conditions have enabled England so far barely to feel her drawback, but now external conditions are in a different phase, and she must choose between acquiring statesmanship competent to cope with this phase, or drift on in her present way until the force of her necessities projects her into an European war. A perfectly unnecessary conclusion to the pressure of commercial competition she is beginning to feel, but none the less inevitable with her present lack of statecraft.

The second part of the reason of Englandâ€™s trouble in West Africa is that other fallacious half reason which our statesmen have for years been using to soothe the minds of those who urged on her in good time the necessity for acquiring the hinterlands of West Africa, namely, â€œAfter all, England holds the key of them in holding the outlets of the rivers.â€ And while our statesmen have been saying this, France has been industriously changing the lock on the door by diverting trade routes from the hinterland she has so gallantly acquired, down into those seaboard districts which she possesses.

â€œWell, well, well,â€ you will say, â€œwe have woke up at last, we can be trusted now.â€ I own I do not see why you should expect to be suddenly trusted by the men with whose interests you have played so long. I remember hearing about a missionary gentleman who was told a long story by the father of a bad son, who for years went gallivanting about West Africa, bringing the family intodisrepute, and running up debts in all directions, and finally returned to the paternal roof. â€œDear me! how interesting,â€ said the missionary; â€œquite the Parable of the Prodigal Son! I trust, My Friend, you remembered it, and killed the fatted calf on his return?â€ â€œNo, Sar,â€ said the parent; â€œbut I dam near kill that ar prodigal son.â€

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