council, or an office, to be everlastingly nagging and legislating
and inspecting, matters little ; the result is bad, and it fills me
with the greatest admiration for my country to see how in
spite of this she keeps the lead. That she will always keep it
I believe, because I believe that it is impossible that this
phase of emotionalism— no, it is not hypocrisy, my French
friends, it is only a sort of fiti&will last, and we shall soon be
back in our clear senses again and say to the world, “ We
do this thing because we think it is right ; because we think
it is best for those we do it to and for ourselves, not because
of the wickedness of war, the brotherhood of man, or any
other notion bred of fear.”
The way in which the present ideas acting through the
government do harm in Africa are many. English government
officials have very little and very poor encouragement
given them if they push inland and attempt to enlarge the
sphere of influence, which their knowledge of local conditions
teaches them requires enlarging, because the authorities at
home are afraid other nations will say we are rapacious land-
grabbers. Well, we always have been, and they will say it
anyhow ; and where after all is the harm in it ? We have
acted in unison with the nations who for good sound reasons
of their own have cut down Portuguese possessions in Africa
because we were afraid of being thought to support a nation
who went in for slavery. I always admire a good move in a
game or a brilliant bit of strategy, and that was a beauty ;
and on our head now lie the affairs of the Congo Free
State, while France and Germany smile sweetly, knowing
that these affairs will soon be such that they will be able to
step in and divide that territory up between themselves without
a stain on their character— in the interests of humanity- -
the whole of that rich region, which by the name of Livingstone,
Speke, Grant, Burton, and Cameron, should now be
ours.
Then again in commercial competition our attitude seems to
me very lacking in dignity. We are now just beginning to know
it is a fight, and this commercial war has been going on since
1880— since, in fact, France and Germany have recovered
from their war of 1870.
And if we are to carry on this commercial war with any
hope of success, we must abandon our “ Oh ! that’s not fair ; I
wont play ” attitude— and above all we must have no more
government restrictions on our foreign trade. In West Africa
governmental restriction settles, like dew in autumn, on the
liquor traffic. It is a case of give a dog a bad name and
hang him. Moreover, raising the import dues on liquor
may bring into the government a good revenue ; but it is a
short-sighted policy— for the liquor is the thing there is
the best market for in West Africa. The natives have no
enthusiasm about cotton-goods, as they seem from some
accounts to have in East Central, and the supply of them
they now get, and get cheap and good, is as much as they
require. And if the question of the abstract morality of
introducing clothes, or introducing liquor, to native races,
were fairly gone into, the results would be interesting— for
clothing native races in European clothes works badly for them
and kills them off. Indeed the whole of this question of trade
with the lower races is full of curious and unexpected points.
Speaking at large, the introduction of European culture—
governmental; religious, or mercantile— has a destructive
action on all the lower races ; many of them the governmental
and religious sections have stamped right out ; but trade has
. never stamped a race out when disassociated from the other
two, and it certainly has had no bad effect in tropical Africa.
With regard to the liquor traffic, try and put yourself in the
West African’s place. Imagine, for example, that you want a
pair of boots. You go into a shop, prepared to pay for them,
but the man who keeps the shop says, “ My good friend, you
must not have boots, they are immoral. You can have a tin of
sardines, or a pocket-handkerchief, they are much better for
you.” Would you take the sardines or the pocket-handkerchiefs?
more particularly would you feel inclined to take
them instead of your desired boots if you knew there was a
shop in a neighbouring street where boots are to be had ?
And there is a neighbouring shop-street to all our West
Coast possessions which is in the hands of either France or
Germany.
I do not for a moment deny that the liquor traffic requires
regulation, but it requires more regulation in Europe than it
does in Africa, because Europe is more given to intoxication.
In Africa all that is wanted is that the spirit sent in should
be wholesome, and not sold at a strength over 450 below
proof. These requirements are fairly well fulfilled already on
the West Coast, and I can see no -reason for any further
restriction or additional impost. I f further restrictions in the
sale of it are wanted, it is not for interior trade where the
natives are not given to excess, but in the larger coast towns,
where there is a body of natives who are the débris of
the disintegrating process of white culture. But even in
those towns like Sierra Leone and Lagos these men are