a very small percentage of the population.1 If thirigs are
even made no worse for him than they are at present,
the English trader may be trusted to hold the greater part
of the trade of West Africa for the benefit of the English
manufacturers ; if he is more heavily hampered, the English
trade will die out, the English trader remain, because he
is the best trader with the natives; but it will be small
profit to the English manufacturers because the trader will
be dealing in foreign-made stuff, as he is now in the possessions
of France and Germany. English manufacturers, I
may remark, have succeeded in turning out the cloth goods
best suited-for the African markets, but there has of late
years been an increase in the quantity of other goods
made by foreigners used in the West Coast trade. The imports
from France and Germany and the United States to the
Gold Coast for 1894 (published 1896) were ^217,388 os. id.,
the exports £212,320 is. 3d.; and the Consular Report (158)
for the Gold Coast says that while the trade with the United
Kingdom has increased from ¿ i ,054,336 1 fs. 6d. in 1893 to
.£1,190,532 H 3d. in 1894, or roughly 13 per cent., the trade
with foreign countries has increased upwards of 22 per cent.,
namely, from £350,387 3-f- 5d. to £429,708 is. 4d. In the Lagos
Consular Report (No. 150) similar comparative statistics are
not given, but the increase at that place is probably greater
than on the Gold Coast, as a heavy percentage of the Lagos
trade goes through the hands of two German firms ; but this
increase in foreign trade in our colonies seems to be even
greater in other parts of Africa, for in a Foreign Office Report
from Mozambique it is stated, regarding Cape Colony, that
“ while British imports show an otherwise satisfactory increase,
German trade has more than trebled.” 2
There is a certain school of philanthropists in Europe who
say that it is not advisable to spread white trade in Africa, that
the native is provided by the Bountiful Earth with all that he
really requires, and that therefore he should be allowed to live his
simple life, and not be compelled or urged to work for the white
man’s gain. I have a sneaking sympathy with these good
1 Lagos Annual Consular Report (150, p .6 ), 1894 : “ There were only
three cases of drunkenness. Considering that in the Island of Lagos alone
the population is over 33,300, this clearly proves that drunkenness in this
part of Africa is uncommon, and that there is insufficient evidence for the
contention which is advanced that the native is being ruined by what is so
often spoken of as the heinous gin traffic ; it is a well-known fact by those
in a position best able to judge by long residence that the inhabitants of
this country have a natural repugnance to intemperance.”
2 Board o f Trade Journal, August 1896.
people, because I like the African in his bush state best; and
one can understand any truly human being being horrified at
the extinction of native races in the Polynesian, Melanesian,
and American regions. But still their view is full of error as
regards Africa, for one thing I am glad to say the African does
not die off as do those weaker races under white control, but
increases ; and herein lies the impossibility of accepting this
plan as within the sphere of practical politics, most certainly in
regard to all districts under white control, for the Bountiful
Earth does not amount to much in Africa with native methods
of agriculture. It sufficed when a percentage of the population
were shipped to America as slaves ; now it suffices only to help
to keep the natives in their low state of culture— a state that is
only kept up even to its present level by trade. The condition
of the African native will be a very dreadful one if this trade is
not maintained ; indeed, I may say if it is not increased proportionately
to the increase of white government control— for
this governmental control does many things that are good in
themselves, and glorious on paper. It prevents the export slave
trade ; it suppresses human sacrifice; it stops internecine war
among the natives— in short, it does everything save suppress
the terrible infant mortality (why it does not do this I need
not discuss) to increase the native population, without in itself
doing anything to increase the means of supporting this
population ; nay, it even wants to decrease these by importing
Asiatics to do its work, in making roads, &c.
It may be said there is no fear of the trade, which keeps the
native, disappearing from the West Coast, but it is well to
remember that the stuff that this trade is dependent on, the
stuff brought into the traders’ factory by the native, is mainly
— indeed, save for the South-West Coast coffee and cacao, we
may say, entirely— bush stuff, uncultivated, merely collected
and roughly prepared, and it is so wastefully collected by the
native that it cannot last indefinitely. Take rubber, for example,
one of the main exports. Owing to the wasteful methods
employed in its collection it gets stamped out of districts. The
trade in it starts on a bit of coast; for some years so rich is the
supply, that it can be collected almost at the native s back door,
but owing to his cutting down the vine, he clears it off, and
every year he has to go further and further afield for a load. But
his ability to go further than a certain point is prevented by the
savage interior tribes not under white control; and also on its
paying him to go on these long journeys, for the price at home
takes little notice of his difficulties, because of the more carefully
collected supply of rubber sent into the home markets by