GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



405 



that of the Negri Sembilan, from $20,000 to 

 $100,000. The development of the tin mines 

 has produced these results. The residents have 

 also encouraged agriculture. In Perak a good 

 start has been made in the growing of pepper, 

 sugar, tea, coffee, and rice, and promising ex- 

 periments in the cultivation of tobacco and the 

 mulberry tree. The same crops, with the excep- 

 tion of tobacco, have proved successful in Se- 

 langor. The exports of tin from these two states 

 have risen from 162,000 piculs, or about 100 tons, 

 in 1885, to 235,000 piculs in 1889 ; those of tin 

 ore from 82,000 to 182,000 piculs. The Chinese, 

 working very economically and with their own 

 countrymen, have amassed fortunes from the tin 

 mines, whereas several English companies have 

 failed. The colony of the Straits Settlements 

 occupies an area of 1,385 square miles, with a 

 population of 568,000 in 1889, while the native 

 protected states, covering 23,609 square miles, 

 have only 380,000 inhabitants. The combined 

 revenue of the colony and native states surpasses 

 that of the great crown colony of Ceylon, being 

 $9,700.000 in 1889, with a total expenditure of 

 $7,900,000. 



Hong-Kong is a military and naval station in 

 the Sea of China and the main center of the 

 Chinese export trade in tea and silk, of the opium 

 trade, and of British commerce with China and 

 Japan. It is an island at the mouth of the 

 Canton river, 11 miles long and 2| in average 

 breadth, with a population of 215,800. There 

 were 7,990 whites in 1881. The ordinary reve- 

 nue in 1888 was $1,557,300; the revenue from 

 premiums on land, $160,688 ; the ordinary ex- 

 penditure, $1,461,459 ; extraordinary expendi- 

 ture, including defensive works, $530,870. The 

 trade of Hong-Kong is chiefly with Great Britain, 

 India, the United States, Germany, Australia, 

 and the Straits Settlements. The imports are 

 estimated at $20,000,000 and the imports at $10,- 

 000,000. 



The British possessions in Africa have been 

 vastly enlarged by the protectorate of Zambesia 

 in south central Africa and the sphere assigned 

 to England in the Anglo-German agreement (see 

 EAST AFRICA). The aggregate area of the Brit-, 

 ish possessions and spheres of influence is esti- 

 mated at 1,909,445 square miles, not including 

 the regions formerly ruled by the Khedive of 

 Egypt, covering 1,400,000 square miles more. 

 Besides the old colonies of the Gold Coast, La- 

 gos, Sierra Leone, and Gambia, an extensive terri- 

 tory has lately been acquired on the west coast 

 in the Niger region through the activity of a 

 chartered trading company. All the coast sta- 

 tions import spirits, tobacco, hardware, and cot- 

 ton goods, and export palm oil and kernels and 

 India-rubber. Ground-nuts are also an impor- 

 tant product of the coast ; there is some trade in 

 ivory, gum copal, and other forest products, and 

 in Gambia and Lagos cotton is raised. Gambia 

 was made administratively independent of Sierra 

 Leone in December, 1888. Prom Lagos, which 

 is an island on the Slave Coast, and from Sierra 

 Leone, which now includes the island of Sherbro, 

 British influence is being extended into the in- 

 terior. There are not more than 600 white peo- 

 ple on the whole coast. The revenue of the four 

 colonies in 1888 was 238,886 and the expendi- 

 ture 278,955. The imports were 1,227,389 and 



the exports 1,347,088. British merchants have 

 for their chief competitors the Germans. The 

 Houssa constabulary made an excursion from 

 Sierra Leone in the first half of 1890 to the 

 Shaingay district to quell tribal disputes, and on 

 the Kroo coast a British gun vessel punished 

 wreckers. In the interior of the Gold Coast dis- 

 turbances arose in connection with a boundary 

 dispute with Germany, and in May the English 

 commander of the constabulary was killed in 

 an affray in the Krepi country. In July Capt. 

 Power led an expedition from Lagos into the 

 district behind Accra near the Ashantee coun- 

 try. The difference regarding the delimitation 

 of the Gold Coast colony and the German pro- 

 tectorate of Togo was provisionally arranged by 

 the establishment of a neutral zone in 1888, but 

 the limits were not understood or were disre- 

 garded, and in the Anglo-German agreement of 

 July 1, 1890, a clearer agreement was made. Be- 

 tween the Oil Rivers and Cameroons a conven- 

 tional line has also been provisionally adopted to 

 prevent collision between the British and German 

 authorities pending a survey of the creeks and 

 rivers by naval officers of both countries and a 

 final demarkation in accordance with the provis- 

 ions of the agreement of 1885. 



The Royal Niger Company acquired practical 

 control of the river before the end of 1885 by 

 concluding treaties with the sultans, emirs, and 

 other chiefs, outstripping the Hamburg traders, 

 whose emissary, Robert Flegel, had discovered 

 the commercial possibilities of the region. The 

 French, whose political influence was formerly 

 predominant, formed a company to contest the 

 commercial supremacy ; but, disappointed in not 

 obtaining a government subsidy, they sold out 

 to their English rivals. Under the Congo act 

 the Niger- is an international free-trade river; 

 but the company, which is the political admin- 

 istrator of the country and is empowered by the 

 Anglo-German agreement of June 2, 1885, to 

 collect dues and taxes sufficient to enable it to 

 carry out the obligations imposed on the British 

 Government by the protectorate, has obtained a 

 monopoly of the trade in palm kernels, ivory, 

 and the other products of the region by im- 

 posing exorbitant import and export duties, by 

 forbidding merchants to trade at ports or land- 

 ings except such as are specified in regulations 

 issued by the company and arbitrarily closing 

 ports where they have established commercial 

 relations with the natives, and also by exacting 

 a trading license of 50, which has had the 

 effect of driving away the native traders from 

 Lagos who used to visit the upper courses of the 

 Niger and the Benue. A German merchant 

 named Honigsberg who landed at a forbidden 

 spot had his vessel seized and was expelled from 

 the Niger region by the company's officers. 

 Through the German Government he presented 

 a claim for 5,000 damages. The German Com- 

 missary for the Togo, district, Herr von Putt- 

 kamer. ascended the Niger, entering by the 

 Forcados mouth in order to avoid contact with 

 the officers of the company, which has a station 

 and custom house at Akassa on the Nun mouth, 

 the only entrance to the Niger that is safe and 

 passable at all seasons. His mission was to in- 

 vestigate the case of Herr Honigsberg and the 

 complaints of other German merchants against 



