648 BRITISH WEST AFRICA 



and improvement of means of communication. But the need of securing the natives in 

 the unfettered enjoyment of their lands, as a condition necessary for the permanent 

 prosperity of each of the colonies and protectorates, led to the appointment (June 26, 

 1912) of a Committee by the Colonial Secretary (Mr. L. Harcourt) to consider the laws 

 relating to the transfer of land in British West Africa, with a view to seeing how far it 

 was feasible to extend the system adopted in N. Nigeria, where the whole of the country 

 is held in trust for the native inhabitants. Sir Kenelm Digby was appointed Chairman 

 of the Committee, whose members included Sir F. M. Hodgson, an ex-Governor of the 

 Gold Coast, and Mr. E. D. Morel, well known for many years' persistent advocacy of 

 native rights on the Congo and elsewhere in tropical Africa. 



Gambia. 1 The census taken in 1911 showed that the population of the Island of St. 

 Mary at the mouth of the Gambia, on which is built Bathurst, the capital, was 7,700, 

 compared with t 8,8o7 in 1901. The population of the protectorate, mainly Jolloff and 

 Mandingo, was 138,401, or 15,000 fewer than was estimated for 1907. In 1911 for the 

 third successive year the revenue (86,454) exceeded previous records, the expenditure 

 being 71,390. In 1910, for the first time, the value of the trade reached over a million 

 sterling, the figure being 1,134,460; and in 1911 it rose to 1,499,000, imports being 

 valued at 807,000 and exports 682,000. The ground-nut industry is the main occupa- 

 tion of the people, and while it continues so lucrative the efforts of the Administration 

 to widen the basis of prosperity meet with little success. In the five years 1907-11 the 

 value of the crop varied from 245,000 to 437,060 (1911 tonnage 47,000). 



Consisting of a narrow strip of land on either side of the lower Gambia the protectorate 

 is hemmed in by French West Africa, and the commerce( though not the shipping) is largely 

 in the hands of French firms established at Bathurst. The trade in ground nuts is almost 

 wholly with France, and in 1911 84.8 p.c. of the exports (excluding specie) went to France 

 and her Colonies. The British Empire took 6.3. p.c. and Germany 5.6. p.c. France had 

 also about 45 p.c. of the import trade, Great Britain coming next with about 30 p.c. 



In September 1911 Sir George Denton (b. 1851) who had administered the Gambia for 

 nearly eleven years, retired. He was succeeded by Col. Sir H. L. Galway (b. 1859). 



See H. F. Reeve, The Gambia (London, 1912), an excellent monograph by a retired official; 

 Sir G. Denton, "Twenty Three Years in Lagos and the Gambia," Jnl. African Soc., Vol. 

 xi (1912); and the Annual Reports issued by the Colonial Office. 



Sierra Leone. 2 By a treaty with Liberia signed on the 2ist of January 1911, the 

 south-eastern district of Sierra Leone lying south of the Morro river was ceded to the 

 Republic in exchange for the district of Kanre Lahun (see map in E. B. xi, 204). Im- 

 mediately north of the Anglo-Liberian frontier the Anglo-French boundary underwent 

 a modification (exchange of notes July 6, 1911), resulting in the transference to Sierra 

 Leone from French Guinea of a narrow strip of territory with an area of 125 sq. m. The 

 census of 1911 gave the population of the Colony at 75,572, while that of the Protectorate 

 was estimated at 1,327,560. The figures for the chief tribes were: Mendi 442,000, 

 Sherbro 107,000, both pagan; Timini 347,000, Limba 110,000, Konnoh 61,000, the last. 

 three Moslem (more or less). The European population was 650 (as against 309 in 

 1901), while the Syrians (who have obtained a considerable share of the petty trade of 

 the country) had increased from 47 in 1901 to 175. Freetown, the capital, and one of 

 the finpst ports in West Africa, had a population of 34,090. There has been a general 

 increase both in commerce and in agriculture, but the primitive and wasteful methods of 

 farming adopted by the natives are leading to the disappearance of the dense forest lands 

 with unfortunate results, especially on the mountain slopes and tops, where in two 

 years virgin forest may be turned into bare rock (see " Forestry " by Mr. G. B. Haddon 

 Smith in the Colonial Office report on Sierra Leone for 1910.) The first step towards 

 the reservation of forest land was made in 1911. 



The commercial prosperity of Sierra Leone continues to be bound up with the products 

 of the oil palm constituting 72 p.c. of the domestic exports in 1911. Next in importance 

 comes the Kola nut, a universal article of diet among the natives of West Africa; scarcely 

 any of the nuts reach Europe. In the five years 1907-11, the value of the exports rose from 

 831,000, to i, 300,000; that of the imports from 988,00010 1,267,000. The total revenue 

 for the same period increased from 359,000 to 457,000, the corresponding figures for 



1 See E. B. xi, 437 ct seq. - See E. B. xxv, 54 ef seq. 



