852 



WEST AFRICA. 



Creating the office of State fruit inspector. 



For promotion of fruit growing and horticul- 

 tural interests of the State. 



Relating to manufacture and sale of dairy 

 products. 



Requiring horseshoers to pass an examination. 



Appropriating $5,000 for the destruction of 

 Canada and Russian thistles. 



Creating the county of Wenatchee. 



Reducing the interest on State warrants to 6 

 per cent. 



A resolution to submit to the people a consti- 

 tutional amendment empowering the Legislature 

 to exempt $300 in personal property from taxa- 

 tion. 



Addison G. Foster, Republican, was elected 

 United States Senator. 



WEST AFRICA. European possessions on 

 the western coast of Africa, north of the Congo, 

 previous to the assumption by Germany in 1884 of 

 a protectorate over Togo! and and the Cameroons, 

 consisted merely of the English trading posts at 

 Bathurst, Lagos, and on the Gold Coast, the 

 English colony of Sierra Leone, originally peopled 

 by liberated slaves from the West Indies, and 

 the French colony of Senegal. In this last alone 

 was any activity or desire of expansion exhibited. 

 The Spaniards in the Bight of Biafra and the Por- 

 tuguese at Cape Verde bad practically abandoned 

 their settlements on the mainland, retaining only 

 the islands. The English were inclined to contract 

 their boundaries. Since the extinction of the 

 slave trade commerce had steadily declined. 

 Spirits were the chief article of import, and Ger- 

 man potato spirits had supplanted the rum for- 

 merly supplied by New England and the West In- 

 dies. The new colonial projects of Germany re- 

 awakened the spirit of colonial enterprise in other 

 nations and gave rise to a sharp rivalry, which 

 was particularly intense in West Africa, the 

 whole of which is now partitioned between 

 France, Great Britain, and Germany, save terri- 

 tories left to the independent republic of Liberia, 

 after the encroachments of the French and Eng- 

 lish and petty enclaves retained by Portugal and 

 Spain on the shores of Senegambia and the French 

 Congo. As the result of the struggle for spheres 

 of influence in this part of Africa and in other pre- 

 viously unoccupied regions of the earth, the whole 

 undeveloped interior has fallen to France, whose 

 possessions hem in British Gambia, which is now 

 confined to a narrow strip along the banks of the 

 river, confine Sierra Leone and Liberia to the 

 coast region controlled by the actual settlements, 

 inclose the British Gold Coast colony and Ger- 

 man Togoland, restrict the Hinterland of Came- 

 roons to a conventional frontier, and shut in bv 

 treaty Nigeria from extension eastward into the 

 central Soudan. However, in this region the 

 British, who through the instrumentality of the 

 Royal Niger Company developed the greatest 

 activity here, have made good their claim to a 

 wide and promising country traversed by the 

 maritime Niger and the naVigable part of the 

 Benue. 



The low import duties levied on spirits, 1*. a 

 gallon in Togo and the neighboring British colo- 

 nies, only 8d. in Dahomey, and not over 4s. 6d. in 

 any part of the coast, have made drinking as easy 

 and cheap as in almost any part of the world. 

 Bishop Herbert Tugwell, of the Anglican West 

 African diocese, in making a public plea for a 

 duty of 10s. Gd. a gallon, the same as in the 

 United Kingdom, called attention to the extraor- 

 dinary consumption of spirits by the whites on 

 the coast, estimated to average 12 gallons per 

 annum a man, attributed 75 per cent, of the 



deaths among Europeans to drinking at all hours 

 and drunkenness. For this statement the Gov- 

 ernor of Lagos instituted a prosecution for crimi- 

 nal libel at the demand of the white people; but 

 the charge was withdrawn by the public prose- 

 cutor because it could not be legally sustained. 

 In May, 1891), the import duty on spirits \\as 

 increased 1.x. a gallon in the Niger Coast protect- 

 orate. An international conference on the Afri- 

 can liquor traffic was held at Brussels, at which 

 it was agreed to raise for the period of six y> ;n> 

 the minimum import and excise duty on spiritu- 

 ous liquors throughout the zone where the ^en- 

 eral act of Brussels does not provide for total 

 prohibition, from 15 francs a hectolitre at r>() 

 centigrade (the rate fixed by that act) to 70 

 francs, except in Togo and Dahomey, when- it 

 may be exceptionally at the rate of CO franc*. 

 The convention was* signed by plenipotentiai i.s 

 of Germany, Belgium, Spain, the Congo State, 

 France, Great Britain. Italy. Netherlands. Portu- 

 gal, Russia, Sweden and Norway, and Turkey. 

 The Spanish and Turkish representatives only 

 signed the treaty od referendum. The Gorman 

 representative read a declaration protesting 

 against the differential treatment accorded to c.i 

 tain spirituous liquors in some African colon ic-. 

 and stating that the German Government on the 

 occasion of a future revision of the convention 

 would make its co-operation dependent on t In- 

 general aspect which this differential treatment 

 may at that time present. The British repre- 

 sentative read a declaration protesting agam-t 

 the insufficiency of the duties, stating that his 

 Government had agreed to the rate solely in order 

 that the labors of the conference should not be 

 without any result, and hoped that at the end 

 of the six years the rate would be rai-c.l. and 

 that even l>efore that date, should the need ot rf 

 vision make itself apparent, the powers would 

 not refuse to reconsider the matter at the invita- 

 tion of the British Government. The convention 

 provides for a now conference at the end <>t -i\ 

 years and a revision of the import duty, to he 

 based on the results produced by the pre-. nt I.HC. 

 The powers retain the right of maintaining r 

 increasing the duty beyond the minimum in the 

 regions whore they already po--e--eil that right. 

 The British plenipotentiary had pived ti a 

 duty of 100 francs a hectolitre, equal to 4*. a 

 gallon. The rate of duty had already been 

 raised on the British Gold Coast to 4*. <></. 

 a gallon, on the French Ivory Coast to 3s. {)</.. in 

 Sierra Leone and in Cameroons to 3s. At I 

 and in the Niger territory it had recently Keen 

 increased from Is. to 2s/ In the Hinti-rhiml of 

 the Niger Coast protectorate absolute prohibition 

 was proclaimed. In the Ni^ei- territorie-. inhab- 

 ited to a great extent by Monammedans and com- 

 ing within the prohibition regions prescribed by 

 the Brussels act, the prohibition was made gen- 

 eral by a proclamation of Sir George Taubinan 

 Gold ie* before the transfer of the territories from 

 the Niger Company to the British Government. 

 British Possessions. The British tfnd French 

 spheres have by various agreements been so com- 

 pletely delimited that it i- i>o ible to make an 

 approximate estimate of the extent of the British 

 possessions. Bv the agreement of Is'.'s <; )( at 

 Britain relinquished 150.000 square miles pre- 

 viously claimed in the Niger region, reducing tin- 

 area of the Niger territories to about .V><>.<>00 

 square miles, with a population between I.VIMIO.- 

 000 and 25,000,000. The Nifftr f'o,/x/ i>n>tnt<,r 

 utc is about 3,000 square miles in extent. Tin 1 

 Royal Niger Company, formed in 1882 with tjio 

 main object of obtaining the Niger regions ti 



