282 CO:\[:\[ERCTAL PROSPECTS 



would also be no cause for the British taxpayer to complain if cofi'ee or 

 rubber, gold or ivory, or all these substances combined, failed to provide 

 a lucrative commerce for the British market. The Protectorate would 

 then be administered puiely in the interests of the black man. He 

 at least, in the climate of the country wherein he was born, does not 

 suffer from the diseases which afflict the European who attempts to 

 settle in parts of tropical Africa: lie at least is happy and content if 

 he can maintain f]ocks and herds of cattle, sheep, and goats, and grow 

 food-stuffs suited to his country and his palate. But the native in 

 nianv cases has no cash with which to pay his taxes. He can only 

 earn the money by working, say, for a month, or by collecting and 

 selling rubber, coffee, or some other saleable substance which he can 

 acquire without robbing other people ; or he may breed cattle for the 

 provision market, or collect oil which is suflficiently valuable to meet the 

 cost of transport to the European markets. 



But do these countries of Uganda produce substances of sufficient 

 value to induce the European or Asiatic trader to buy them from the 

 natives or to cultivate them on his own account by means of paid 

 native labour ? If they do, then again the question of equilibrium in 

 the Protectorate finances is ultimately decided. Supposing for a moment, 

 however, that coffee is ultimately to be a failure in British Central 

 Africa,* or that the existence of coffee, cacao, ivory, oil-seeds, hides, 

 and live-stock in moderate quantities in Uganda is not sufficient to 

 maintain a large and profitable commerce, is there no other way b\' 

 which the natives of these Protectorates may prosper, make money, 

 and, with far less sacrifice than the average inhabitant of European 

 countries, support their own local Administration ? There is, I believe, 

 a method which, properly regulated, might be productive of most bene- 

 ficial results. In xVfrica south of the Zambezi there exists an enormous 

 demand for Negro labour, especially in countries where climatic and 

 other conditions make it impossible to use white men. If between the 

 Zambezi and the Nile there exist millions of black men by no means 

 wanting in enterprise, by no means fearing long journeys, anxious to 

 obtain a little money, yet anxious not permanently to leave their homes ; 

 between the Zambezi and the Orange Piver there are European capitalists 

 ready to use any amount of Negro labour at good rates of pay for the 

 development of the mines and of other enterprises in which the white 

 labourer, for climatic and other reasons, is an impossibility. It does 

 really seem desirable in the general interests of Africa that the agents 

 of the demand and the supply should be brought together. 



It may be asked why, inasmuch as there is a Negro po^mlation in the 

 * I think no such thing. 



