TRANSACTtONS OF SECTION E. 711 



broad features of it before the Section in order to show its connection with 

 Geography. 



I also entertain the hope that geographers will become more interested in a 

 subject so important to pure science and in its practical applications, and that it 

 will become an additional subject to the instruction which travellers can now 

 obtain under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society in geology, botany, 

 zoology, meteorology, and surveying. 



There is a wide field open to observers, and where results often depend so 

 much upon locality we require to explore more and more with the magnetic 

 needle. To look over the great oceans and think how little is being done for 

 terrestrial magnetism is a great matter for regret. Yet even there we may begin 

 to be hopeful, for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey authorities are 

 making arrangements to fit out its vessel with the necessary instruments for 

 determining the magnetic elements at sea. 



We wish them all success ; but I must again remind you that although we 

 cannot compel observers to start, there is room for them and to spare. 



I would fain make some remarks on the prevailing ignorance of sound geo- 

 graphy in many quarters, and on the defective methods of teaching the science ; 

 but I feel that the subject is placed in very able hands, and will be fully discussed 

 elsewhere during the present meeting. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. The recent West Iiidian Eruptions.^ 

 By Tempkst Andebson, M.D., B.Sc. 



2. The Economic Bevelojmient of West Africa.'^ By E. D. Morel. 



Although West African afiairs are engaging more and more attention, the 

 public as a whole continues to display a curious inditt'erence to that part of the 

 world. Yet there are urgent reasons why a manufacturing nation like ours should 

 show keener interest in one of the greatest raw material-producing countries 

 in the world, of which we possess some 700,000 square miles, inhabited by 

 30,000,000 people. The author of the paper protests against the indifference of 

 the public : the extent of British commercial interests in West Africa is ignored 

 by most, and the future potentialities of the country are insufficiently appreciated. 

 The chief factor which determined the Powers to assume the liabilities they have 

 in tropical Africa was due to the belief that raw material is necessary to an 

 industrial and manufacturing nation, and that each nation must find new markets 

 for the consumption of home manufactures, markets which will pay for such 

 manufactures in raw material. It follows, therefore, that the economic develop- 

 ment of tropical Africa is the principal aim which each Power has in view. How 

 can that economic development be best pursued in a manner profitable to the 

 people of Europe and to the people of Africa ? If it is to be permanently success- 

 ful, it must be profitable to both. 



The paper goes on to point out that two political conceptions — utterly divergent 

 and antagonistic, yet both alike concerned with the economical development of 

 tropical Africa, and therefore both alike arising from the cardinal factor which 

 led to the partition of tropical Africa among the Powers — are before the world. 

 The adoption of one or the other conception will decide the future of European 

 effort in the black man's country The two conceptions are defined as Coercion 

 and Commerce : the former is characterised as a revival in aggravated form of the 

 old culture system of the Dutch East Indies, which had to be abandoned 



' The subject-matter of the lecture appeared in the Geogra2}Mcal Journal for 

 March 1903. 



-' Printed in full in the West African Mail, September 18 and 26, 1003. 



