712 REPORT— 1903. 



owing to the ruin aud exhaustion it brougLt with it. This system is at present 

 in operation in a large portion of tropical Africa. It is based upon the repudiation, 

 or rather the ignoring, of native rights of land tenure ; upon the definition of all 

 land not actually built over or cultivated for food-stuffs as 'vacant'; and upon 

 the appropriation of all such land and the produce yielded by it. It tends towards 

 the enslavement of whole peoples and brings inevitable ruin in its train. Argu- 

 ments are adduced to show that, apart from its moral side, this conception is 

 antagonistic to the development of all legitimate European aims in tropical Africa, 

 and that if it is morally pernicious it is also practically .short-sighted and 

 injurious, and should be resisted to the uttermost. 



The other conception has, the author contends, notwithstanding many material 

 ob3tacles, produced results which are obvious aud visible to all. It is based upon 

 the recognition that the inherent rights of a native of tropical Africa to his land 

 and the produce thereof are the necessary accompaniments of all successful and 

 ])crmanent development work in the interests both of the European and the negro. 

 The commercial instincts of the negro are notorious, his adaptability remarkable ; 

 1 he theory that he will not work is untenable in face of the positive results of his 

 labours in the millions of pounds' worth of produce shipped home annually to 

 Europe from West Africa. He merely requires instruction and guidance to 

 prevent wastage and destruction of economic products due to want of knowledge 

 in the preparation and collection of the i-aw material. An urgent necessity "is 

 the careful study of native land tenure as an important factor in economic 

 development, the theory of ' vacant ' lands being often misleading and open to 

 grave abuses. 



The paper then discusses the best means of improving native industries and 

 helping the native to construct new ones, laying particular stress upon the great 

 importance of extending the growth of cotton in, and promoting its export from, 

 the tropical African provinces of the Empire. Keference having been made to 

 various measures which might with advantage be taken by Government to secure 

 these ends, the opinion is expressed that the only right and practical ideal which 

 should govern European action in tropical Alrica (which is, and must always 

 remain, a black man's country, where the European cannot colonise and can only 

 supervise) is to teach the native to take pride in his property; to guarantee him 

 from molestation in his ownership of his property ; to assist him in developing the 

 raw products his fertile soil yields for his own advantage and ours ; to make it 

 clear to him that we look upon him, not as a fool, still less as a brute, but as 

 a partner in a great undertaking which, if properly conducted, will confer lasting 

 benefit upon his race and the white over-lords who have established themselves 

 in his midst. 



Fit I JO AY, SEPTEMBER 11. 

 The following Papers and Report were read : — 



1. The Itijluence of Ice-melting upon Oceanic Circulation.^ 

 By Professor O. Petteesson. 



The circulation of oceanic waters has been ascribed partly to physical causes, 

 such as the heating of surface waters in tropical and the cooling in polar regions, 

 partly to mechanical causes, such as the influence of the prevailing winds. The 

 latter is at present regarded as the chief motive power of the currents of the sea. 

 In either case the vis movewli must be the effect of a thermodynamic cycle of the 

 free heat in the atmosphere or in the hydrosphere. On the mechauicariiypothesis 

 it is obvious that the primary elt'ect is the generation of surface-currents (wind- 

 currents) of great intensity, and that the intensity of motion must decrease with 

 the depth. The general conviction at present is that the movement of the bottom 



' The Paper will probably appear ia cxttnsu in tlie Geographical Journal. 



