September, 19] 2. J 



205 



indentured labour on the one band, and slave labour on tbe otber, is 

 perhaps the most striking object-lesson now available to the study of what 

 the West African occupying and using his land under the tribal system 

 of communal tenure and working for himself and his family can 

 accomplish. 



In short, not to give further illustrations, we have in West Africa a 

 fund of native agricultural, commercial, and industrial activity whose 

 expansion is only limited by accessibility to markets, by population, and 

 by technical knowledge. 



Encouragement of Native Occupation. 



Such being the conditions in West Africa, it is obvious that the land 

 question presents itself under totally different aspects than is the case in 

 East Africa or South Africa. In West Africa, where the whole future of 

 the native races is bound up with their unfettered enjoyment and usage 

 of the land, theie can be no question of native " reserves." The first duty 

 of Government as trustees for the native races is to prevent interference 

 with the native occupation of land ; to provide legislative safeguards 

 against any processes which may tend to alienate the land from future 

 generations or to cripple the free economic expansion of its inhabitants. 

 This is no matter of " Sentimentalism." but of elementary justice 

 and, too, of elementary statesmanship and sound economics. 



It is the obvious interest of Government that native wealth should 

 increase, for the increase of native wealth means the increase of the 

 purchasing capacity of the native and the consequent increase in revenue. 

 That is the first law of West African economics. West Africa, as Mary 

 Kingsley so ably urged, is a " trade " count ly primarily. The normal 

 expansion of commerce involves assistance and encouragement to the 

 European merchant to carry out his legitimate business with the mini- 

 mum of restrictions. It involves assistance and encouragement to the 

 native to develop his land and its resources. Both parties to this com- 

 mercial intercourse have a common economic interest, which is shared 

 by the manufacturing and working classes of Europe. 



The Law of Tenure. 



Informed public opinion has been steadily tending towards these con- 

 clusions for some years past and has received increasing support from the 

 Colonial Office and from the most experienced officials in West Africa, 

 Readers of The Times are aware that the first step in the direction indi- 

 cated was sanctioned by the Colonial Office last year as regards Northern 

 Nigeria after an exhaustive investigation into the customary law of 

 tenure there prevailing, initiated by Sir Peicy Girouard and afterwards 

 carried to a Special Commission which sat in Downing-street. But in the 

 rest of British West Africa the problem still awaits treatment, and will 

 require careful and prudent handling. In Northern Nigeria action was, 

 politically speaking, of relative simplicity. When we overthrew the 

 Fulani Emirs after their refusal to negotiate with us we became the 

 supreme over-lords of Northern Nigeria. It was a clean slate upon which 

 we wrote, and, happily, we wrote well. Elsewhere work, perhaps inev- 

 itably, has been patchy, contradictory, and rather inspired by an 

 attitude of laissez-faire than by any clear guiding principle, with the 

 result that to-day a complicated knot requires unravelling, 



