THE PROBLEM OF COiMPULSORY LABOUR 119 
of these men so long as he needed it for the saving of his 
crop, on payment, of course, of the wages usual in the 
locality. But the enforcement of general labour 
compulsion is complicated by the fact that under it 
men have practically always to leave their village and 
their family and go to work many miles away. Who 
provides their food on the journey ? What becomes 
of them if they fall ill ? Who will guarantee that the 
white man does not call on them for their labour just 
when their village has to set about its own planting, 
or when it is the best time for fishing expeditions ? 
Will he not, perhaps, keep them longer than he is 
entitled to, on the plea that they have done no work ? 
Will he treat them properly ? There is always the 
danger that compulsory labour may become, secretly 
but really, a kind of slavery. 
Connected to some extent with the question of 
compulsory labour is that of the management of colonies 
by the method of “ concessions.” What is meant by 
a “ concession ” ? A company with plenty of capital 
has a large stretch of territory assigned to it, which it 
is to manage for so many years, and no other trader 
may establish himself there. Competition being thüs 
excluded, the natives become very seriously dependent 
on the company and its employees. Even if the 
sovereign rights of the State are reserved to it on 
paper, the trading company does in practice come to 
exercise many of them more or less completely, especi- 
ally if the taxes which are owed to the State can be 
paid to the company in the form of natural products 
or of labour, to be handed on by it to the State in the 
form of cash. The question has been much discussed 
at times, because the system of large concessions led 
