These
Requirements Are Fairly Well Fulfilled Already On The West Coast,
And I Can See No Reason For Any Further Restriction Or Additional
Impost.
If further restrictions in the sale of it are wanted, it is
not for interior trade where the natives are not given to excess,
but in the larger Coast towns, where there is a body of natives who
are the debris of the disintegrating process of white culture.
But
even in those towns like Sierra Leone and Lagos these men are a very
small percentage of the population. {508} If things are even made
no worse for him than they are at present, the English trader may be
trusted to hold the greater part of the trade of West Africa for the
benefit of the English manufacturers; if he is more heavily
hampered, the English trade will die out, the English trader remain,
because he is the best trader with the natives; but it will be small
profit to the English manufacturers because the trader will be
dealing in foreign-made stuff, as he is now in the possessions of
France and Germany. English manufacturers, I may remark, have
succeeded in turning out the cloth goods best suited for the African
markets, but there has of late years been an increase in the
quantity of other goods made by foreigners used in the West Coast
trade. The imports from France and Germany and the United States to
the Gold Coast for 1894 (published 1896) were 217,388 pounds 0s.
1d., the exports 212,320 pounds 1s. 3d.; and the Consular Report
(158) for the Gold Coast says that while the trade with the United
Kingdom has increased from 1,054,336 pounds 17s. 6d. in 1893 to
1,190,532 pounds 1s. 3d in 1894, or roughly 13 per cent., the trade
with foreign countries has increased upwards of 22 per cent.,
namely, from 350,387 pounds 3s. 5d to 429,708 pounds 1s. 4d. In the
Lagos Consular Report (No. 150) similar comparative statistics are
not given, but the increase at that place is probably greater than
on the Gold Coast, as a heavy percentage of the Lagos trade goes
through the hands of two German firms; but this increase in foreign
trade in our colonies seems to be even greater in other parts of
Africa, for in a Foreign Office Report from Mozambique it is stated,
regarding Cape Colony, that "while British imports show an otherwise
satisfactory increase, German trade has more than trebled." {509}
There is a certain school of philanthropists in Europe who say that
it is not advisable to spread white trade in Africa, that the native
is provided by the Bountiful Earth with all that he really requires,
and that therefore he should be allowed to live his simple life, and
not be compelled or urged to work for the white man's gain. I have
a sneaking sympathy with these good people, because I like the
African in his bush state best; and one can understand any truly
human being being horrified at the extinction of native races in the
Polynesian, Melanesian, and American regions. But still their view
is full of error as regards Africa, for one thing I am glad to say
the African does not die off as do those weaker races under white
control, but increases; and herein lies the impossibility of
accepting this plan as within the sphere of practical politics, most
certainly in regard to all districts under white control, for the
Bountiful Earth does not amount to much in Africa with native
methods of agriculture. It sufficed when a percentage of the
population were shipped to America as slaves; now it suffices only
to help to keep the natives in their low state of culture - a state
that is only kept up even to its present level by trade. The
condition of the African native will be a very dreadful one if this
trade is not maintained; indeed, I may say if it is not increased
proportionately to the increase of white Government control - for
this governmental control does many things that are good in
themselves, and glorious on paper. It prevents the export slave
trade; it suppresses human sacrifice; it stops internecine war among
the natives - in short, it does everything save suppress the terrible
infant mortality (why it does not do this I need not discuss) to
increase the native population, without in itself doing anything to
increase the means of supporting this population; nay, it even wants
to decrease these by importing Asiatics to do its work, in making
roads, etc.
It may be said there is no fear of the trade, which keeps the
native, disappearing from the West Coast, but it is well to remember
that the stuff that this trade is dependent on, the stuff brought
into the traders' factory by the native, is mainly - indeed, save for
the South-West Coast coffee and cacao, we may say, entirely - bush
stuff, uncultivated, merely collected and roughly prepared, and it
is so wastefully collected by the native that it cannot last
indefinitely. Take rubber, for example, one of the main exports.
Owing to the wasteful methods employed in its collection it gets
stamped out of districts. The trade in it starts on a bit of coast;
for some years so rich is the supply, that it can be collected
almost at the native's back door, but owing to his cutting down the
vine, he clears it off, and every year he has to go further and
further afield for a load. But his ability to go further than a
certain point is prevented by the savage interior tribes not under
white control; and also on its paying him to go on these long
journeys, for the price at home takes little notice of his
difficulties because of the more carefully collected supply of
rubber sent into the home markets by South America and India;
therefore the native loses, and when he has cleared the districts
reachable by him, the trade is finished there, and he has no longer
the wherewithal to buy those things which in the days of his
prosperity he has acquired a taste for.
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