As Regards The Drink Traffic - No One Seems Inclined To Speak The
Truth About It In West Africa; And What
I say I must be understood
to say only about West Africa, because I do not like to form
opinions
Without having had opportunities for personal observation,
and the only part of Africa I have had these opportunities in has
been from Sierra Leone to Angola; and the reports from South Africa
show that an entirely different, and a most unhealthy state of
affairs exists there from its invasion by mixed European
nationalities, with individuals of a low type, greedy for wealth.
West African conditions are no more like South African conditions
than they are like Indian. The missionary party on the whole have
gravely exaggerated both the evil and the extent of the liquor
traffic in West Africa. I make an exception in favour of the late
superintendent of the Wesleyan mission on the Gold Coast, the Rev.
Dennis Kemp, who had enough courage and truth in him to stand up at
a public meeting in Liverpool, on July 2nd, 1896, and record it as
his opinion that, "the natives of the Gold Coast were remarkably
abstemious; but spirits were, 'he believed,' of no benefit to the
natives, and they would be better without them." I have quoted the
whole of the remark, as it is never fair to quote half a man says on
any subject, but I do not agree with the latter half of it, and the
Gold Coast natives are not any more abstemious, if so much so, as
other tribes on the Coast.
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