Speaking At Large, The Introduction Of European
Culture - Governmental, Religious, Or Mercantile - Has A Destructive
Action On All The Lower
Races; many of them the governmental and
religious sections have stamped right out; but trade has never
stamped a race
Out when dissociated from the other two, and it
certainly has had no bad effect in tropical Africa. With regard to
the liquor traffic, try and put yourself in the West African's
place. Imagine, for example, that you want a pair of boots. You go
into a shop, prepared to pay for them, but the man who keeps the
shop says, "My good friend, you must not have boots, they are
immoral. You can have a tin of sardines, or a pocket-handkerchief,
they are much better for you." Would you take the sardines or the
pocket-handkerchiefs? more particularly would you feel inclined to
take them instead of your desired boots if you knew there was a shop
in a neighbouring street where boots are to be had? And there is a
neighbouring shop-street to all our West Coast possessions which is
in the hands of either France or Germany.
I do not for a moment deny that the liquor traffic requires
regulation, but it requires more regulation in Europe than it does
in Africa, because Europe is more given to intoxication. In Africa
all that is wanted is that the spirit sent in should be wholesome,
and not sold at a strength over 45 degrees below proof.
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