was required; and, as they are very anxious to have an additional supply of immigrants, I see no reason why they should not have as many as they are able to pay for.'

It is stated that the Protector so recently appointed had been laid up by an accident. The LieutenantGovernor of the Windward Islands, on the matter being referred to him, thought the Protector 'could not be altogether exonerated from blame.' 'But,' he added, 'he is in many respects a good officer. He speaks Hindustanee, and is trusted and liked by the coolies. His unpopularity among the planters is in itself evi dence that he discharged his duties conscientiously.' However, it was eventually settled to get over the difficulty by superseding the obnoxious Protector who had spoken out too strongly. As he was only 'on probation' he had no opportunity of defending himself. No inquiry was made into his allegations of past mismanagement; but a new ordinance is to be considered by the local Legislature. The whole proceeding certainly does not inspire me with confidence.

I am one of those who believe that since we have, on one hand, in India great agricultural populations, docile, intelligent, and industrious, but constantly pressing on the means of subsistence, and on the other great possessions, which only require for their development such a population fitted for hot climates, it would be in every way beneficial from both points of view to encourage emigration from India, provided it be carried out on fair terms and the policy be accepted not merely to use the coolies as a substitute.

for slave labour under planter-masters, but to facilitate their free colonisation and settlement on the soil under a liberal system similar to that adopted in the United States. Planters might then trust to a good free population for voluntary hired labour. It is impossible that the natives of India should distinguish between the British Government which they know in India, and the British Government of each colony; and the better colonies suffer in credit and popularity for the faults of the bad. I hold, then, strongly to the view that we are not justified in encouraging and facilitating this emigration. till we have much greater security for the treatment of the emigrants and an effective assurance that the personal freedom which (as distinguished from political freedom) they enjoy in India in an eminent degree shall not be abridged.

In some of our West Indian Colonies there have very recently been important questions with respect to the management of the negro labouring population, but it is in the African Colonies that the questions relating to the African races are of the highest im portance. Recent events have attracted very great attention to the subject, and have been the occasion of a mass of official information published in Bluebooks, in which I have been much interested. I put aside external political questions, and now look to the matter only as regards the treatment of the large masses of indigenous blacks whom we either have found in the territories which we have acquired or have received under our protection and immediate or mediate control; for it appears that disturbances and

tyrannies beyond our borders have led to migrations of large numbers of natives and the settlement of many of them in our territories, or in Boer territory which we have since annexed. The great and long debated question in Africa seems to be, whether the natives who occupy large tracts almost exclusively are to be brought under civilised law or allowed to retain their own laws, more or less administered by their own chiefs. My own prepossessions have been entirely in favour of allowing the indigenes to retain their own laws, so far as they are not absolutely inconsistent with our system. That has been the prac tice in India, in almost all things in the earlier days of our rule and even when in later days we have come to regulate many things by codes common to white and black, we leave to every native class their own laws regarding marriage and inheritance, religious and social rites, and such-like matters. Since, however, I have looked into the matter carefully I have seen reason to depart from this view as regards Africa, and rather to incline to a system which may lead us towards the state of things now found in America, where the Africans have been converted in manners, religion, language, and clothing, and assimilated to the white man's standard. The accounts we have of the African tribal administrations seem to be very unfavourable; and though they are very often drawn from a hostile point of view, I must say that, looking to recent official summaries of native laws, as now administered in our Colonies, I do not think that they are such as it is desirable to retain. I do not here

enter on questions of marriage and the like; but certainly as regards property the system seems to nega tive altogether individual ownership in a way which must be fatal to settlement and progress. The head of the kraal and of the house seems to have absolute control over all the property of the community, and that power descends undivided to a single heir, subject only to the customary liabilities in respect of the maintenance of the members of the house. Individual property is, it would seem, not recognised. These people are not the possessors of an old civilisation and ancient laws, under which they have learned to manage their own affairs; they are in no degree in the position of Hindoo and Mahomedan races in India. They are mere barbarians, with some ill-defined customs which we have reduced to law. Even their tribes seem generally not to be well-established tribes under chiefs who are looked up to as the hereditary heads of clans and who carry a traditionary influence with them. African tribes seem to be mere casual aggregations of people under the chief of the day. We are constantly told that a modern people have been made up of 'broken tribes' and fragments of all sorts. I should judge, then, that there is little of native law or rule which we are much called on to respect when these people come under our jurisdiction.

On the other hand, if we would adopt the method of taming and civilising these people, I think what I have seen in America goes far to show how much good may result. The situation of the blacks in Africa is, of course, very different from that of their

congeners in America; but through all differences I seem to recognise the same radical characteristics in the men and the women too. There seems always to be the capacity for making excellent labourers; and the tribes whom we have most effectually converted to our ways, such as the Fingoes, appear to exhibit very considerable capacities for improvement and civilisation. Altogether I see much reason to suppose that the African is quite at his best when working with the example, guidance, and assistance of white men and following their ways. Of course one cannot have long experience of newly-acquired territories without feeling that changes must not be too violent and sudden, and that in many cases we must receive people to a certain extent on their own terms, and allow them to retain for a time many laws and habits which we do not ourselves think the best. But I incline, so far as I have seen, to believe that in the case of these African populations our ultimate aim should be, not to govern them under their own laws and religions, as we do the Indian populations, but to assimilate them as far as possible, and to make them a good agricultural and labouring popu lation. At any rate, I hope that what I tell in the following pages of Africans so treated in America may furnish to the reader some material for forming an opinion on this point.

I am greatly disposed to think that if, by a just and equal rule, we humanise and improve these African natives, protecting them from class tyranny of the white man on the one hand, and from their