without "full inquiry." It is also claimed that the Reserves are adequate. Even if these safeguards were worth the paper they are written on, and even if the second statement were true, the fundamental issue would remain untouched. In point of fact there is only too much reason for doubting the efficacy of the one and the substantial truth of the other. It is true that the Reserves are very large. It is also true, even according to the findings of one of the Company's own commissions, that "in certain Reserves," not only is a "large portion of the soil "poor," but that "water is deficient"; and that certain localities are "wholly unsuitable for human occupation." The Reserves Commission of 1917 put on record the estimate of a responsible official that "85 per cent. of the total area" of Southern Rhodesia was "granite," and gave it as its opinion that the estimate was "not far from correct." The Chartered Company contends that the native prefers the granite soil; to which the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society reply that "the natives will pay almost anything rather than go into these territories," and that while the natives had every opportunity of settling upon these granite areas before the advent of the Chartered Company, they "deliberately refrained from doing so."
•••••••
This whole iniquitous policy of spoliation and expropriation does not appear to have been queried by the Colonial Office until 1914. The Government's indifference to the Company's proceedings is the more remarkable when it is borne in mind that the Charter conferred upon the Company, expressly stipulates that careful regard shall be had to native customs and laws, "especially with respect to the holding, possession, transfer, and disposition of lands. …"
In 1914 Lord Harcourt, then Colonial Secretary, who took a genuine and sympathetic interest in questions of native rights in Africa, contested the Company's claim to possession of the whole of the "unalienated" land of Southern Rhodesia, and brought it before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The case was argued before Lords Loreburn, Dunedin, Atkinson, Summer, and Scott Dickson in the spring of 1918. The Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society briefed Mr. Leslie Scott
