practical value. Still, the principle is established which in later years will, with improvement of communications, render more adequate returns, and produce a revenue proportionate to population and prosperity. Meanwhile, the solution lies in enhancing the value of the products in which payment is made, and decreasing their bulk by means of simple industrial machinery, such as hand-gins for cotton, oil presses, and the like.
I had hoped to find space to add a few observations on some other subjects of interest in tropical administration, such as the treatment of native chiefs and their relations to the Administration; the question of native jurisdiction and courts, Mohammedan and pagan; currency and barter; the position and duties of troops and police; education, and many others; but the limits of my space are already exceeded.
The aims of West African administration are comparatively simple. Unconcerned with that large range of subjects which provide material for the domestic legislation of more civilized countries, its problems are confined to two main branches: (1) The treatment of native races, who are centuries behind ourselves in mental evolution, and the steps by which they may be gradually brought to a higher plane of civilization and progress; and (2) economic development by which these tropical countries may develop a trade which shall benefit our own industrial classes by the production, on the one hand, of the raw materials—rubber, oils, cotton, hides, etc.—which form the staples of our manufactures, and by the absorption in return of our manufactured cottons, hardware, and other goods.
Of all our tropical dependencies. West Africa, on account of its climate, suffers most from a lack of continuity in administration—that greatest of all drawbacks to success and progress. The necessity, on the one hand, of periodical return to England to recruit, which deprives the country of the services of its officers for one-third of their nominal service; and the limited period, on the other hand, for which officers, espe-
