Government are coquetting. In the view of the spokesmen of the Empire Resources Development Committee, the population of British tropical Africa is an "undeveloped national asset," and the problem of Empire there consists in converting the African into a "useful human being." The land is not, it seems, the property of the people living upon it and using it; although, throughout the greater part of western tropical Africa, at any rate, the British hold these dependencies by virtue of original treaties of amity and commerce entered into with the native rulers, recognised by us as exercising authority over the land of the country. The land should be regarded as an "estate" of the British Crown, and the Crown should "keep in its own hands the power of producing, trading in and exporting certain special products." It is precisely those products, be it observed, which the native population is now itself producing, trading in and exporting in its own right, and by its own free labour. The mechanism for the production of the natural resources of the country should be in the hands of an "Imperial board composed of not more than 20 live (sic} business men," with a small sprinkling of civil servants. The mechanism itself should take the form of "Joint Stock Companies." The profits derived by the "State"—not the African "State," be it noted, but the British Crown—from this dual enterprise, will help to pay off the interests on the war loans. "The plan is for the State on its own account to develop some of the resources of the Empire, and to secure in this way both a large income with which to pay interest on the debt and also an immense unearned increment, out of which the whole national debt will be ultimately repaid." The profits derived from the corporations thus associated with the British Crown in this patriotic and unselfish enterprise, will naturally be distributed among the stock and bondholders. In short, the proposal is that the natural wealth of British tropical Africa shall be directly exploited by the British Crown, in partnership with particular capitalists seeking substantial profits on capital invested. In other words, African labour is to be regarded and treated as a human force for the furtherance of British national and sectional interests.
In such partnerships all the great colonial tragedies of the past have their origin. A system of this kind necessarily
