to the natives we had made treaties with would have been destroyed, and the Gold Coast lost whole and entire.
This policy of 1865 has remained the policy of the English Government towards West Africa up to 1894. In spite of it, the English have held on. Governor after Governor, who, as soon as he became acquainted with the nature of the region, has striven to rouse official apathy, has been held in, and his spirit of enterprise broken by official snubs, and has been taught that keeping quiet was what he was required to do. It broke many a man's heart to do it; but doing it worked no active evil on the colony under his control, the affairs of which financially prospered in the hands of the trading community so well, that not only had no West African colony any public debt, except Sierra Leone, which was a philanthropic station, but the Gold Coast, for example, had sufficient surplus to lend money to colonies in other parts of the world. But at last the time came when the aggression on Africa by the Continental powers fulfilled all the gloomy prophecies which the merchants of Liverpool had long been uttering; and one possession of ours in West Africa after another felt the effects of the activity of other nations and the apathy of our own. They would have felt it in vain, and have utterly succumbed to it, had it not been for two Englishmen. Sir George Taubman Goldie, who, when in West Africa on a voyage of exploration, recognised the possibilities of the Niger regions, and secured them for England in the face of great difficulties; and Mr. Chamberlain. Concerning Sir George Goldie's efforts in securing a most important section of West Africa for England, I shall have occasion to speak later. Concerning Mr. Chamberlain, I may as well speak now; but be it understood, both these men,
