who sell canaries down there are up to the sample description of deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. So he brought to bear upon the transaction a deal of subtlety, but neglected fundamental facts, whereby his triumph at having, on the whole, done the canary seller brown by getting him to take in part value for the bird a box of German colonial-grown cigars, was vanity. For weeks that gallant seaman rubbed a wet cork up and down an empty whisky bottle within the hearing of the bird, which is the proper thing to do providing things are all right in themselves, and yet nothing beyond genial twitterings rewarded his exertions. So he rubbed on for another week with even greater feeling and persuasive power, and then, to drop a veil upon this tragedy of lost endeavour, that canary laid an egg. Now, if that man had only attended to the nature of things and seen whether it were a cock or hen bird, he would not have been subjected to this grievous disappointment. Similarly, it seems to me, we are, from the governmental point of view, like that sea captain-swimming about in the West African affair with a lot of subtle details, in an atmosphere of good intentions, but not in touch with important facts; we are acting logically from faulty premises.
Now, let us grant that the Crown Colony system is not fully developed in West Africa, for if it were, you may say, it would work all right; though this I consider a most dangerous idea. Let us see what it would be if it were fully developed.
Mr. St. Loe Strachey[1] thus defines Crown Colonies:—"These are possessions which are for the most part peopled by non-European races of dark colour, and governed not by persons elected by themselves, but by a governor and
- ↑ Industrial and Social Life of the Empire. Macmillan and Co.
