man before his fortune is made spends a fortune, he ends badly; if he measures his expenditure with his income and develops his opportunities, he ends as a millionaire; and we must never forget that great dictum that the State is the perfection of the individual man, and should mould our politics accordingly.
I hold it to be a sound and healthy idea of ours that our possessions over-sea should pay their own way, and I therefore distrust the cucumber-frame form of financial politics that at present holds the field in West African affairs. It has been the pride and boast of the West African colonies that they have paid their way; let it remain so. It seems to me unsound that our colonies there should receive loans wherewith to carry on; for, for one thing, it makes them carry on more than is good for them, and merely means a piling up of debt; and, for another, it gives West Africa the notion that it is England's business to support her, which to my mind it distinctly is not; for if we wanted a lapdog set of colonies we could get healthier ones elsewhere. Moreover, it pauperises instead of fostering the proper pride, without which nothing can flourish.
Apart from our Indian system, we have, for governing those regions where our race cannot locally produce a sufficient population of its own to take the reins of government out of the hands of officialdom in England, only two other systems, namely, the Chartered Company and the Crown Colony. I beg to urge that it is high time we had a third system. Concerning the Crown Colony system for Africa, I have spoken as tolerantly as I believe it is possible for any one acquainted with its working in West Africa to speak. If I were to say any more I might say something
