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DISTRICT AND SUB-COMMISSIONERS

405

their districts. These district commissioners should be paid £2,000 a year each, and have a term of residence on the Coast of twelve months, with six months' furlough at home on half pay, the other half of the pay going to the men who represent them during their absence at home—the senior sub-commissioners of their districts.^[1]

The next grade are the sub-commissioners. These are only required in the districts now termed Protectorates; the Europeanised coast towns to be under a different system I will sketch later. Well, these Protectorate districts should be divided up among sub-commissioners, who should each reside in his allotted district. They should be responsible directly to the district commissioner, and they should represent to him constantly the chiefs' council of the sub-district and the trade, and on the other hand represent trade and the Ober Hoheit things to the native chiefs. These men, therefore, will be the backbone of the system, and primarily on them will depend its success; so they must be expert men—well acquainted with the native culture state, and with the trade. Each of these sub-commissioners should have

↑ The time which a man ought to be expected to remain in West Africa is difficult to determine—representatives of trading firms are expected to remain out two years, and the mortality among them is certainly no higher than among the officials with their twelve months' service. It is contended by the commercial party that it takes a man several months after returning from furlough to get into working order again, that under the twelve months' system no sooner has he done this than he is off on furlough again, in short that the system is foolish and wasteful in the extreme. On the other hand the advocates of the short service plan contend that a man is not fit for work at all after twelve months in West Africa, and that if he is not definitely ill, he has at any rate lost all energy. Personally, I fancy it depends on the individual, and that with a definite policy the short service plan will be quite safe.

[1] The time which a man ought to be expected to remain in West Africa is difficult to determine—representatives of trading firms are expected to remain out two years, and the mortality among them is certainly no higher than among the officials with their twelve months' service. It is contended by the commercial party that it takes a man several months after returning from furlough to get into working order again, that under the twelve months' system no sooner has he done this than he is off on furlough again, in short that the system is foolish and wasteful in the extreme. On the other hand the advocates of the short service plan contend that a man is not fit for work at all after twelve months in West Africa, and that if he is not definitely ill, he has at any rate lost all energy. Personally, I fancy it depends on the individual, and that with a definite policy the short service plan will be quite safe.

[1]