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injustice upon the latter. But grants of lands to European individuals or syndicates made by the Government, as in British East Africa, or by native chiefs incapable of fully apprehending the result of their actions, as was beginning at one time to threaten the Gold Coast, involving surface rights over large areas of land for prolonged periods, are calculated to prevent or to restrict the growth of native industries, to disorganise and break up the native system of land tenure and co-operative labour. They are thus morally indefensible, politically unwise, economically unsound. The latter policy is sometimes defended at home on the ground of expediency and of justice to the British taxpayer. Neither plea survives investigation. The British dependencies in West Africa, where this vicious policy does not happily obtain, do not cost the British taxpayer a farthing. They would cost him a good many if a policy were adopted within them which would result in the destruction of the native industries, and in fierce conflicts from one end of the country to the other. As for the argument of expediency, what does it mean? At its best, it means that the economic devlopment of the areas of the Empire should be hastened. At its worst it means that, regardless of the major interest of the State and of the interests and rights of the native population, special privileges and monopolies over the soil, its products and the labour of the community, should be conferred upon private, sectional interests in England. A Government which yields to that argument is betraying its trust, primarily towards the African peoples under its protection, secondly towards its European subjects. I have already examined the argument of accelerated development on its moral side. I would add this on its material side. The assertion is occasionally made that, under the system of economic exploitation by the natives on their own account, specific natural products do not give the full yield that they might under the system of European exploitation with hired native labour. It is a pure assumption of more than doubtful accuracy. I have never known a case where the allegation that natural produce was going to waste owing to native "lethargy," substantiated by evidence proving that the fact of such wastage, if fact it were, was not due to local circumstances such as an inadequate local labour supply, social requirements,