St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1896-04-11

ENGLISH IN AFRICA.
TheaP Nethod Of Conquest L. Opsn -
Grave Objeetions.

TheaR lGethed Of Conquest Il Open -
Grave Objeetio.s.
Africa has been of late the field Of
our annexing operations. not because
territory Is valuable there, but because
it is difficult to find territories to annex
elsewhere. Equatorial Africa is unfit
for European residence. 1t consists
mainly Of swamps, jungles and i'm
penetrable forests. In these black men
have lived according to their own FASH
lon for centuries. and we ana other ma
tions have been satisfied with the oceu-
patton of q few seaports. where ad-
venturous merchants have risked their
health in endeavors to grow rich by
trading with the natives inland. This
was not enough for the new school.
and it was determined to extend the
area of empire. Therefore spectators
were encouraged to make treaties with
the chiefs of the various African tribes.
These treaties recognized our para
mount rule, and, as the chiefs did not
understand them, they were ready to
agree to them for bottle or two OF bad
spirits. Our next step was to make
over these treaty-acquired territoriea
to some trading company. Other ma
tions soon followed our example. They.
too. made treaties. and these resulted In
. plurality Of claims. These claims
were adjusted by portioning out Africa
among the great European powers into
"spheres of influence" One power
agreed with another power ON the ex-
tent of their respective spheres. and
other powers declined to recognize the
arrangement.
In western Africa we have included
In our sphere all the 'hinterland," a
vague term borrowed from the German
language. Our neighbors are the
French, who have also their sphere.
But the frontier between the two
spheres is vague. In eastern Africa we
converted Zanzibar into British pro-
tectorate. As we had pledged ourselves
to France not to do SO without her as
sent, we obtained it by making her .
present of Madagascar, which did not
belong to us. Then we proceeded to
divide the eastern hinterland between
ourselves and Germany, and. having
done so, we ceded our sphere" to a
company. Within our sphere was
Uganda, q land separated from the
coast by about 50 miles of desert. Ita
Inhabitants are mainly slaves, and its
sole produce is little ivory derived
from hunting elephants. The COM
pany sent an envoy with an accom-
paniment Of Maxim guns to make q
treaty with its king, and the poor
wretch had to acknowledge the com
pany as his paramount lord. His sub
jects objected, 30 the company killed
many of them. Finding, however. the
speculation valueless, the company re.
tired. On this we declared Uganda un.
der q British protectorate. paid the
company some 6 e, 600 for having left
il. and since then we have been paying
cash at the rate of about & 10000 pc,
annum in salaries to officials there
and in retaining in our service q gane
Of ruffianly Soudanese to overawe thu
inhabitants.
We are now about to build railroad
to connect this wondrous acquisition
with the sea coast, and favorable esti
mates were put forward to show tha1
il we run one train per week we shal
Ike able to perform this feat Mt cost o.
not more than 6 $4,000 per annum in
excess of all returns.
The most of the population in tbs
protectorate are slaves, and it is mo-
proposed to free them. Moreover, in
the proposed sultanate of Zanzibar
there are about 2OO, 900 slaves SO hardly
worked that their lives only averags
ten years, and yet this slave population
is on the increase. As for new markets
It is equally vaguely stated that thu
soil of Uganda might produce crops
and that if produced the crops might b<
exchanged for cotton goods. CONNER
cially, the whole scheme is about y
absurd as it would be for us to annex
the north of Greenland and to build Z
railroad across that continent in thu
hope of establishing q remunerativt
trade with the Esquimaux. = Londor
Truth.