This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ...cure, and that the native labour should participate to some extent in a successful crop. A plan has been adopted by Messrs. Swift and Rutherford, of Punda-nulia, and by their neighbours, Sisal, Ltd., which has much to recommend it. The white employer breaks up and thoroughly cultivates a field. He then supplies natives with seed, which they plant, keep clean, and reap. The employer then buys back the crop at a price agreed. The advantage to the employer is that he is saved the supervision of gangs of labourers. The advantage to the native is that he participates in the fruits of his successful work. The disadvantage to both is that the temptation to steal the crop and sell it for its full value elsewhere is unduly great. Taking the labour question as a whole, I believe that, though undoubtedly the Protectorate has certainly both trials to go through and difficulties to overcome in the immediate future, there is no part of Africa in which the ultimate outlook is better or more assured. CHAPTER XVIII MINERALS Any notice of the Minerals in the Protectorate must necessarily be a short and inadequate one, because up to the present date it may roughly be said that, like snakes in Ireland, there are none. This is not to say that there are no minerals, which would be a bold statement to make in a country which is as yet so far from being thoroughly explored, and in which prospecting has been doneonlyin the most amateur and unsystematic fashion. It is true that the Government has in the past had a Department devoted entirely to the subject of mines and minerals; but the efforts of the office appeared, of course to the uninitiated, to be devoted mainly to devising penalties and spoliations for the benefit of anyone who might be unfortunate enough...