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taxes beyond a trifling levy on exports, perhaps 1 or 2 per cent. in amount, which the most powerful native for the time being put into his pocket.

Naturally, liquor was cheap, and the trade in it great and growing. Dutch and German gin, not bad in quality, was sold at 6d. a bottle; in one dozen cases, containing nearly two gallons, at about 5s. 6d. a case. I have known seventy-five cases of gin, about 140 gallons, sold for a puncheon of palm oil, containing 180 gallons-almost a gallon of gin for a gallon of oil. To-day, with a duty of 25s. a gallon, the gin paid for 180 gallons of oil would be about 10 gallons.

At that time everyone said trade could not be carried on without liquor; it can! One or two firms I know have managed to carry on without it for about forty years.

Another oft-repeated statement was that the damp and enervating climate rendered alcohol a necessity, and that Africans would not work without the stimulus of drink. The evidence of many missionaries and of others disproves the first statement, and the figures which follow disprove the second.

During the six years 1910-15, the average annual import of spirits by Nigeria was 4,021,000 gallons, while the average annual export of palm oil and palm kernels was 247,710 tons.

During the following six years, 1916-21, which include three years of the Great War, the average annual import of spirits was 352,600 gallons, and the average annual export of palm oil and palm kernels 266,157 tons-a fall of 91 per cent. in imports of spirits coinciding with a rise of 7 per cent. in exports of palm produce. Lean years in liquor meant fat years in production. No doubt other factors were operative, but the fact remains that the African will work, and work better without, than with, liquor.

Still one more argument, the most modern, and I think the most foolish, is that native fermented drinks are more deleterious than imported distilled liquor. How can a fermented light beer or wine containing 4 or 5 per cent. of alcohol be more deleterious than distilled spirits with 40 or 50 per cent. ? The Committee of Inquiry into the liquor trade in Southern Nigeria which visited that Colony in 1909 sent home fourteen samples of native-made palm wine and 120 samples of imported rum and gin; these were analysed by the late Sir Edward Thorpe, F.R.S., and his staff at the Government laboratories in London. The average strength of the samples of palm wine was 4.69 per cent. of absolute alcohol; of the rum and gin, 44.86 per cent.

Some years earlier Sir William McGregor, when Governor of Lagos, had some analyses made of palm wine, with the following

results :

From the raphia vinifera palm, which is the principal source of supply, the percentage of absolute alcohol was 1.67 per cent. ; after seven days, when fermentation had probably ceased, 2.79 per cent. From the elais guineensis (the oil palm), after seven days, 2.57 per cent.

Yet another argument is that if we do not give the African gin he will cut down his oil palms that he may drain the sap from them and so obtain a plentiful supply of palm wine; he may do so, but it is unlikely, as the oil palm is only useful, in the commercial sense, when alive: again, land tenure is communal, and the people would never allow individual members of the community to destroy the most important of their economic plants. The raphia vinifera, the fibre and wine-making palm, as the name implies, is only useful when dead; from it we obtain piassava, used in the making of coarse brushes and in producing a fine charcoal, one of the constituents of gunpowder. It is used in making the lattice work of the roofs and sides of African huts, and the leaflets in making roofing mats and is a most useful tree when cut down.

Mr. Boyle, when Lieutenant-Governor of Nigeria five or six years ago, made inquiry on this point, and in an address to the Legislative Council spoke as follows:

With regard to the question of spirits, I have been enquiring from all parts of the Southern Provinces if there has been any increase in the number of palm trees felled with the object of preparing palm wine from them, and I cannot find that there has been any increase. I think that is one more argument in favour of decreasing as far as possible the importation of spirits, and increasing the imports of British cotton and other goods. It used to be argued that if we decrease the importation of spirits, the palm trees will be severely tapped for palm wine, and the export of palm produce will suffer. As a fact, so far as we can now see, the decrease of spirits has not had that effect.

Now, as to the extent of the trade, Lagos and Southern Nigeria jointly during the five years 1900 to 1904 imported 13,783,150 gallons. If we take the cost landed price including duty as 8s. a gallon, we have over 5,000,000l. spent in liquor by Nigeria during the five years mentioned. In this connection it is worth while quoting the words spoken by Governor-General Sir Frederick Lugard to the Nigerian Council in 1916:

It would be to the benefit of Nigeria if these foreign imports of spirits were replaced by articles of more value to the people of this country, articles more calculated to raise their standard of life and comfort, and to increase the output of the industries from which they derive their wealthagricultural instruments, and tools, textiles, articles of household use, motor cars, bicycles, salt and such like necessaries.

If we take our four British West African Colonies during the seven years 1907 to 1913, the total imports of liquor were

42,833,716 gallons. The duties during these years were higher than during the period before mentioned, but if we take the cost landed price including duty as Ios. a gallon, we have in seven years an expenditure by our 'undeveloped estates' in West Africa of a long way over 21,000,000l. in liquor. During the following seven years, 1914 to 1920, the quantity imported by the four Colonies was 16,128,947 gallons, a great reduction, due partly to the war and partly to higher taxation. Note the effect upon production: exports of cocoa from the Gold Coast and Nigeria alone were, during 1907 to 1913, 212,754 tons; during 1914 to 1920, 752,110 tons. Twenty-six million gallons less liquor and 540,000 tons more cocoa! Could any figures be more impressive ? I do not suggest that the increased production was entirely due to the smaller imports of liquor; better seasons, higher prices, greater demand, may all have helped to swell the total, but some improvement was no doubt due to increased sobriety: 13,000,000l. saved on the drink bill, and 13,000,000l. gained by increased exports.

Now, as to the efforts to reduce the consumption of alcohol, an account of the agitation for reform and of the present-day position may not prove uninteresting.

In early days of West African history missionaries and temperance people conducted a sporadic sort of campaign against the trade and the evils which, judging from experience at home, would follow from it; but there was no concerted opposition until 1887 or 1888, when the 'Native Races and Liquor Traffic United Committee,' as it is called, came into being. The executive committee of this body has forty-four members, composed of representatives of thirteen foreign missionary societies, and of eleven temperance societies, with seven personal members.

In addition there are about forty vice-presidents, amongst whom are a dozen bishops, some leading men connected with all the Free Churches, and representative men notable in medicine, administration, and commerce-altogether a remarkable body united in opposition to what they consider a dangerous and unprofitable trade.

One reason for forming the Committee was the rapid development of the African continent, the making of roads and railways, and the clearing of waterways which followed upon the scramble for Africa in 1885; these developments rendered districts accessible which were formerly untouched by European distilled liquor.

The Committee, I understand, works first and foremost for prohibition, and also, as a step thereto, for higher duties, and the fixing of zones of prohibition on the lines adopted by the Royal Niger Company in the countries, Mohammedan and pagan, lying beyond 6.30° north latitude. It also endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to get the British Government to agree that those prohibition areas should be gradually extended coastwards-what might be called reform from the interior.

The Native Races Committee has kept in touch with the Colonial Office, and since the time of Lord Knutsford many Secretaries of State have expressed sympathy with it and its objects, and have sanctioned gradual increases in duty. In 1890 the duty in Lagos was 6d. per gallon; in 1891 8d.; in 1893 Is., then 2s.; and in 1918 it was raised to Ios., and a year later to 25s.

Early in 1919 the late Lord Long, then Mr. Walter Long, Secretary of State for the Colonies, speaking of this branch of trade, said:

Some time ago I made up my mind that it would be my duty to advise the representatives of the British Government at the Peace Conference to propose, on our own initiative, the abolition of the liquor traffic in West Africa. We ought to put an end to this traffic, for it has certainly been conducive to great evil and to great misfortune.

This recommendation was carried out, and the Peace Conference in the Covenant of the League of Nations, Article 22, referring to the responsibility of each Mandatory for the territory to be administered, declared it to be subject, amongst other things, to the prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, the arms traffic, and the liquor traffic.' Bracketing the liquor traffic with the slave trade seems scarcely fair-but there it is.

The Covenant was presented to Parliament in June 1919, and on September 10 in that year a Convention was signed at St. Germain-en-Laye; under Article I the High Contracting Parties undertook

to apply certain measures for the restriction of the liquor traffic in the territories which are or may be subject to their control throughout the whole of the continent of Africa, with the exception of Algiers, Tunis, Morocco, Liberia, Egypt, and the Union of South Africa. The provisions applicable to the continent of Africa shall also apply to islands lying within 100 nautical miles of the coast; this article applies to all Colonies and Protectorates other than those mandated by the Supreme Council.

Article 2, however, reduces the value of Article 1, insomuch as the phrase 'liquor traffic' in it becomes 'trade spirits of every kind and of beverages mixed with these spirits.'

It was contended by some interests that it was not the 'liquor traffic' which was prohibited, but the 'abuse of the liquor traffic.' Mr. Ormsby-Gore, now happily Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, settled this question when, in October 1921, he reminded the Commission sitting in Geneva that the text of the Covenant provided for absolute prohibition: there was no question of the

abuse of the traffic; the traffic itself was regarded as an abuse. He also said that a request for the reduction of the duty on spirits had been refused.

To define trade spirits was the next difficulty, and after four years the attempt was abandoned, and in July 1923 the Duke of Devonshire, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, issued a statement defining the future policy of the Colonial Office on the question.

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The new principle adopted is not to define the term 'trade spirits, but to fix upon certain spirits which will not be regarded as such; these are as follows: Whisky is not trade spirits if it is distilled from cereal grains; rum is not if it is distilled from sugar cane products; brandy is not if it is distilled from fermented grape juice-provided always that these three varieties of alcohol have been stored in wood for three years.

Gin is on a different footing, and no period for maturing is imposed in the case of gin from Holland, the United Kingdom, or elsewhere.'

Later the Secretary of State set up a Standing Committee to consider and advise upon

1. All applications for the placing of brands of gin on the schedule of approved brands which will be admitted into the British West African Colonies and Protectorates.

2. Any question which may arise as to the retention on the schedule of any brand which has been placed upon it.

The title of the Committee will be: The African Liquor Traffic Control Committee, and it is to be composed as under : 1. An Assistant Secretary of the Colonial Office as chairman. 2. Two persons well acquainted with the manufacture of gin. 3. A person well acquainted with the export trade in gin to West Africa.

4. A person well acquainted with the trade in gin in Great

Britain.

5. An analytical chemist.

6. A member of the staff of the Colonial Office as secretary. The wave of moral enthusiasm evoked by the war seems to have evaporated, and, except that the cost is higher to the purchaser, matters are much as they were. The poorer native is protected by his poverty; a man earning Is. or 2s. a day cannot afford a bottle of gin or whisky which costs him 6s. or 7s., so that is all to the good.

Members of the League of Nations' Sub-committee appointed to deal with mandates had no doubt as to the meaning of the phrase. Sir James Allen, for New Zealand, said their experience in the Cook Islands compelled them to have prohibition in Samoa; Sir Joseph Cook, for Australia, advocated prohibition ; Mr. J. R. VOL. XCVIII-No. 582

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