Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED 1878] MONDAY, JUNE 27, 1892. BRITISH EAST AFRICA.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4149, 27 June 1892, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times [ESTABLISHED 1878] MONDAY, JUNE 27, 1892. BRITISH EAST AFRICA.

Being the extended title of the Wairarapa Daily, with which it is identical.

Thkee hundred years ago, Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to a company desirous of trading with the East Indies, One hundred and fifty years ago, or thereabouts, the Honourable East India Company began to be a great power; alike the nature and the success of its enterprise at-, traded many adventurous spirits; and, from that time forth, the pagodatree was shaken to some purpose by British haads, The Company is defunct; but it is a noble record, on the whole, that it baa left behind. The servants of that Company have given to modem history some of i's greatest names; and now that the British Government, pure and simple, rules in India, it may perhapj show an administration betterin somerespects, but it cannot give us greater examples of courage and devotion to duty than old " John Company." It is ourious, by the way, how little general knowledge of India is possessed by the average Englishman, One would suppose that the land whioh has made an Empress of the Queen of England, the land whioh has been the cradle of almost countless English fortunes, would be so full of interest to the English people that its history, its administration, its natural conditions, would bo generally studied and understood, This is not the case,

It would be a mistake to imagine that these remarks are irrelevant to the subject announced at the head of this article.- Forhiatory isrepeating itself, as ever. The example set by Queen Elizabeth, in giving a trading ohnrter to an East Indian Company, was followed quite lately by Queen Viotoria, who granted a like charter to a Company desirous of trading in Eastern Africa, It 'is well to understand how great is the undertaking whioh has been thus inaugurated; great in its commercial enterprise, and not less great in the effect which it may exercise upon Imperial politics in the future. But we shall be justified in assuming that the ill-informed indifference which is notorious in the case of Indja js more th.an equalled by the hopeless ignorance of most Englishmen on the subject ol the vast Afrioan territory tvbich our fellow-countrymen are just now beginning to administer and open up to settlement. Perhaps, then, we shall not be suspected of any desire to show off, if we offer, from our own slender stock of knowledge on the subject, a few scraps of information about the territory now in the hands of the British East African Oompany. It is, of course, a very large tract of country, covering upwards of four degrees of Southern latitude. It is about 400,000 square miles in extent, and may be described as beiug at least three limes as large as the United Kingdom, Its fertility is enormous, The natives,' speaking generally, ere by no means actively hostile {indeed, important concessions have been made by some of their leading men in favour of the promoters of the Company. Full poweis have been conferred on the Company, whether to work mines, or to cultivate the soil, or to make railways, After a term of years, we believe, the Crown js to tako over the territory. In the meantime, tjje Crown has been asked to subsidize the construe" tion of a railway considered necessary for the development ot l the resources pf tfteßoujitry. '" ''■'■■- : ' ; ' ; It would seem that Mb pperations of the Company have been entered, upon with grept spirit, an( * *"' a ' r ready they lire being ; crowned with conspicuous success. British pmtigt, whioh was undoubtedly damaged in Southern Afrfoi at "the s -timb 6t our campaign against the Boers, is in a fair way to be rehabilitated; and a land which might have remained for generations a disgraceful Tom Tiddler's ground for-irresponsible white adventurers haß been brought in Borne measure-under thebeneflcent influence of law and order and corporate commercial enterprise. Civilisation has not proved, as we know, to be an unmixed blessing to native

I races; when* it Is pioked dp &om Moving bands of dominant foreigners who : have come to: 1 But, received at the, bands, of :a great corporation like .the' British East Afrioan Company which owes responaibilityto the Crown, civilisation may do much for the Africans. It will do something, if it teaoh them the value of their country, if it wean them from hopelesslaziness, if it lead them to form a lasting friendship with the English race. Many fine qualities are possessed by the English, even in these days, and- Burely itis no idle hope that the spread of bur colonization among native peoples may result in giving them some conception of oar traditional ideas of meroy, justice, honour, and cleanly living. The missionary is in the field; we rather think he was there before the trading company, At all events he is the inevitable concomitant of the British trader. Quite right too, no doubt; we are not much enamoured of the old wittiois'm about the contiguity of churoh and public-house in every new colonial settlement, The ohurch of the. Englishman is the best' possible set-off to his public-house. Nevertheless, not ior the first time, the missionary seems to have brea the cause of trouble. He is on the market, unfortunately, with so many different brands, each aiming at the extinction of the other. Boman Catholics' and Protestants—to say nothing of the innumerable, but less important subj divisions-having been struggling for supremacy in the- territory of the British East African Company; and the feuds whioh have been brought about indirectly by this odium tkokgicum are now produoing widespread and disastrous effects.

Many rooks ahead might have been anticipated for the Company, but this is one of the worst, It has not been possiblei so far, to get at the whole truth; each great faction of Christiana proclaims itself the victim of the other. We shall be very sorry, of course, to learn that our own missionaries were altogether in the wrong, but'aß it is, we Ire sorry enough to hear of these troubles, by whomsoever caused; The whole position of the Company seems to ,be | jeopardised. There is a talk of abandoning Uganda, one of the most productive districts, with one of the healthiest olimates in the territory. Time will give us fuller information. At present we can only express the earnest hope that neither religious feuds between the ■" Christianised" natives, nor any other trouble inoident to the administration of a savage country, will be able to embarrass the operations of the Company for long, or retard the development of this splendid attempt to provide an outlet for that British energy whioh feels itself day by day more cramped in the mother country.