Royal African Company

“ I have neither shares in, nor reason to attack the Royal Niger Company, which has in a few years, and during the period of the hottest French enterprise, acquired a territory in West Africa immensely greater than the territory acquired during centuries under the Crown Colony system; it has also fought its necessary wars with energy and despatch, and no call upon Imperial resources; it has not only paid its way, but paid its shareholders their 6 per cent., and its bitterest enemies say darkly, far more. ”

“ Here follows a list of the rest of those lawless merchants and their servants who carry on a private trade with the interlopers, to the great prejudice of the Royal African Company, who, with extraordinary industry and expense, have made and maintain settlements without any consideration from those who, without such settlements and forts, would soon be under an incapacity of pursuing any such private trade. ”

“ The Royal Niger Company has demonstrated its adaptation to its environment. Without any forced labour, without any direct taxation, it has paid. I venture to think, though I have no doubt it would severely hurt the feelings of the R.N.C., that we may regard the Royal Niger Company as representing the perfected system of native government in West Africa plus English courage and activity. ”

“ The Hudson’s Bay company, before their misfortunes in the late war, had been much more fortunate than the Royal African company. ”

“ In 1882 he began a connexion with West Africa which lasted the rest of his life, by accepting the chairmanship of the National African Company, formed by Sir George Taubman Goldie, which in 1886 received a charter under the title of the Royal Niger Company and in 1899 was taken over by the British government, its territories being constituted the protectorate of Nigeria. ”

“ The Royal Niger Company shows how great England can be when she is incarnate in a great man, for the Royal Niger Company is so far Sir George Taubman-Goldie. The other thing that stands out unstained by comatose indifference to the worth of West Africa to England is her Commerce as represented by her West Coast traders, who have held on to the Coast since the sixteenth century with a bulldog grip, facing death and danger, fair weather and foul. ”

“ II. c. xl. “which was made for the application of a sum of money therein mentioned, granted to his Majesty, for making compensation and satisfaction to the Royal African company of England, for their charter, lands, forts, castles, slaves, military stores, and all other their effects whatsoever; and to vest the lands, forts, castles, slaves, military stores, and [34] all other their effects, in the company of merchants trading to Africa;” ”

“ Other chartered companies have wielded autocratic power over millions of natives but the royal right to exist and operate, bestowed by Queen Victoria upon the British South Africa Company—the Chartered Company as it is commonly known—was the first that ever gave a corporation the administrative authority over a politically active country with a white population. ”

“ Khartoum’s sword, though a sword is an excellent thing. I trust, therefore, you have too much sense to give all honour to the Chartered Company, even when it is a trading company. Trade is an excellent thing, but, in the case of the Royal Niger, this very factor, trade, restricts the man who uses the Chartered Company to a set of white men and a set of black. Therefore, never can I feel that either Liverpool or the Brass men have profited by the R.N.C. as they would have done if there had been a better system available for dealing with what Mr. ”

“ I do not mean now to lay down a plan for the colonisation of Africa, or for opening an extensive commerce with that vast continent, but I would suggest the propriety of the method by which the East India Company govern their immense territories. I would wish to see an African Company formed on an extensive scale, with a large capital. I am convinced that such a company would be of more service to the commerce of this country than the present India trade, where the natives, without being in want of our manufactures, surpass us in ingenuity. ”

“ The manufactures of this country must will, in the nature and reason of things, have a full and constant employ; by supplying the African markets.
Population, the bowels and surface of Africa, abound in valuable and useful returns; the hidden treasures of centuries will be brought to light and into circulation. Industry, enterprise, and mining, will have their full scope, proportionably as they civilize. In a word, it lays open an endless field of commerce to the British manufacturers and merchant adventurer. The manufacturing interest and the general interests are synonimous. ”

“ A few years ago England was the chief exporter to the Congo of its cotton stuffs and other goods, but the same laggard spirit which caused Englishmen once interested in the Anglo-Belgian India-Rubber Company (known as the Abir) and other undertakings to abandon their Congolese enterprises has lost England a large and growing market in Central Africa. That the Belgians have developed the Mid-African trade by dint of hard work, organisation, and the risk of capital, is a state of things intolerable to those who have neglected and lost it. ”

“ The profits derived from the corporations thus associated with the British Crown in this patriotic and unselfish enterprise, will naturally be distributed among the stock and bondholders. In short, the proposal is that the natural wealth of British tropical Africa shall be directly exploited by the British Crown, in partnership with particular capitalists seeking substantial profits on capital invested. In other words, African labour is to be regarded and treated as a human force for the furtherance of British national and sectional interests. ”

“ They may use such men; they will never become their slaves. The country is more likely to be broken up into hostile sections. These may wear themselves out in wars against each other, and thus may be realized the hope that the British East African Company, from their new territory between Victoria Nyanza and the coast, would push its influence and its operations over Uganda, and the whole lake region of Central Africa. These Arab slave-traders are certainly not the men to construct or reconstruct an empire. ”

“ The German East African Company was incorporated by imperial charter in March 1887, and the British capitalists formed themselves into the British East Africa Association, and on the 24th of May 1887 obtained, through the good offices of Sir William Mackinnon, a concession of the 10-miles strip of coast from the Umba river in the south to Kipini in the north. ”

“ At the time of my visit there were twelve going mines in the Congo field, and three new ones were in various stages of advancement. The Forminiere engineers also operate the diamond concessions of the Kasai Company and the Bas Congo Katanga Railway which will run from the Katanga to Kinshassa.
More than twelve thousand natives are employed throughout the Congo area alone and nowhere have I seen a more contented lot of blacks. The Forminiere obtains this good-will by wisely keeping the price of trade goods such as salt and calico at the pre-war rate. It is an admirable investment. ”

“ Commerce will doubtless prove a powerful auxiliary; but to render it so, and to raise commerce to any permanent or beneficial extent, cultivation upon an extensive scale must precede commerce in Africa.
It is, therefore, within Africa, and by African hands and African exertions chiefly, that the slave trade can be destroyed. ”

“ It was then announced that the firm had assumed the management of the African Company. The two concerns were, and are, continued as distinct organizations, but they naturally work very closely together. The African Company soon began to break fresh ground, building not only superior vessels for the improving West African service, but also constructing large cargo vessels for the general Atlantic trade. These were soon engaged in the trade between the Mersey and the St Lawrence on the one hand, and between Liverpool and the southern ports of the United States on the other. ”

“ Scores of future chiefs are being instructed in schools spread over hundreds of miles. Commerce is developing by sure and steady steps. A vigorous company is showing to the tribes and nations that there are more valuable commodities in their country than their sons and daughters.”
In view of all these things, and perhaps spurred to activity by them, Portugal, following the fashion of England, organized a South African Company with the intention of consolidating her African possessions, by operating from the east coast, with a base at Delagoa Bay, Mozambique and the mouth of the Zambesi. ”

“ In West African waters in that century no international law prevailed but that of might. Hence the impulse of any new country to enter the Guinea trade led to the project of a chartered monopoly company; for without the resources of share capital sufficient strength could not be had, and without the monopoly privilege the necessary shares could not be sold. The first English company of moment, chartered in 1618, confined its trade to gold and other produce. Richard Jobson while in its service on the Gambia was offered some slaves by a native trader. ”

“ In Africa, where the soil, the climate, the productions are equal and the same, one-sixth part of the capital in labour would obtain labour equally efficient, nay more efficient, because removing Africans from their own country, either as slaves or freemen, even to other Tropical climates, must be attended with considerable risk and loss.
Produce, supplied cheaper from Africa than it can be obtained from the places above alluded to, would speedily and completely terminate, not only the foreign African slave trade, but the slave trade and slavery in Africa itself. ”

“ On the Ivory Coast, Dahomey, French Congo, and the other pieces of territory which connect the enormous African possessions of France with the sea, you will hardly find a British [Pg 10] factory left, though in one or two cases the skill and perseverance of an agent may just keep an old firm going. In the German Cameroons, British houses still do rather more than half the trade, but their existence is continually threatened. In Portuguese Angola one or two British factories cling to their old ground in hopes that times may change. ”

“ It must follow, as a necessity, that the trade and commerce of Africa shall fall into the hands of black men. At an early day whole fleets of vessels, manned and officered by black men from the United States and Liberia, would outrival all the other agencies which are now being used for grasping West African commerce. Large and important houses would spring into existence among you all through the States. Wealth would flow into your coffers, and affluence would soon exhibit itself amid all your associations. ”

“ From thence, if my endeavours tend to awaken a spirit of enterprise, to enlarge the trade of the united kingdom, and to increase the export of its manufactures, or lead to more intelligent interference in behalf of the enslaved African, my design will be accomplished.
To do justice to the natural history of Africa, and to introduce to the public its various sources of commerce, would require a union of political interests, and vigorous execution, which none but government can apply with full effect. ”

“ One of the reasons why the company's business was practically neglected during these last years was because many of its members began to trade to Africa as private individuals. A number of men even went so far as to project an organization entirely separate from the company. ”

“ To stop the export of men from that important portion of the earth, it is required that we should raise the value of man in Africa, and to do this, the African must be enabled to have machinery, to bring the artisan to his door, to build towns, to have schools, and to make roads. ”

“ As the inhuman traffic of slavery is now taken into the consideration of the British legislature, I doubt not, if a system of commerce was established in Africa, the demand for manufactures would most rapidly augment, as the British fashions, manners, customs, &c. In proportion to the civilization, so will be the consumption of British manufactures. ”

“ It will be equally immense in Africa—The same cause, viz. civilization, will ever have the same effect.
It is trading upon safe grounds. A commercial intercourse with Africa opens an inexhaustible source of wealth to the manufacturing interests of Great Britain, and to all which the slave trade is an objection. ”

“ The English merchants have become the true sovereigns of the popu- lations dwelling in this African Mesopotamia. Nevertheless they had for a time to contend with the rivalry of some French houses, which began to found factories in the Niger delta about the year 1880. But the various British companies soon merged in a single powerful association, disposing of twenty -five steamers and a capital large enough to huj up all the French houses, and, despite the diplomatic clauses declaring the Lower Niger open to all nations, the commercial monopoly was thus restored to Great Britain. ”

“ It is one of the few African countries that has natural easy communication with the coast, and when a light railway has been built, and shipping and agency have been properly organized, the cost of transport will be very small. There is also undoubtedly great scope for subsidiary and supplementary industries, such as cocoa and rubber.
I consider that in British Central Africa there is an excellent opening for British capital--an opening that appears to be as yet practically unknown at home. The fact is that Africa is supinely neglected where it cannot flaunt the magic war-cry, Gold. ”