We can then
draw from the neighbouring countries, from Yoruba to the north-east, and
perhaps, but this is doubtful, from the Baasas [Footnote: A manly and
powerful race, who call themselves Americans and will have nothing to do
with the English.] and the Drewins to the west. But we must come, sooner
or later, and the sooner the better, to a regular coolie-immigration, East
African, Indian, and Chinese.
The benefit of such an influx must not be measured merely by the
additional work of a few thousand hands. It will at once create jealousy,
competition, rivalry. It will teach by example--the only way of teaching
Africans--that work is not ignoble, but that it is ignoble to earn a
shilling and to live idle on three-pence a day till the pence are
exhausted. Its advantages will presently be felt along the whole western
coast, and men will wonder why it was not thought of before. The French,
as they are wont to do in these days, have set us an example. Already in
early 1882 the papers announced that a first cargo of 178
Chinese--probably from Cochin-China--had been landed at Saint-Louis de
Senegal for the proposed Senegambian railway.
The details of such an immigration and the measures which it will require
do not belong to this place.
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