JOHN BULL IN EAST AFRICA times. I saw blossoms and green and ripe berries on the same tree. In one place the natives were picking, at an¬ other they were hoeing the plants, while in a third place they were pulping the berries in a pulper turned by hand. The trees seem thrifty. Father Burke says that the young plants grow easily, and that where the birds carry the berries away and drop the seeds the plants will sprout up of themselves. There is a plantation near by of thirty thousand trees, and I am told that there is a fair prospect of a considerable coffee industry spring¬ ing up.

I saw many Negroes at work in the fields. They were Kikuyus, and were really fine-looking fellows. They were clearing up new ground, chopping down the weeds with mattocks, and digging up the soil and turning it over. The sweat stood in beads upon their brows and backs and ran down their bare legs. I asked the priest what wages they got, and was told that they each received the equivalent of about five cents for a day of ten hours. I suggested to the reverend father that the pay was small, but he said that the natives could not earn more than that sum and even at those wages it was difficult to keep them at work.

I hear this same statement made everywhere. The English people here think that the native Africans are well enough paid at the rate of a half cent per hour or of a rupee per month. If you protest they will say that that sum is sufficient to supply all the wants of a black man and ask why he should be paid more. Think of it, ye American toilers who belong to our labour unions. Think of five cents a day for carrying bricks or stone, for chopping up ground under the eyes of a taskmaster, or for trotting 267