346 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY Government with regard to the West Coast were fullyexpressed in the finding of a strong representative Committee of the House of Commons which sat for several months in the early part of 1865, and, after a careful examination of witnesses and consideration of reports specially prepared and submitted to it by commissioners charged with the investigation of the affairs of the West African colonies on the spot, reported to the House certain resolutions at which it had arrived.

In reporting these resolutions, the Committee stated first that the chief object of all undertakings on the coast, since the passing of the Act for the abolition of the slave trade, had been the suppression of the trade ; secondly, that ** if the promotion first, and afterwards the suppression, of the slave trade had not been the object of British West African establishments, commercial enterprise would never have selected the Gold Coast for its locality, nor would the British probably have undertaken any settlement whatever in West Africa ; still less would the Crown have implicated itself in government there or in treaties of protection." The Committee found that the slave trade, ''the suppression of which is now the chief object of the British establishments in West Africa, was rapidly diminishing, that the only demand remaining in 1865 was from Cuba, while there was a good hope of its speedy and total extinction. They also found, as regards the encouragement and protection of other trade, that "in the sole interests of trade the evidence of merchants is that it is better that their agents should feel the necessity of keeping on good terms with native powers than that they should be backed by English governments, or even by consuls, more than is necessary for a reference of disputes to constituted authorities."

For these and for other reasons which are fully set forward in the report, the Committee submitted as a resolution to the House: **That all further extension of territory or assumption of government, or new treaties