352 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY were already the object of French exploration, was naturally selected as one of the lines to which the French policy of penetration was to be applied. In this instance the policy took a commercial form. A French company was started upon the lower river, and the commercial attack was met quite simply by British commercial opposition. English traders had no friendly feelings towards foreign competition, and In mere self-defence were well inclined to oppose French intrusion, but in the earlier years of the movement there was a lack of leadership, and no very definite intention animated the action which was taken.

As the struggle for Africa waxed hotter, and all parties to it became more clearly aware of the objects at which they were aiming, the value of the Niger as a commercial highway, and of the territories included in the watershed of the Niger and the Benue, became more apparent. There was still no opposition to French activity in Western Africa, except that which was privately sustained by British trade, but the opposition took a more active form. The British companies trading on the river began to feel that It was becoming a matter of life and death to them to overcome the foreign competition, which threatened them with extinction, and under the pressure of their struggle for self-preservation they found a leader and evolved a policy which had for its result to revolutionise the entire position of Great Britain in West Africa. In 1879, under the inspiration of a young engineer officer, Mr. Taubman Goldle, whose tastes for travel had led him to acquire some personal knowledge of the interior of the Soudan, and whose Interests, owing to family circumstances, had become involved in West African enterprise, the British companies trading upon the Niger were induced to amalgamate, and took the name of the National African Company. The effect of amalgamation was to abolish personal rivalries between them, and to enable them to present a united front to the advances of French enterprise upon the river. In the sharp round of com-