498 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY trative expense of opening the northern country to British influence, and there is no reason to suppose that they were mistaken. The realisation of their ideal is now attainable. The burden of administrative expense has been assumed by the British taxpayer. The country has been opened, not only to one firm, but to all legitimate British trade, and it is for British trade to develop the wealth of the markets which at that time were beyond its reach.

The second obstacle to the development of trade is easier to remove than the first. It is the obvious difficulty of transport which arises from the very nature of an extended trade. The existing system of human carriage, if the most natural to a semi-civilised society, is absolutely opposed to any large commercial movement. Were it possible to obtain carriers for the transportation of goods in bulk, armies of men would be required, who would destroy, by the mere fact of their passage, the country over which any large produce trade was in operation. The time required for such transport would be prohibitive, and the cost, as calculated in Northern Nigeria under present circumstances, would be two shillings per ton per mile, as opposed to the fraction of a penny for which certain classes of goods would be carried by rail. Add to this that heavy machinery, such as may be required for mining, cotton pressing, &c., cannot be transported at all by human carriage, and it is evident that the present system of carrier transport is hopelessly condemned. Were there no other argument against it, the mere fact that every man who is employed as a carrier represents so much labour taken away from production is itself a sufficient reason for regarding the system as the most costly and unprofitable that can be employed. Human carriage is a concomitant of slavery. With the abolition of slavery it becomes impossible.

One of the first endeavours of the administration has been so to improve the main trade routes of the Protectorate as to render them fit for the more general