500 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY tration has been established in all the provinces. A territory which we found in chaos has been brought to order. The slave trade has been abolished within its frontiers. Its subject races have been secured in the possession of their lives and property. Its rulers have been converted with their own consent into officials of the British Crown, and are working sympathetically to promote an order of things that shall render a return to old abuse impossible. There has been no great shock and no convulsion, only into the veins of a decadent civilisation new blood has been introduced, which has brought with it the promise of a new era of life.

Thus a territory has been opened, in which the genius for administration, and the adventurousness in trade, which have always characterised the British people, have once more the opportunity of working side by side to the accomplishment of great national results. It is a union which in times past brought the British Empire into existence. It gave us India, it gave us Canada, and though these are great names, there is a reasonable ground for hope that the chapter of Imperial history which has been opened in the interior of West Africa will not prove unworthy of the rest.