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 This is pretty much the same as saying that the English are deficient in statesmanship, and this is what I mean, and I am convinced that no other nation but our own could have prospered with so much of this imperfection; but remember it is an imperfection, and is not a thing to be proud of any more than a stammer. External conditions have enabled England so far barely to feel her drawback, but now external conditions are in a different phase, and she must choose between acquiring statesmanship competent to cope with this phase, or drift on in her present way until the force of her necessities projects her into an European war. A perfectly unnecessary conclusion to the pressure of commercial competition she is beginning to feel, but none the less inevitable with her present lack of statecraft.

The second part of the reason of England's trouble in West Africa is that other fallacious half reason which our statesmen have for years been using to soothe the minds of those who urged on her in good time the necessity for acquiring the hinterlands of West Africa, namely, "After all, England holds the key of them in holding the outlets of the rivers." And while our statesmen have been saying this, France has been industriously changing the lock on the door by diverting trade routes from the hinterland she has so gallantly acquired, down into those seaboard districts which she possesses.

"Well, well, well," you will say, "we have woke up at last, we can be trusted now." I own I do not see why you should expect to be suddenly trusted by the men with whose interests you have played so long. I remember hearing about a missionary gentleman who was told a long story by the father of a bad son, who for years went gallivanting about West Africa, bringing the family into