The other British colony in which cocoa has a future is Southern Nigeria. To read the Government reports of ten years ago there seemed little hope that the natives of this colony would become cocoa farmers, or indeed that they would ever do much more than vegetate in the agricultural world. Africa is the land of surprises, and more and more the African is surprising Europe by exploding “the lazy nigger theory.” The Acting Secretary of Southern Nigeria, writing his 1903 report from Old Calabar, said:— “With every year that passes, it becomes increasingly important that new exports, indicating new areas of work and development, should make an appearance on the export lists of the Protectorate. That ‘Palm Oil’ and ‘Palm Kernels’ will ever cease to be the dominant products is more than unlikely; but these products demand nothing from the native in the way of labour that the veriest bushman cannot carry out. Portions of this Protectorate must be gradually turned over—and education may succeed, where persuasion fails—to the production of other commodities. It is not in the nature of the average West African to lay out capital for which there is no immediate return. He can understand the yam growing at his door; he can understand the cask of oil to be filled before his ‘boys’ can return with the required cloth, pipe, or frock-coat, but he will not sow for his son to reap; nor will a village work, of its own initiative, for the benefit of the next generation that is to occupy it. It is this difficulty that has rendered so great the task of encouraging the rubber industry. It is for this reason that cocoa and coffee have never been properly taken up by the natives themselves.” This is just what the Belgian and German Governments are proclaiming to-day. [Sidenote: DOUBLING THE OUTPUT] At this period cocoa was just beginning to grip the native mind in Southern Nigeria; he had begun to “sow for his son to reap”; he had begun to understand something more “than the yam growing at his door”; he had in fact just dispatched 300,000 lbs. of cocoa to Europe. The very next year the Acting Governor was able to write: “There has been an enormous development in cocoa,” and the Southern Nigeria natives, as if in unconscious protest against the Governor’s 1903 report, poured into the European markets over 1,000,000 lbs. of cocoa beans! Two years later, the export had risen to 1,500,000 lbs. Turning to the Government report three years later again, we find that the export had again doubled itself, and was then over 3,000,000 lbs. “These figures,” said the Colonial Secretary, “indicate the extraordinary expansion that has taken place of late years in the cultivation of this plant.” Finally, turning to the most recent report, we find that the export has again doubled itself in two years, _i.e._ over 6,000,000 lbs. The actual figures are as follows:—