It is useless to close our eyes to the fact that an evil of fearful potentiality is being introduced and fostered all down the West Coast of Africa. I have not always found it possible to agree with the much-criticized Native Races and Liquor Traffic United Committee, but it must not be overlooked that some of their critics have made errors, in judgment at least, not one whit less extraordinary than those which have been brought against that Committee of highminded and unselfish men. The greatest mistake made by people in Europe upon this question is that of comparing it with the European consumption of alcohol. The African is not a drunkard in his primitive state and he detests our ardent spirits; once in an extremity I gave a young man a sip of brandy in water from my medicine case, and he literally howled over it and set his teeth firmly against my trying to give him another dose! [Sidenote: THE MERCHANT AND THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC] The error to which most people cling so tenaciously is that of the “scoundrelly merchant” theory. They cannot understand—because they do not know Africa—why a merchant should pour gin into West Africa, unless he is making a fortune out of it. As a plain matter of fact the merchant makes less out of the sale of alcohol than he would out of almost any other article of commerce. In a village store on the Gold Coast hinterland, I found rum costing 6_s._ 9_d._ a gallon being retailed at 7_s._ 3_d._—a profit of only 6_d._ per gallon. In another store I visited, the native merchant was retailing gin at 9_d._ a bottle, for which he was paying 8_s._ 1½_d._ per dozen, and 4_d._ a case for transport to his store. A West African merchant once remarked to me, “If you could stop the demand for intoxicating liquor it would pay me to give you twenty thousand pounds.” The merchant was quite right, because, whilst he could get fifteen and twenty per cent. on the sale of Manchester cotton goods, he was only making a few pence a case on the gin he was shipping to Lagos! The sale of alcohol does not pay the merchant, but we cannot escape from the fact that it is a good revenue producer.