When Lord Sanderson’s Commission took up the study of contract coolie labour, the areas appealing for labour included the Gold Coast colony, and the Government Secretary of the mines, Mr. Cogill, put in a plea that the colony should be allowed to recruit labour for its mines from India. In this plea he was supported by Sir John Rodger and the Acting-Governor, Major Bryan. This application is not easy to understand, for everyone knows, or should know, that Indian labour generally is unsuited to mining work. There is, however, some reason to believe that the inspiration of this plea came from sources requiring indentured labour from other parts of the world, and that the demand for Indian coolie labour was put forth in the hope of establishing necessity and thereby paving the way for a less acceptable demand. The bulk of labour in West Africa is employed under indenture or contract, the majority of the latter being for three years, but a great deal of unskilled labour is employed on a yearly, or in some colonies—particularly the Portuguese—a five years’ contract. The latter are paper contracts, and in practice may mean anything or nothing at all. Very few unskilled labourers in Africa are prepared to accept willingly a single contract of longer duration than one or at the most two years, and if a contract system exists whereby labourers are bound for longer periods at a single service, it may be generally assumed that some form of pressure or intrigue has been at work. Now that public attention is being focussed upon labour conditions, it becomes increasingly imperative that Governments should lay down the broad lines upon which they are prepared to allow contract labour. Nor must the labourer only be considered, the employer has the right to be heard in framing such conditions. In spite of much evidence to the contrary, I am still inclined to the belief that, as a class, the employers of labour everywhere in Africa detest as much as anyone labour conditions which are unfair. Even the Portuguese planters of San Thomé hate the slavery they practice, but by a long series of blunders they have been led into their present position. The greatest care requires to be exercised if contract labour is to be kept free from the taint of slavery. The Indian authorities, in spite of every precaution, frequently find that the most reprehensible practices attach to the recruitment of labour for the East and West Indies. In the African continent, where domestic slavery is so widely prevalent, the need for watchfulness is a hundredfold greater. [Sidenote: RECRUITING]