in effect, is at once the Imperial interest and the justification of Imperial rule. The British, having replaced the Fulani, are in native law and custom the conquering tribe. The urgency of devoting as much time as it was possible to spare from the pressing problems of the hour demanding daily solution, to an investigation of the exact conditions prevailing in each province was, therefore, imperative. In so extensive a territory, differing local circumstances affecting soil, population, occupation, distribution of power, and so on, had obviously created different methods or rather heads of taxation and variation in the formulæ of Government, assessment and levying of revenue, etc. One question above all others had to be elucidated, that of the ownership of land—basis of the whole social edifice. Sir Frederick Lugard initiated these inquiries. They were vigorously prosecuted by Sir Percy Girouard and the Residents, and when it became apparent beyond all possibility of doubt that the land, whether actually occupied or not, was national; that freehold property was foreign to all native ideas; and that, under native law and custom, the new rulers of the country were recognized as holders of the land in trust for the people and, thereby, the grantors of occupants’ rights, Sir Percy Girouard pressed for these cardinal principles being given force of law. Legislation which should embody them was, moreover, of additional moment for two reasons. First, because the opening up of the country was bound to give rise to the danger of alienation of occupancy rights creeping in and being incorporated into native custom, out of which would automatically evolve a customary sanction for the mortgaging of land, the creation of a class of landlords, a wide field for the European speculator in land, and a general break-up of the native system. Secondly, because the approach of the railways, the development of roads, the increasing demand for foodstuffs and the all-round intensifying economic pressure were bound, once more automatically, to originate, independently of the industry of the cultivator, an incremental value in the land. Before that state of affairs was brought home to the native and had, perhaps, been made under native law and custom, the subject of private property, which would have meant the creation of vested interests difficult to displace, it was the obvious duty of a Government trustee for the community to step in and secure these expanding values for the future benefit of that community. But things move slowly in West Africa, and legislation of the kind referred to was novel: unique, indeed. West Africa’s problems had never been thought out ahead before. Just as matters were ripening, Sir Percy Girouard was suddenly transferred to East Africa. But the Colonial Office was sympathetic, and there were men in Nigeria who, comprehending well the perils of leaving the land question unregulated, were determined to do their utmost to push the