Both governments started with delegating their authority to chartered companies. On the part of the Germans, however, the imprudence of their agents imperilled their possessions, and the imperial government set itself the task of reducing malcontentism to order, and settling the difficulties in its own masterful manner, and is engaged in providing against their recurrence before surrendering the territory again to the influences of the company. The British East African Company, on the other hand, has been comparatively free to commence its commercial operations, undisturbed by armed opposition of aborigines or of Arab and Swahili residents. The welcome given to it has been almost universally cordial. The susceptibilities of the Arabs were not wounded, and the aborigines gratefully recognized that the new-comers were not hostile to them. Concessions were obtained at a fair price, and on payment of the stipulated value the company entered into possession, and became, with the consent of all concerned, masters of the British East African territory--a territory far more ample than what the founders of the company had hoped for at first. Had the British East African Company confined its transactions and operations to the coast, it is well known that the returns would have been most lucrative, for over and above the expenditure we see by their reports that there would have been a yearly net gain of over £6000 available for dividend, which by this time would have been trebled. But the Berlin Conference of 1884-5 expressly stipulated (Article VI.) that all powers exercising sovereign rights or having influence in the said territories (shall) undertake to watch over the preservation of the native races and the amelioration of the moral and material conditions of their existence, and to co-operate in the suppression of slavery, and, above all, of the slave trade; (that) they will protect and encourage all institutions and enterprises, religions, etc., re-established or organized, which tend to educate the natives; and in Article XXXV. it is stipulated that the power which in future takes possession of a territory, or assumes a protectorate, recognizes the obligation to insure in the territories occupied by it on the coasts of the African continent the existence of an adequate authority to enforce respect for acquired rights. Therefore the back-land of British East Africa could not remain the theatre of slave raids, or unclaimed.