It devolved upon the occupants of the sea-frontage to exercise their sovereign rights, and in the due exercise of these to watch over the native races of the back-lands, and to co-operate for the suppression of slavery and the slave trade. It was incumbent upon them also to protect and encourage the Christian missions, without distinction of nationality or creed, which were established in Uganda--the most important because most populous and most promising of these back-lands. And to insure its acquired right to those countries it was necessary that the British company should be represented by adequate authority there, otherwise it would be in the power of any person, society, or power to bar its claim to them by actual occupation. Following the declarations of the powers at the Berlin Conference in 1885 is the act of assembled civilization at Brussels in 1890, emphasizing and reiterating the conditions upon which sovereignty shall be recognized. They point out in detail what ought, what indeed must be done. They say that the responsible power _ought_--which is almost equivalent to _must_ in this case--to organize administration, justice, and the religious and the military services, to establish strongly occupied stations, to make roads, particularly railroads, for the sake of easy access to the inland waters, to inaugurate steamer service on the lakes, erect telegraphic lines, and restrict the importation of fire-arms. The British East African Company as a commercial company is unable with its own means to meet these conditions. What it can it will, and its ability is limited to a sacrifice of all the dividends available from its commercial operations on the coast for the benefit of the whole territory, and subscribing a few more thousands of pounds to postpone retreat. Yet as the delegate of the British government the company is bound not to neglect the interior. It is pledged to insure the protection of British subjects in Uganda, to protect the Waganda from internecine and factional wars, to place steamers on Lake Victoria for the protection of the lake coasts, and to prevent the wholesale importation of fire-arms. But in the attempt to do what Europe expects to be done the company has been involved in an expense which has been disastrous to its interests. It has established adequate authority in Uganda, but the maintenance of the communication between Uganda and the coast is absolutely ruinous. It has to pay £300, or thereabouts, the ton for freight. Thus, to send 150,000 rounds of ammunition, which is equal to twelve tons, costs £3600. To send the cloth currency required for purchase of native provisions for the force costs £12,000. Add the cost of conveyance of miscellaneous baggage, European provisions and medicines, tools, utensils, tents, besides the first cost of these articles and the pay of the men, and we at once see that £40,000 per annum is but a small estimate of the expense thus entailed upon the company.