In their present condition our African colonies are colonies only because they are administered by the Colonial Office. Most of these stations--for such they should be termed--were established, for slaving purposes, by the Portuguese, and were conquered by the Dutch. Thence they passed into the hands of England, who vigorously worked the black _traite_ for the benefit of her West Indian possessions. The 'colonies' in question, however, saw their occupation gone with negro emancipation, and they became mere trading-ports and posts for collecting ground-nuts, palm-oil, and gold-dust. Philanthropy and freedom expected from them great things; but instead of progressing they have gradually and surely declined. The public calls them 'pest-houses,' and the Government pronounces them a 'bore.' Travellers propose to make them over to Liberia or to any Power that will accept such white elephants. Remains now the task of placing upon the path of progress these wretched West African 'colonies,' and of making them a credit and a profit to England, instead of a burden and an opprobrium. Immigration, I find, is _le mot de l'enigme_. Between 1860 and 1865 I studied the labour-question in West Africa, and my short visit in 1882 has convinced me that it is becoming a vital matter for our four unfortunate establishments, Bathurst, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Lagos. A score of years ago many agreed with me that there was only one solution for our difficulties, a system of extensive coolie-importation. But in those days of excited passions and divided interests, when the export slave-trade and the _emigration libre_ were still rampant on either coast, it was by no means easy to secure a fair hearing from the public. Not a small nor an uninfluential section, the philanthropic and the missionary, raised and maintained the cuckoo-cry, 'Africa for the Africans!'--worthy of its successor, 'Ireland for the Irish!' Others believed in imported labour, which has raised so many regions to the height of prosperity; but they did not see how to import it. And the general _vis inertiae_, peculiar to hepatic tropical settlements, together with the unwillingness, or rather the inability, to undertake anything not absolutely necessary, made many of the colonists look upon the proposal rather as a weariness to the flesh than a benefit. A chosen few steadily looked forward to it; but they contented themselves with a theoretical prospect, and, perhaps wisely, did not attempt action. The condition of the Coast, however, has radically changed during the last two decades. The export slave-trade has died the death, never to 'resurrect.' The immense benefits of immigration are known to all men, theoretically and practically. India and China have thrown open their labour-markets. And, finally, the difficulty of finding hands, for agriculture especially, in Western Africa has now come to a crisis.