The Royal Niger Company.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXII, Issue 6791, 16 January 1897, Page 4

The Royal Niger Company.

The Royal Niger Company may fairly be described as the offspring of the "National African Company," which in the course of 1884 and 1885 bought out or amalgamated the French companies then trading on the Niger, and concluded treaties conferring territorial rights with about 300 native chiefs and states. It was consequent upon this vigorous activity that the British Government, on June 5, 1885, declared the whole of the coast lying between Lagos and Rio del Rey a British Protectorate. A boundary, separating this newly created " British sphere" from the German Protectorate of Cameroons, has been 'settled by conventions made in 1886 and 1893. This boundary intersects Adamawa, a dependency of Sokoto, in the very centre, but assigns the capital, Tola, to England. This boundary terminates at a point on the south shore of Like Chad, thirty-five minutes east of Kuka, the capital of Bornu, which is within the British sphere. Another line agreed upon in 1890, and drawn from Say on the Niger to Barua on Lake Chad, separates the French and British " spheres." The frontier between these "spheres" on the west of the middle Niger is not yet determined ; but under treaties with the Mohammedan Sultan of Gandu, and the Pagan King of Borgu, the company claims a large extension westward. The "Protectorate" within the limits indicated covers an area of 500,000 square miles, and fs estimated to contain from 20 to 30 millions of inhabitants.

A part of the maritime districts of these territories was formed into tho "Oil Rivers Protectorate," now the Niger Coast Protectorate, but the whole of the remainder was granted to the Royal Niger Company, chartered on July 10th, 1886. The very considerable political and administrative powers granted to the Company are exercised under the control of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Treaties with Sokoto, Gandu, and Borgu confer upon the Company the fullest jurisdiction over all non-native residents and visitors. Among the small tribes outside these empires, on the Lower Niger, and south of the Benue, the Company's power is scarcely limited at all. The authority is exercised there for the suppression of all slave-raiding, and the chiefs are required to» submit their disputes to arbitration, instead of resorting to intertribal war. The Company maintains 42 stations, of which the more important are : Akassa, at the Nun mouth of the Niger, with workshops for the repair of steamers ; Asaba, 150 miles up the river, the administrative headquarters, where are the supreme court, the central prison, a hospital, and a botanical garden; and Lokoja, at the confluence of the Benue, with the headquarters of the military force. This force numbers about 1000 men, chiefly Hausas, and is officered by Europeans. In addition to it each administrative district has its agent or magistrate, supported by a small police force. Thirty steamers navigate the Niger and its tributaries, and afford the principal means for the maintenance of order and security. The principal exports are rubber, ivory, palm oil, gums, hides, etc. The principal imports are cotton goods, earthenware, hardware, powder, salt, silks, spirits, and woollen goods. The Company have prohibited the importation of rifles and cartridges into any part of their territory. Spirits are charged a heavy import duty, and cannot be imported at all into the districts lying to the north of la l- . 7deg. Their consumption, as a consequence, is not now one-fourth of what it was before the srant of the charter. The revenue is chiefly raised by export duties, import duties being charged only upon guns, powder, salt, spirits and tobacco.

(Christchurch Press ) With regard to the Niger expedition referred to In oar cable messages, some recent remarks by Captain Bower, a British resident in the Ligos " hinterland," or back country, are of value at the present momeDt, as indicating more clearly than the cables what the objects of the expedition are believed to be. We say " believed " because, according to the latest accounts from England, the Royal Niger Company, which has organised the expedition, has preserved a considerable amount of secrecy about it, fearing, no doubt, that French jealousy might possibly be the means of either interfering with its success or checking it altogether. It had been stated that the Niger Company were proceeding against the powerful Sultan of Sokoto, who is a great slave dealer, and gives the Company much trouble in one way and another, although they pay him an annual subsidy of several thousand pounds. The Ilorins, too, are rather a thorn in the side of the British at Lagos. They are continually organising slave raids, and preventing trade passing from the coast to the country behind them. A large force has to be kept up to prevent Ilorin incursions into the Lvros sphere. But, speaking some six weeks ago. Captain Bower remarked That he thought b would be found that the projected Niger expedition was against Bida, better known as Nupe, a large kingdom which is only separated from Ilorin by the small Yagba and Ikita countries. "The attitude of these Nupe people," said Captain Bower, *' is and has been, of a distinctly menac'ng character, and they are continually sending out raiding parties. They have even got a war camp close to the borders of the Lagos sphere. Before I left Ogbomoso I received every week massages from the Yagbas, asking me to protect them against the Nupes, who were raiding, taking prisoners and burning villages in all directions ; but I could, of course, only refer them fco the white men on the Niger. The Nupes are a very wild and savage people ; and they have not a semblance of civilisation." An expedition against the Nupes would have, he believed, a considerable effect on the Ilorins, with whom they have some kind of understanding. It had been discovered that the Ilorins were constantly asking for Nupe assistance against the British, and that the Nupe people from time to time preferred the same request to the Ilorins. Therefore an expedition against Nupe would not only clear that part of the ! Niger country from these dangerous tribes, bub would probably render the Ilorins more amenable to reason.