THE BRITISH souTa AFRICA COMPANY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:] Sin,—There are one or two thoughts in connection with the British South Africa Company's rule which I have not yet seen in print, and which appear to me to be worthy of con- sideration. Why should the Company be allowed a free hand in its choice of means of obtaining an income within its territories ? It was exactly that liberty which ruined the East India Company's rule in India. Why should the Com- pany have the right to divide all profits they can obtain ? We do not permit public gas companies to distribute beyond a certain point, and we curtail the liberties of railway companies in their charges on the public, altering these liberties from time to time. Why should the Company have the right to I impose taxation, apart from the will of the taxed? Its in- habited house duty (hut tax) seems to me a monstrous in- justice: The whites intruded themselves into Rhodesia, and without any moral reason proceeded to appropriate the country; we sanction their doing so in part. They also proceed to tax the native inhabitants to an extent equal to about their entire annual income ; and why ? For the avowed object of making them paupers, and so compelling them to do a work which they dislike, and at a rate of wages which is fixed by the Company only. Now this appears to be a chief cause of the present war. See, for instance, the tele. gram from General Carrington, published in to-day's papers :— " Inderna's people are reported by officer commanding to be unwilling to surrender at Gwelo, saying they have plenty of corn, and will not work in the mines." Further, this is a principle to which we as a nation have always been opposed. Why not put a stop to such direct taxation in Rhodesia at once and for ever, and let the Company, if necessary, import Hindoo or Cape nigger labour, and so be without the expense and disgrace of meeting the just hostility of the natives ? Let there be constituted a representative body composed (1) of the Chartered Company (that is, ultimately, the Crown), (2) the representatives of the adult male whites, (3) the native representatives of the natives, each to vote separately. And make no direct taxation legal without the consent of each of the three divisions of this body. Farther, the right to dis- tribute dividends might wisely be limitad to such sums only as are obtained from mine-owning and trading. Dividends might also be limited, and a right reserved for the Crown to redeem the shares at 20, at one year's notice. Some such settlement would seem to be for the mutual benefit of all
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