CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Colonial Office List for 1889. By John Anderson and Sidney Webb. (Harrison and Sons.)—This universal dictionary of the Colonies well maintains its character for variety of useful and interesting information brought up to date. We find here de- tailed statistics of Colonial trade, finance, population, tariffs, railways, systems of government and of education, &c. ; and we are 'also enabled to gather that the vast body of the British Empire has not stood still in recent times, but that it ever con- tinues to grow steadily, nolens volens. We are told that "Christmas, Fanning, and Penrhyn Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, were formally annexed in 1888, as lying in the path of a possible telegraph cable connecting Canada and Australasia. Another Christmas Island, two hundred miles south of the western end of Java, entirely un- inhabited, was annexed in July, 1888, in view of a project for a duplicate cable to Australia. In November, 1888, a Protectorate was established over the Hervey or Cook Islands, the inhabitants of which had frequently asked for British protection." But these are mere unconsidered trifles compared with the other protec- torates and spheres of influence entered upon last year. In North Borneo agreements were made with the Rajah of Sarawak, the Sultan of Brunei, and the Directors of the British North
Borneo Company, under which the territories of those three Governments passed under British protection and control as regards all foreign relations, while their internal administration remained independent. Again, in the Malay Peninsula, " the Sultan of Pahang (a large State on the East Coast) in 1888 requested and obtained the appointment of a British Resident," on the same footing as the Residents who have for over twelve years guided the destinies of the neighbouring States of Perak, Selangor, and Sungei 17jong. Finally, last September the Imperial British East African Company was granted a Charter of Incorporation "for the entire management of those parts of the Zanzibar dominions which are recognised in the Anglo-German Treaty of 1886 as reserved for the exclusive exercise of British in- fluence." The territory to be controlled by this Company comprises "a strip of coast one hundred and fifty miles in length, including the important harbour of Mombassa, probably the finest harbour on the East Coast of Africa, and stretching inward " ten miles ; but the Company have full powers for ultimately acquiring territory "as far as the zone of British influence extends, three hundred and sixty miles from the coast to the shores of the Victoria Nyanza." We are reminded that "the general character of the East African Coast is deadly, but," it is satisfactory to learn, that "beyond the central half of the British line, from a little south of Mombassa to Malendi, this [character P] is reported to be almost entirely absent." This is not a bad record for one year's expansion.
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