is fourfold that of the French, and British subjects in
Madagascar outnumber those of France in the proportion of five to one;
and our valuable colony of Mauritius derives a great part of its
food-supply from the great island.

But apart from the foregoing considerations, it is from no narrow
jealousy that we maintain that French preponderance in Madagascar would
work disastrously for freedom and humanity in that part of the world. We
are not wholly free from blame ourselves with regard to the treatment of
the coolie population of Mauritius; but it must be remembered that,
although that island is English in government, its inhabitants are
chiefly French in origin, and they retain a great deal of that utter
want of recognition of the rights of coloured people which seems
inherent in the French abroad. So that successive governors have been
constantly thwarted by magistrates and police in their efforts to obtain
justice for the coolie immigrants. A Commission of Inquiry in 1872,
however, forced a number of reforms, and since then there has been
little ground for complaint. But in the neighbouring island of Reunion
the treatment of the Hindu coolies has been so bad that at length the
Indian Government has refused to allow emigration thither any longer.
For some years past French trading vessels have been carrying off from
the north-west Madagascar coast hundreds of people for the Reunion
plantations. Very lately a convention was made with the Portuguese
authorities at Mozambique to supply coloured labourers for Reunion, and,
doubtless, also with a view to sugar estates yet to be made in
Madagascar--a traffic which is the slave-trade in all but the name. The
French flag is sullied by being allowed to be used by slaving dhows--an
iniquity owing to which our brave Captain Brownrigg met his death not
long ago. Is it any exaggeration to say that an increase of French
influence in these seas is one of sad omen for freedom?

And, further, a French protectorate over a part of the island would
certainly work disastrously for the progress of Madagascar itself. It
has been already shown that during the present century the country has
been passing out of the condition of a collection of petty independent
States into that of one strong Kingdom, whose authority is gradually
becoming more and more firmly established over the whole island. And all
hope of progress is bound up in the strengthening and consolidation of
the central Hova Gov