§ MR. W. S. CAINE (Bradford, E.)I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been called to a communication to the Liverpool Daily Post, from Mr. G. A. Moore, managing director of the Oil Rivers Trading and Exploration Company, stating that the Niger Company pay their Native labourers' wages in spirits, in face of one of their own laws forbidding it; that Kroomen are also paid partly in spirits; that the Niger Company also pays a great amount of its treaty subsidies in spirits, and that practically no restrictions whatever are placed on the sale of gin and other spirits by the company's agents; and what action does he propose to take in the matter?
§ SIR E. GREYI am informed that if proof can be adduced of any agent having, in defiance of the regulations, paid wages in spirits, such agent will be dismissed. This applies equally to Kroomen. When treaties were originally made the natives insisted, according to the then existing practice, on receiving their subsidies partly in spirits, but three years ago instructions were given that in all such cases the natives were to be induced to accept other goods in place of spirits. In nine-tenths of the company's territory the sale or barter of spirits is absolutely forbidden, in the remainder the sale is restricted by a system of licences.