When the German Government first interested itself, about a decade ago, in East African affairs, it recognised the little colony of outlaws and refugees from the coast towns which had grown up in Witu as an independent state, and Ahmed or "Simba" himself-who accepted a German Protectorate-as the legitimate sovereign of the land. Accordingly, on transferring this Protectorate, by the Treaty of 1890, to Great Britain, it stipulated by Article II. of that agreement that the sovereignty of the Sultan of Witu over the territory formally defined as his in 1887, should be recognised by the new protecting Power. Events for some time made it difficult for Great Britain to carry out the letter of this engagement, for Fumo Bakari, who had succeeded Ahmed in 1887, fell out with the Germans. A number of German traders and settlers were murdered by his order or connivance, and an expedition was despatched in 1890, at the request of the German Government, to chastise him. His capital was taken and his dynasty overthrown, but his followers continued an intermittent guerilla warfare for some years longer, and the country was only finally pacified in 1894 by the forces of the Sultan of Zanzibar, who undertook as a provisional arrangement to carry on its administration for Her Majesty's Government. The establishment of the East Africa Protectorate in 1895 afforded a favourable opportunity for regularising the position of Witu in accordance with the provisions of the AngloGerman Agreement, and the sovereignty of the deposed Nabhan dynasty (now represented by Bwana Sheh, a half-witted brother of Fumo Bakari) was revived in the person of Omar Bin Mohammed, the former commander of the Witu army under the old sultans, who had acted as Wali or Governor of Witu under the Zanzibar Administration. A British officer, under the control of Her Majesty's Commissioner for East Africa, is accredited to the Sultan of Witu as Resident.

(3) British East Africa Proper.-Beyond the Zanzibar and Witu limits the territories comprised in the Protectorate are ruled directly under Her Majesty by the British officers in charge of them. All the various tribes, Mahommedan and heathen, retain, however, their respective native rulers and institutions. Among the Mahommedan tribes, Somalis, Wagosha, etc., the power of the chiefs, whether called sultans or sheikhs, is more developed than among the heathen ones, whose organisation is very loose and primitive. Roughly speaking, there may be said to be about from twenty to twenty-five distinct tribes known to us (including slave or helot tribes of nomad hunters, such as the Waboni), both heathen and Mahommedan, in the Protectorate. The majority of these are in British East Africa proper, but a few overlap into Zanzibar and Witu territory, and are mixed with the Swahili population which forms the bulk of the inhabitants of beth sultanates.

The Treaty Powers.-The sketch of the political limits and institutions of the two protectorates will render a description of their legislative methods more intelligible. It should, however, be premised that in the Zanzibar dominions, both in the islands and on the mainland, subjects of Great

Britain and of certain foreign powers having treaties with the Sultanate, almost all of them anterior to the establishment of the British Protectorate, enjoy what are called "ex-territorial rights," and can only be sued or prosecuted in their own courts. The Treaty Powers are therefore in relation to their own subjects co-ordinate legislative authorities with the Sultan in the islands and with the British Administration in certain parts of the mainland. As a matter of fact the only one of them which legislates is the protecting Power, Great Britain, the others contenting themselves with enforcing upon their respective subjects, through their consular courts, the existing laws of their own countries, and occasionally applying to them, at the request of the British Government, some new law, ordinance, or regulation which the territorial authority may have enacted. Now, however, that the British Government, by the Zanzibar and East Africa Orders in Council, 1897, has abolished its consular courts and substituted for them regular British tribunals independent of its Consulate-General, it is hoped that the Treaty Powers will surrender their consular jurisdiction and the ex-territorial rights of their subjects, and will be content to permit the latter to be dealt with like British subjects, as persons subject to the Orders in Council."

Powers of Sultan.-The legislative authority in the Zanzibar Protectorate over all persons not subjects of Treaty Powers resides in the Sultan, who is, like most Mahommedan sovereigns, an absolute prince, but is nevertheless bound, by what may be called a principle of the common law, to govern according to the precepts of the Mahommedan religion. A serious violation of this rule, if declared by the majority of the doctors of the law to have been committed, would theoretically justify a withdrawal by his Mahommedan subjects of their allegiance: it will be remembered that it was such a declaration or "Fetiva" by the Sheikh al Islam which legalised the deposition, in 1876, of the Turkish Sultan Abdul Aziz. In practice many of the enactments made in modern times under British pressure by the sultans of Zanzibar are in flat contradiction to the law of Islam, and are nevertheless held to be constitutionally valid by the Mahommedan courts. The difficulty is got over by the fiction, derived from the doctrine of "Takiah" or "legitimate dissimulation," that when a strong foreign Power forces a weak Mahommedan ruler to commit an act which is, strictly speaking, illegal, it is lawful for him to commit it, provided he condemns and abhors it internally or, as the casuists would say, in foro conscientia, and only does it because his refusal would or might entail even greater calamities on the faithful. Thus an enactment in itself illegal becomes legal and binding on the subjects, if held by the doctors of the Mohammedan law to come within this category; and they themselves have no scruple about applying it. It is in virtue of this fiction that the sultans, both here and also in Turkey, have been able to reconcile the prohibition of the slave trade, the abolition of the status of slavery, the admission of infidel

evidence in courts of justice, the cession of Moslem territory to infidels, the abrogation of the lex talionis and of the death penalty for apostasy from Islam and adultery, besides many other things of the same kind, with a theoretically rigid adhesion to the Mahommedan law; and that in India and Asiatic Russia the doctors have declared it to be the duty of the faithful to submit cheerfully to the orders of an infidel Government so long as they are not strong enough to overthrow it. Promulgation of Native Statute Law. The Sultan's enactments, which constitute the native statute law of Zanzibar, as the Sheria of Islam, embodied in a vast mass of traditions, commentaries, and records of judgments, constituted its common law, are usually made in the form of a proclamation addressed "to all Our friends" (or subjects), and beginning, "Be it known unto you that We have ordered" such and such things, and are signed by the Sultan, sometimes with his simple signature, sometimes, especially in the case of the older sultans, with some say depreciatory expression such as "this is written" (or ordered) "by the beggar in the sight of God, the poor Bargash bin Said." Later on, as they have been drafted by European officials they have become more precise, and important ones usually have a preamble and several sections or articles. I append (1) a specimen of the older and (2) of the newer kind of proclamation, the one anterior, the other subsequent, to the British Protectorate.

Since the establishment of the Protectorate and the institution of an European Administration, enactments having the force of law have been made by the Sultan's Prime Minister, in the Sultan's name, and acting on his behalf, but without His Highness' signature. These enactments are submitted to and approved by him, and are said to be made by His Highness' Government. They are not like the Sultan's own proclamations, called "Decrees," but "Ordinances" or "Regulations," and deal rather with the subordinate details of administration than with what may be termed important legal or constitutional questions. Where they affect foreign relations or are made under the general Act of the Brussels Conference, which has become by the adhesion of the Sultan part both of the internal law and of the international obligations of Zanzibar, they are countersigned by the British Agent, under authority from Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. It has also become customary since the establishment of the Protectorate, particularly under the two last sultans, for the decrees of sultans to be countersigned by the English Prime Minister; but this practice rests upon recent usage and not upon any positive law, nor would the omission of the Prime Minister's signature suffice to render a decree of the Sultan I append a specimen of regulations made by His Highness'

Government.

Another mode by which the sultans used to legislate was by instructions addressed to their ministers or provincial governors in the form of a letter or despatch. Thus Seyyid Khalifa bin Said made a most important change

in the Mahommedan law, which holds in its strictness that no lapse of time can bar a claim of right, by merely ordering the Arab Governor of Mombasa in a short official note (see Appendix) to hear no claim which had been allowed to lie dormant for twelve years. I do not know why he did this: it was before our Protectorate, and the change was not imposed upon him by external pressure, but in spite of the fact that in the teeth of the Sheria he enacted a statute of limitation. The native judiciary raised no opposition, and as we found this modification of the Mahommedan law in force when we took charge of the country, we have always acted upon it, though it is still a matter of doubt, which the native courts may have sooner or later to decide, whether it applies to the whole of the Sultan's mainland dominions or only to the district of Mombasa. This summary method of altering the law has, since the establishment of the Protectorate, fallen into disuse, but is still theoretically legal.

Legislative Authority of Queen in Council.-Her Majesty the Queen in Council, and under her the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs within certain limitations, or any Secretary of State acting for him, and again under him the British Agent and Consul-General, are legislative authorities for the large British community, consisting chiefly of British Indians who are "persons subject to the Zanzibar Order in Council, 1897." Under s. 47 of that Order the Consul-General may make Queen's regulations for peace, order, and good government, or the enforcing of any existing law enacted by the Sultan, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State; and these regulations, together with the penalties prescribed by them, are legally binding on British subjects and other persons subject to the Order. The Secretary of State may apply to persons subject to the Order any English, African, Colonial, or Indian statute or section of a statute; for although the British courts in Zanzibar administer the Indian Penal Code and the Indian Criminal and Civil Procedure Codes, only a limited number of Indian Acts are actually enforced there. Lastly, the Queen herself may by Order in Council make any alteration she pleases in the law governing British subjects in Zanzibar.

Specimens of new regulations by the Consul-General, of the application. by him of Zanzibar regulations, and a copy of the Zanzibar Order in Council, 1897, which repeals all previous orders, are appended.

East Africa Protectorate.-Thoughout the East Africa Protectorate the supreme legislative authority resides in the Queen in Council, but a portion of it is delegated to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (or any Secretary of State acting for him), and under the supervision and subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, to the Commissioner and ConsulGeneral. The mode of legislating is therefore almost exactly similar to that in force in Zanzibar for British subjects, but the territory being larger and

None have, I find, been applied at Zanzibar.

less civilised, and presenting wider problems than the small islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, legislative activity is much greater there than in the Zanzibar Protectorate.

I append (1) the East Africa Order in Council, (2) specimens of the application by the Secretary of State of an Indian Act, (3) regulations made by the Commissioner, and (4) regulations for the administration of justice by native courts, which explain the judicial system in force among the native population of the Protectorate. A person comparing these latter regulations with the Order in Council will probably notice a discrepancy in the important definition of a "native"; this circumstance, due to the fact that the regulations were drafted by me without the Order in Council before me, is now in process of being corrected.

Witu: Legislative Power.-In Witu, which is an autonomous sultanate, the legislative power in relation to natives resides in the Sultan, acting by the advice of the British Resident. There are no ex-territorial rights there, but the native Government in 1893 delegated its jurisdiction over all Europeans to the European "administrator" whose functions now vest in the "Resident," who again is under the orders of the Commissioner, so that for Europeans the legislative machinery is the same as the rest of the East Africa Protectorate. With respect to natives the practice is that any regulations made by the Commissioner for them in the other portions of the Protectorate are promulgated by the Sultan in his own name "by the advice" of the Resident in Witu. The law of Witu as regards natives is, except for a few trifling differences, almost exactly similar to that which prevails in the Zanzibar mainland dominions. The tendency in both protectorates is naturally, in all new enactments that are made, to render such additions to the law as similar as may be for Europeans and natives alike, in so far as this is possible in view of the difference in their history and their circumstances, and of the fact that on the coast and in the islands the law of the native is the Mahommedan Sheria, and that of the European and Indian the law (if one may use, speaking generally, so loose a term) of British India. We shall probably have to reform and codify the Sheria on some such lines as in Turkey and Egypt, and as time goes on endeavour, without needlessly arousing religious prejudices, to weld together the two systems. We shall also, I think, very soon indeed have to introduce into the Mahommedan courts in Zanzibar the Indian Procedure Rules. We have done so already on the mainland, except in the case of the Mahommedan Ecclesiastical Courts (Muhakim el Kudaa), which deal exclusively with matters of personal status, and the change is, I believe, rather popular than otherwise with the natives themselves.