Criminal Legislation.-Criminal legislation often throws an instructive light on the special forms of evil with which different communities have to contend. South Australia has passed a comprehensive law against betting and gambling, with provisions for regulating the use of the "totalizator"; while Bengal has found it necessary to legislate specially against betting on drops of rain. Hongkong has been trying to put down the odious traffic in women and girls. West Africa, as usual, brings us into the presence of strange forms of crime. The object of a Sierra Leone Ordinance of 1897 was to safeguard traders as well from threats of actual violence as from the subtle and more malign influence of fetish. An offence is committed by "any person who, by having recourse to any kind of Poro laws or customs, native fetish, trickery or device whatsoever, intimidates, hinders, or interrupts any person from gathering, buying, selling or otherwise disposing of his produce." Thus the secular sanction of the state is pitted against the supernatural sanction brought in aid of local forms of boycotting and picketing. It may be noted that Gambia anticipated by a year the Parliament at Westminster in allowing accused persons to give evidence.

Immigration. Immigration is still a burning question. Natal and West Australia have both passed Acts to prohibit the immigration of any person who cannot write out in a European language an application drawn up in a scheduled form for leave to land, as well as of paupers, lunatics, persons suffering from contagious diseases, and criminals. The first test is of course intended as an indirect mode of excluding coloured immigrants. Jamaica has imposed similar restrictions on immigrants. West Australia has dealt more directly with coloured immigrants belonging to certain nationalities by imposing restrictions on their numbers and on the area into which they may be imported. On the other hand, the Straits Settlements have legislated for the protection of imported coolies, and Jamaica for their repatriation. And Ontario and Manitoba have regulated the operations of societies bringing children into those colonies.

Native Labour. Not unconnected with the laws regulating and restricting coloured immigrants are the laws passed for the protection of natives, and for the regulation of native labour, and of dealings with natives. Queensland has passed an Act for the protection of "aboriginals "-i.e., black natives and half-castes living with them. It provides for the creation of native reserves, and the removal to them of all aboriginals not absent under a permit or lawfully employed under the colonial laws. Unauthorised persons are excluded from the reserve, and the aboriginals are not allowed to buy liquor or opium, or to sell the blankets supplied to them by the Government. Western Australia has placed the care of the native population, including their education, under the charge of a department with a responsible minister. New Zealand, dealing with a higher class, has regulated the borrowing by Maoris for the improvement of their lands. New Guinea has placed its natives under a strict labour code. The legislature for the Western Pacific

has regulated the recruiting of natives in the British Solomon Islands. Protectorates are, as Mr. Albert Gray observes, regions in which the touch of civilisation has to be cautiously applied to matters barbaric, and the Protectorate Ordinance passed by Sierra Leone in 1897 contains much curious and interesting matter. It establishes three classes of Protectorate courts: the Court of the Native Chiefs, the Court of the District Commissioner and Native Chiefs, and the Court of the District Commissioner alone. It assigns to the first class all civil cases between natives, and criminal cases, subject to important exceptions, which include the more serious crimes, such as witchcraft, slave-raiding, cannibalism, and the operations of the Human Leopard and Alligator Societies. Counsel and attorney cannot appear in the Protectorate courts except by leave of the District Commissioner. Another part of the Ordinance deals with slavery, by declaring slave-dealing to be unlawful, declaring all slaves brought within the Protectorate to be free, and providing for the enfranchisement of existing slaves. A further part of the Ordinance imposed a native house-tax, of which a good deal has been heard since.

Other Labour Legislation.-In labour legislation by far the most important enactment of the year was the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1897, which dealt on novel lines with a question of long standing between employers and workmen. It is interesting to find that New South Wales was in the same year consolidating the Acts which it had passed on the older lines, and extending them to certain classes of seamen. Western Australia has required the registration of employment brokers. Victoria has required all servants' registry offices to be licensed. New Zealand prohibits all Sunday labour in mines. Western Australia has given workmen employed by a contractor a lien for their wages on money due to the contractor. British Columbia has limited the duration of contracts of service to a maximum of nine years. It has also prohibited the employment of Chinese and Japanese on certain classes of works.

Sanitary Legislation. In sanitary legislation India, for melancholy reasons, takes a prominent part. The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, is, as its name denotes, a plague measure, and contains stringent provision for dealing with outbreaks of any dangerous epidemic disease. Ceylon, by an ordinance of the same year, gave powers for preventing the introduction and spread of the plague. The Straits Settlements are still concerned with lepers, and have imposed sanitary regulations on ships carrying Mahommedan pilgrims to the Hedjaz. The legislature of the Western Pacific has taken precautions against the introduction of contagious diseases into the British Solomon Islands, and the Cape has passed a comprehensive law of public health.

Education Legislation. The educational legislation of the British Parliament for 1897 will be remembered by the Act of that year for the encouragement of "voluntary" schools. A New Zealand Act of the same

year illustrates the difficulties which attend well-meant legislation for improving the position of public teachers. An Act of 1895 had endeavoured to secure teachers against arbitrary dismissal by school boards. An Act of 1897 enacts that a dismissal of a teacher is not to be deemed wrongful, if reasonable, having regard to (1) the efficient and economical administration of the Board's affairs, (2) the conduct or fitness of the teacher, and (3) any special circumThe Province of Quebec in 1897 empowered its Lieutenant-Governor to set aside 1,500,000 acres of land for purposes of elementary education. Agriculture. Tasmania has established a Council of Agriculture. British Columbia has authorised the formation of farmers' institutes, which may receive pecuniary aid from the Government. Its Minister of Agriculture is also empowered to authorise co-operative undertakings, such as a Farmers' Exchange, Cheese Factory, Creamery, and the like. New Brunswick, in the interests of agriculture, authorises aid to be given to persons erecting mills for the grinding of wheat by the Hungarian or other rolling process, and empowers the Commissioner of Agriculture to purchase wheat and other seeds, and place them on sale at convenient prices.

Private Land.--Legislation within the domain of private land is, as usual, comparatively scanty.

The important Land Transfer Act of the British Parliament has altered the real property law of England by vesting real property on death in a "real representative," and has made provision for the gradual introduction of a system of compulsory registration of titles to land.

The Land Acquisition Act of Jamaica, which perhaps belongs rather to the branch of administrative law, supplies an illustration of colonial modes of dealing with the compulsory acquisition of private land for public purposes. It is interesting to find that bills of sale have given employment to the legislature responsible for the condition of Samoa, and the Gilbert, Ellice, and Solomon Islands.

Other Points: "Omnibus Bills."-A few odds and ends may be noticed in conclusion. "Omnibus Bills" have been discouraged in England. But for variety of topics it would be difficult to beat c. 14 of the Statutes of Ontario for 1897. The Dominion of Canada appears to apprehend a plethora of Queen's Counsel, and two of its provinces have passed laws for limiting their number. British Honduras has legislated for the protection of its ancient monuments, which include anything in existence before 1700. Newfoundland has granted a close time for beavers. Both the Isle of Man and New Brunswick have authorised the expenditure of public money on advertising their attractions for tourists. The money devoted in the Isle of Man to this purpose is to be raised as part of the lunatic asylum rate.

LEGISLATIVE METHODS IN THE ZANZIBAR

AND EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATES.

[Contributed by SIR ARTHUR H. HARDINGE, K.C.M.G., C.B.]

BEFORE describing these methods, which are at present very simple and autocratic, it may be as well to give a brief sketch of the territories which constitute the two protectorates and of the outlines of their government.

The Zanzibar Protectorate consists of the two islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, and is governed by the Arab Sultan of Zanzibar and a ministry largely European, the European members of which can only be removed by the Sultan, with the consent of the British Political Agent and ConsulGeneral, as representing the protecting Power. The British agent is, moreover, the channel of communication between the Zanzibar Government and foreign powers, and manages, under the supervision and direction of the British Foreign Office, the foreign relations of the Sultanate. Zanzibar therefore bears a close resemblance to one of the feudatory states of British India.

The British East Africa Protectorate, on the other hand, consisting of the territories on the mainland of Africa, bounded on the east by the Indian Ocean, on the west by the Uganda Protectorate, on the south-west by the Colony of German East Africa, and on the north and north-east by the Italian sphere of influence and Abyssinia, is directly administered by the British Foreign Office through a Commissioner and Consul-General, who is at the same time Political Agent at Zanzibar.

The East Africa Protectorate includes three distinct sovereignties : (1) The mainland territories of the Sultan of Zanzibar.

(2) The Sultanate of Witu.

(3) The remainder of the Protectorate, consisting of the old "chartered. territory" of the late Imperial British East Africa Company and of the region. between the rivers Tana and Tuba, not included either in Zanzibar or Witu. This division, which for the sake of convenience may be styled "British East Africa proper," is not, of course, technically under Her Majesty's sovereignty, and is divided among a number of tribes and races, over whom we exercise authority; but it differs from Zanzibar and Witu in that the status of the chiefs

of these tribes is not recognised by international law, or at least by any international agreement.

(1) Zanzibar.—The mainland dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar included in the East Africa Protectorate (for he possesses certain coast forts by the road it now leaves to Italy) consist (1) of a strip of coast ten miles deep from high-water mark, extending from the mouth of the River Umba on the south to Kipini on the Ozi on the north; and (2) of a series of islands off the coast between the Ozi and the Tuba, and of the mainland town of Kismayo, with a radius of ten miles around it.

These territories were recognised as constituting the mainland dominions of the Sultan by the Anglo-German Agreement of October 31st, 1886, to which France subsequently became a party, and were leased by successive sultans under successive concessions granted in 1887, 1888, and 1890, to the Imperial British East Africa Company, which surrendered them in 1895 to the late Sultan Hamed bin Thwain in return for the sum of £200,000, representing the purchase money paid in 1890 by the German Government for the Sultan's sovereign rights in the former Zanzibar possessions between the Umba and Rovuma rivers, now included in German East Africa. By an Agreement made verbally in July 1895, but not formally signed till December 1895, between His late Highness and myself as Her Majesty's representative, these territories were to be administered under his sovereignty and flag by officers to be appointed by Her Majesty's Government, which undertook in return to pay to that of Zanzibar the annual sum of £17,000 a year, representing the old rent of the Imperial British East Africa Company, (£11,000), and the interest (£6000) on the above-mentioned sum of £200,000 at three per cent.

(2) Witu.—The State of Witu extends along the coast from Kipini to Kwyhoo, its northern boundary being a straight line drawn in 1887 by Commissioners representing the German and Zanzibar Governments due west from Kwyhoo to a point a few miles east of the Ozi river. It was founded, or rather gradually grew up, in the years from 1860 to 1885, round a colony of outlaws who had followed Ahmed bin Fumo Luti, the last of the old Nabhan sultans of Pattah,-a race dating from the earliest days of Asiatic colonisation in East Africa,-when, after he had been conquered, together with his ally Mahommed bin Mataka, tyrant of Siu, by Seyyid Niagid, Sultan of Zanzibar, he withdrew first to Kipini, then to Kan on the Ozi, and finally, being driven from Kan by Seyyid Bargash, took refuge in the forests of the district now known as Witu. From this last refuge, where he had collected round himself all the criminals, runaway slaves, and outlaws from justice of every description, Seyyid Bargash strove in vain to dislodge him, and under the name of "Simba" (the "lion "), by which he was known to the Swahilis, he attained, notwithstanding all the efforts of the Government of Zanzibar, the position of a powerful and practically independent. petty chief.