The Crown has granted a Charter to Lord Brassey, Mr.
Mackinnon, and other directors of the Imperial British East Africa Company, empowering them to govern all the terri- tories they have acquired from the Sultan of Zanzibar. These territories stretch from Mombassa, the best harbour on the coast, northward for 150 miles, and westward in a wedge-like shape to the Victoria Nyanza. Their area is about 50,000 square miles, and the population 2,000,000, whom the Com- pany will govern, as the East India Company originally did, by " Regulations " having the force of law. The Company is placed, rather vaguely, under the control of "her Majesty's Secretary of State ;" but its authority for internal affairs is sovereign. It is intended, of course, to establish law and order at onee ; the land is fertile; and if the Masai tribe will consent to be sepoya instead of cut-throats, the remainder of the people will settle to labour on an extremely fertile soil. It will, however, be somewhat difficult to raise a revenue, as the customs duties are impropriated to Zanzibar, and the land-tax must at first be small. The Company will, however, monopolise ivory and protect the elephants, and, if it is wise, tax salt, now a luxury, from the very first. We have spoken elsewhere of the political results of this grant, which are doubtful, and of the philanthropic, which ought to be magnificent. There is no benevolence so directly beneficial as killing kidnappers.
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