18 
COLONIAL REPORTS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
is to prompt a large number of the more recently enslaved 
population to leave their masters, and establish independent 
communities. Such communities own allegiance to no chief or 
clan, and would live a life of idleness defying all authority. 
Under the new scheme they at once become subject to the 
headman of the district in which they reside, and pay their 
share of the taxes, which go to maintain the British and native 
administration equally. 
It is a fundamental principle of the administration that 
payment shall be made to every labourer himself personally 
for his labour. Neither, on the one hand, is payment made 
to a chief who would appropriate probably the bulk of the 
labourers’ earnings, nor, on the other hand, does Government 
(with rare exceptions), claim labour as an equivalent of 
taxes. The rule is to pay the labourer, and then let the 
village headman collect from his peasantry, out of the coin 
thus earned, the amount required to meet the cess of the 
village. It is thus clear to simple folk that Government 
is not a slave master, claiming forced labour at its discre 
tion, but that each individual is bound to pay the just tax, 
though free to earn the means to do so by what method 
he prefers. I personally attach much importance to these 
methods of procedure, both as emphasising the contrast with 
the former system, and as the first principles in embryo of a 
system which, in future years, will have a much more extended 
application. It will not, for instance, I hope, be long before 
the labourer recognises that he can dispose of his free labour 
equally to native chiefs as to Government, while they, in turn, 
learn to recognise that they can hire free labour to replace their 
former slaves, and thus maintain their estates in cultivation. 
The money wherewith to pay for this labour they themselves 
earn in the form of salaries for discharging the functions of 
district headmen, or other official duties for the administration. 
Salaries of Native Officials. 
17. At present it is necessary—in the first initiation of so 
far-reaching a scheme—to compromise to some extent with 
native custom and tradition, and the payment of the. officials, 
from the Emir down to the village head, is fixed in shares or 
percentages of the tax they receive. But so soon as the system 
has been put into effective operation, and has become well 
understood, these percentages would with advantage be changed 
into permanent salaries paid by the Government out of the total 
proceeds of the taxation. 
Explanation of Terms. 
18. I have explained that the term “principal chief” is 
throughout this memorandum and its enclosure, restricted to 
those chiefs who, owning no native superior, have a machinery