the fourteenth century it stood as a bulwark against the advance of Islam in Africa; but during the sixteenth century it lost most of its littoral to the Turks and other Moslem invaders and was only saved from extinction as a Christian Power by the advent of Dom Christovao da Gama and his heroic band of 400 Portuguese musqueteers, whose exploits, simply recounted in quaint oldworld language by the survivors themselves, tell a wonderfully fascinating story of heroism and adventure.

In subsequent decades, Ethiopia was devastated by internal warfare, and when the great Scottish explorer, James Bruce, undertook his remarkable journeys to the country at the end of the eighteenth century, it was little more than a congeries of semiindependent kingdoms impoverished by years of civil and foreign strife. In the nineteenth century, as a recompense for Abyssinia's struggles against the common foe of Christianity during preceding centuries, her coast provinces were " acquired" by three Christian Powers, Italy, France, and England, in their scramble for the partition of Africa. Had it not been for the inaccessibility of its mountains and the fighting qualities of their inhabitants, the rest of the country would no doubt have been also partitioned.

Following these events, that extraordinary character, King Theodore, by his genius temporarily pacified the discordant elements of Abyssinia, but his madness wrecked what he had created, and it was left for that most astute statesman, the Emperor Menelik II, to restore the fallen fortunes of his country. He firmly united the warring kingdoms of Tigre, Amhara, Gojam and Shoa; he reconquered huge provinces which had been overrun by the Galla, and defeated the invading army of a great European Power in a pitched battle, when out of 14,000 men, 10,000 were killed, wounded, or made prisoners. By these triumphs, Menelik II reconstituted as an entity the ancient empire of Solomon's son, Menelik I, and paved the way for his descendant, Ras Taffari, to secure the admission of Abyssinia to the League of Nations as the peer of the great Powers of the world truly a strange chain of events.

Menelik had dreamed of the re-establishment of the old frontiers of Abyssinia on a yet wider basis, and his circular letter despatched to the Great Powers in 1891 is a striking illustration of the mentality of the Abyssinians and of their intense pride in

their country, in their history and in their religion. In this letter, after defining the boundaries of Ethiopia, Menelik says:

En indiquant aujourd'hui les limites actuelles de mon Empire je tâcherai, si le Bon Dieu veut m'accorder la vie et la force, de rétablir les anciennes frontières de l'Ethiopie jusqu'à Khartum, et jusqu'au lac Nyanza avec tous les pays Gallas. Je n'ai point l'intention d'être spectateur indifférent si les puissances lointaines se présenteront avec l'idée de se partager l'Afrique, l'Ethiopie ayant été pendant plus de quatorze siècles une île des chrétiens au milieu de la mer des paiens. Comme le Tout-Puissant a protégé l'Ethiopie jusqu'à ce jour, j'ai la confiance qu'il la protégera et l'aggrandira aussi dans l'avenir. Mais je suis certain qu'il ne partagera jamais l'Ethiopie entre d'autres puissances. Auparavant la limite de l'Ethiopie était la mer. A défaut de force et à défaut de l'aide de la part des chrétiens notre frontière du côté de la mer est tombé entre les mains des musulmans. Aujourd'hui nous ne prétendons pas retrouver notre frontière de la mer par force; mais nous espérons que les puissances chrétiennes, conseillées par notre sauveur Jésus Christ, nous rendront les frontières de la mer, au moins sur quelques points de la côte.

Unfortunately the actions of the Powers interested in Abyssinia have never inspired the Abyssinians with confidence. "Sous des apparences d'amitié," wrote Menelik, " on n'a en fait cherché qu'à s'emparer de mon pays." Rightly or wrongly, Abyssinians believe that the foreign legations at Addis Ababa have never offered any counsels but those designed to benefit themselves, and it is certain that of concerted European effort to assist the country there has been little or none. Even in the sphere of commercial development a success gained by the nationals of one country has been regarded as a diplomatic set-back for the others.

The treaty of 1906 between England, France and Italy was very much resented by Menelik as containing possible threats to his independence; but in those days there was no League of Nations to ensure publicity for his views. To-day his successor has utilized the machinery of the League, of which his country forms part, to ventilate his fears, and has succeeded in drawing from the two Powers concerned in the 1925 agreement the most categorical disclaimer of any desire or intention to affect the "territorial" integrity of Ethiopia, or to bring pressure to bear on the country to grant the concessions that the agreement contemplates. On the face of it, therefore, it would appear that Ethiopia has received a fresh lease of independence. But it is necessary to look at the other side of the picture.

It is clearly impossible for a country to continue to exist as a separate independent entity under modern conditions, and to take its place amongst the nations of the world, claiming equal consideration and equal rights with them, unless it is itself prepared to advance along modern lines. The truth of this generalisation has indeed been recognised by that remarkably astute Arabian potentate, Ibn Saud, whose ideas for the development of his own country are most interesting. Abyssinia has been admitted to the League of Nations, for good or for evil, under certain conditions, and some effort must be made by her, with or without external assistance, to give effect to these. The conscience of Europe demands that slave raiding shall cease utterly, and that the question of domestic slavery shall be at all events approached earnestly and effectively. The "gabar," or serfdom system, cannot continue indefinitely; frontier raiding for cattle or ivory at the expense of harmless villagers into the territories of friendly Powers must be controlled. Nor can it be contemplated that the resources and potential wealth of the country should for ever lie fallow in an impoverished world which is demanding the utilization of all raw materials in the shape of foodstuffs or otherwise.

Failing the development of her resources, which must be primarily in the interests of Abyssinia herself, she cannot acquire the financial strength of which she is sorely in need to enable her to put her house in order. Nothing in the way of internal reform can be achieved until it is possible to pay salaries to the governors of provinces, instead of allowing them to bleed and enslave the population. Only with the aid of properly paid governors can honesty of administration be ensured and the power of the great chiefs curbed. With this reform accomplished, the central government would acquire the necessary authority and resources to enable it adequately to discharge its functions and faithfully to carry out its liabilities to its people and to the external world— to introduce order into the chaos of its financial system, to reform its judicial methods, to establish some form of education.

A preliminary condition to such a series of efforts must be that Abyssinia should be freed from the nightmare of the rivalry and intrigue of foreign countries which has stifled her legitimate commercial development, and rendered suspect the well-intentioned efforts of such foreigners as have endeavoured to guide the rulers of the country along the path of sound administrative VOL. 244. NO. 498.

S

reform. If the Regent were possessed of the necessary powers, financial and other, if he were assisted by the united and disinterested support of the Great Powers, there is little doubt but that he would exercise to the full his well-known desire for freedom and reform. And in that event, the continuance as an independent entity of the last of the African Empires would be assured, and to the desirability of this all foreign governments concerned have paid at least lip-service.

But if the Regent's efforts continue to be blocked by the reactionary elements from within, and hampered by intrigue from without, then an upheaval is inevitable, with consequences that can be foreseen without very much difficulty by those familiar with the history of Africa. Progress must in any event be slow, and patience must be exercised by those who have dealings with this strange country; they must indeed constantly bear in mind those words of Bacon, too often forgotten in an age of hustle :

It were good that Men in their innovations would follow the example of Time itself; which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived.

C. F. REY

I.

2.

PROBLEMS OF FORESTRY

The Forests of India. 3 vols. By E. P. STEBBING. The Bodley Head. 1926.

The Work of the Forest Department in India.
Calcutta Superintendent of Government Printing.

By R. S. TROUP. 1917.

3. The Forest Resources of the World. By R. ZON & W. N. SPARHAWK. 2 vols. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. 1923.

4. The Chambers of Commerce Atlas. George Philip & Son. 1925.

MONG the many remarkable world movements taking place at the present time, one of the most significant is a general tendency to take stock of the natural resources of the different parts of the globe. The human race is, in fact, beginning to occupy the world, and is busily engaged in developing spheres of influence and marking out boundaries. At the same time, the explorer, finding no land unvisited and therefore waiting to be discovered," is year by year turning his attention to past history; and, by excavations, trying to form a picture of the distribution and occupations of the peoples in prehistoric times.

We flatter ourselves that, at our present stage of knowledge, we can afford to take a broader outlook than heretofore, and attack a number of new problems which are presenting themselves for solution. We might express it that a new set of economic equations has to be solved in our heritage. There are the interrelations between climate, population, agriculture, forestry, and the exploiting of minerals: how long will crops and forests, coal and oil, suffice for the needs of our rapidly growing population, now that fighting is no longer to be considered a legitimate occupation, and cannot be relied on to keep numbers down?

One such problem, perhaps the most difficult at the present moment, is the maintenance of a just balance between population and forests. Speaking broadly, man has to clear forests to grow his food crops, and thus agriculture and forestry appear to be antagonistic. We have to decide whether this apparent conflict is real, and whether these two industries are of necessity mutually destructive. Examples of this relation of forests to population, and to the agriculture implied, may be drawn from any quarter of the globe, but a few will suffice.