‘What do you mean by the “labour difficulty”?’
‘Getting labour, of course; native labour to work the mine.’
‘But what are the Europeans doing there, if they’re not going to labour?’
‘You’ve evidently not studied the mining question, my dear Sir. Once the prospecting is over, Europeans don’t dig. That would be very primitive. They have their work pretty well cut out as it is, pegging out their claims and looking after the men to see they don’t steal. Of course they have to get natives to dig for them—Soochings in this case.’
‘But why should the Soochings dig for them?’
‘Why should they, my dear Sir? Why, we’d pretty soon make ’em! But it’s no good arguing these big questions on first principles. We simply follow the policy which has worked so well in other parts of the world.... Now what’s your figure for the Prince’s salary from the Colonial Office?’
‘Well, what do you say to a thousand a year?’
‘Oh, make it two, make it two. That Mandingo man gets two thousand; and we don’t want to have our native princes priced lower than Africans. It’s just these things which fix the status of a Colony in the eyes of London people.’
‘Good; two thousand.’
‘And as big a lump down as we can screw out of them. I’ll instruct His Excellency.’