Part 20 (1/2)

Rhodes, had he had the handling of West Africa, would himself have used this form of policy. He formulated it for South Africa; but, with his careful study of such things as local needs, he would have formulated another form for West Africa, which is a totally different region.

To take only two of the differences, and state them brutally. First, in West Africa the most valuable a.s.set you have is the native: the more heavily the district there is populated with Africans, and the more prosperous those natives are, the better for you; for it means more trade. All the gold, ivory, oil, rubber, and timber in West Africa are useless to you without the African to work them; you can get no other race that can replace him, and work them; the thing has now been tried, and it has failed. Whereas in South Africa the converse is true: you can do without the African there, you can replace him with pretty nearly any other kind of man you like, or do the work yourself. The second difference is, that the land in South Africa is worth your having, you can go and domesticate on it; whereas in West Africa you cannot. A failure to recognise these differences is at the root of our present ill-judged West African policy, outside the Royal Niger Company's domain; by introducing South African methods we are trying to get what is of no use to us, the _Landes Hoheit_, and thereby devastating what is of use to us, the trade.

However, I will not detain you over this interesting question of Chartered Company government. I merely wish to draw your attention to the two breeds, the Land Company, and the Trade Company; and to urge that they are things to be applied in their respective proper environments. I can honestly a.s.sure you, I know every blessed, single, mortal thing that can be said against the trade form which I admire, for I have lived under a hail of this sort of information since I was discovered by my big juju, Liverpool, to be such an admirer of what I called a co-ordinate system of government and trade, and Liverpool called divers things.

I shall go to my grave believing that Liverpool had reasons for attacking the Company, but neglected fundamental facts in its controversy with the Trade Company, which, to it, was ”a little more than kith, and less than kind.” The Royal Niger Company has demonstrated its adaptation to its environment. Without any forced labour, without any direct taxation, it has paid. I venture to think, though I have no doubt it would severely hurt the feelings of the R.N.C., that we may regard the Royal Niger Company as representing the perfected system of native government in West Africa plus English courage and activity. I believe that on this foundation has been built its success. For say what you like, if the Royal Niger had not got on well with the natives in its territories--dealt cleanly, honestly, rationally with them--it would never have extended its influence in the grand way it has, represented only by a mere handful of white men, in what is, as far as we know, the most densely populated region with the highest and most organised form of native power in all tropical Africa.

Had it not been to the natives it ruled a just, honourable, and desirable form of government, it would long ago have been stamped out by them, or would have been compelled to call in England's armed support to maintain it, as the Crown Colony system has been compelled to do in Sierra Leone and on the Gold Coast. It has not had to call in Imperial a.s.sistance, and it has paid its shareholders--a sound, healthy conduct; but, nevertheless, remember that all the great debt of grat.i.tude you and every one of the English owe the Royal Niger Company for defending the honour of England against Continental enterprise, for maintaining the honour of England in the eyes of the native races with whom it had made treaties, you do not owe to the Chartered Company _system_, but to Sir George Goldie, the man who had to use it because it was the _best_ existing system available for such a region. You have too much sense to give all the honour to Lord Kitchener of Khartoum's sword, though a sword is an excellent thing. I trust, therefore, you have too much sense to give all honour to the Chartered Company, even when it is a trading company. Trade is an excellent thing, but, in the case of the Royal Niger, this very factor, trade, restricts the man who uses the Chartered Company to a set of white men and a set of black. Therefore, never can I feel that either Liverpool or the Bra.s.s men have profited by the R.N.C.

as they would have done if there had been a better system available for dealing with what Mr. St. Loe Strachey delicately calls ”a dark-skinned population” with an insufficient local white population at hand.

Briefly, I should say that the Chartered Company system keeps its ”ain fish-guts for its ain sea-maws” too much. Therefore now, when, like many before me who have laboured strenuously to reform, I have given up the idea that reformation is possible for the individual on whom they have expended their powers, and have decided that there are some people whom you can only reform with a gun, I will start reforming myself, and say the Chartered Company system is not good enough, taken all round as things are, for West Africa for these reasons.

First, a Chartered Company consists of a band of merchants, ruling through, and by, a great man. If that great man who expands the influence and power of the Company lives long enough to establish a form of policy, well and good. I have sufficient trust in the common sense of a band of English merchants, provided their interest is common, to believe they will adhere to the policy; but suppose he does not, or suppose you do not start with a good man, you will merely have a mess, as has been demonstrated by the perpetual failures of our French friends' Chartered Companies. By the way, I may remark that although France is no great admirer of the chartered system with us, she is devoted to it for herself, sprinkling all her West African possessions with them freely, only unfortunately, as their names are usually far longer than their banking accounts, they do not grow conspicuous; even apart from these private and subsidised Chartered Companies in French possessions, France follows the chartered system imperially in West Africa by keeping out non-French trade with differential tariffs, and so on. But, after all, in this matter she is no worse than English critics of the Royal Niger; and it is a common trait of all West African palavers that those who criticise are amply well provided themselves with the very faults they find so repulsive in others--it's the climate.

Secondly, the Chartered Company represents English trade interests in sections, instead of completely; English honour, common sense, military ability, and so on, the Royal Niger under Sir George Goldie has represented more perfectly than these things have ever been represented in West--or, I may safely say, Africa at large; but the trade interests of England it has only represented partially, or in other words, it has only represented the trade interests of its shareholders and the natives it has made treaties with, and what we want is something that will represent our trade interests there completely. Therefore, I do not advocate it as the general system for West Africa, for under another sort of man it might mean merely a more rapid crash than we are in for with the Crown Colony system. To my dying day I shall honour that great Trade Company, the Royal Niger, for representing England, that is, England properly so-called, to the world at large, during one of the darkest ages we have ever had since Charles II.; and, I believe that it, with the Committee of Merchants who held the Gold Coast for England after the battle of Katamansu, when her officials would have abandoned alike the Gold Coast and her honour in West Africa, will stand out in our history as grand things, but yet I say we want another system.

”Du binst der Geist der stets verneint!” you e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e. You do not like Crown Colonies. You won't grovel to Chartered Companies, however good.

You prove, on your own showing, that there is not in West Africa a sufficiently large, or a sufficiently long resident, local English population--what with their constantly leaving for home or for the cemetery--to form an independent colony. What else remains?

Well, I humbly beg to say that there is another system--a system that pays in all round peace and prosperity--a system whereby a region with a native population--a lively one in a Thirteenth century culture state--of about 30,000,000, is ruled. The total value of exports from the regions I refer to averages 14,000,000, out of a country of very much the same make as West Africa; the floating capital in its trade is some 25,000,000; its actual land area is 562,540 square miles; yet its trade with its European country amounts, nevertheless, to at least one half of that carried on between India and England. If you apply the system that has built this thing up, practically since 1830, to West Africa, you will not get the above figures out in forty years; but you will get at least two-thirds of them; and that would be a grand rise on your present West African figures, and in time you could surpa.s.s these figures, for West Africa is far larger, and far nearer European markets, and you have the advantage of superior s.h.i.+pping.

The region I am citing is not so unhealthy for whites as West Africa.

Still, it has a stiff death-rate of its own; even nowadays, when it has pulled that death-rate down by Science--a thing, I may remark, you never trouble your head about in West Africa, or think worthy of your serious attention.

I will not insult your knowledge by telling you where this system is working to-day, or who works it, and all that. The same consideration also bars me from applying for a patent for this system; for although I lay it before you altered to what I think suitable for West Africa, the main lines of the system remain. The only thing I confess that makes me shaky about its being applied to West Africa is, that this system requires and must have experts black and white to work it, both at home in England and out in West Africa. Still, you have a sufficient supply of such experts, if only you would not leave things so largely in the hands of clerks and amateurs; who, with the a.s.sistance of faddists and renegade Africans, break up the native true Negro culture state, leaving you little sound stuff to work on in the regions now under the Crown Colony system.

Before I proceed to sketch the skeleton of the other system, I must lay before you briefly the present political state of West Africa in the words of the greatest living expert on the subject, as they are given in a remarkable article in the _Edinburgh Review_ for October, 1898.

”The weighty utterance of Sir George Goldie should never be forgotten, 'Central African races and tribes have, broadly speaking, no sentiment of patriotism as understood in Europe.' There is, therefore, little difficulty in inducing them to accept what German jurisconsults term 'Ober Hoheit,' which corresponds with our interpretation of our vague term 'Protectorate.' But when complete sovereignty or 'Landes Hoheit,'

is conceded, they invariably stipulate that their local customs and systems of government shall be respected. On this point they are, perhaps, more tenacious than most subject races with whom the British Empire has had to deal; while their views and ideas of life are extremely difficult for an Englishman to understand. It is therefore certain that even an imperfect and tyrannical native African administration, if its extreme excesses were controlled by European supervision, would be in the early stages productive of far less discomfort to its subjects than well-intentioned but ill-directed efforts of European magistrates, often young and headstrong, and not invariably gifted with sympathy and introspective powers. If the welfare of the native races is to be considered, if dangerous revolts are to be obviated, the general policy of ruling on African principles through native rulers must be followed for the present. Yet it is desirable that considerable districts in suitable localities should be administered on European principles by European officials, partly to serve as types to which the native governments may gradually approximate, but princ.i.p.ally as cities of refuge in which individuals of more advanced views may find a living if native government presses unduly upon them, just as in Europe of the Middle Ages men whose love of freedom found the iron-bound system of feudalism intolerable, sought eagerly the comparative liberty of cities.”[77]

There are a good many points in the above cla.s.sic pa.s.sage on which I would fain become diffuse, but I forbear; merely begging you to note carefully the wording of that part concerning government by natives ruling on African principles, because here is a pitfall for the hasty.

You will be told that this is the present policy in Crown Colonies--but it is not. What they are doing is ruling on European principles through natives, which is a horse of another colour entirely and makes it hot work for the unfortunate native catspaw chief, and so all round unsatisfactory that no really self-respecting native chief will take it on.

Well, to return to that other system: what it has got to do is to unite English interests--administrative, commercial and educational--into one solid whole, and combine these with native interests; briefly, to be a system where the Englishman and the African co-operate together for their mutual benefit and advancement, and therefore it must be a representative system, and one of those groups of representative systems which form the British Empire.

For reasons I need not discuss here it must be a duplicate system, with an English and an African side, these two united and responsible to the English Crown, but both having as great a share of individual freedom in Africa as possible. By and by the necessity for the duplicate system may disappear, but at present it is necessary.

I will take the English side first. There should be in England an African Council, in whose hands is the power of voting supplies and of appointing the Governor-General, subject to the approval of the Crown, and to whom firms trading in Africa should be answerable for the actions of their representatives. This council should be of nominated members, from the Chambers of Commerce of Liverpool, Manchester, London, Bristol, and Glasgow. Of course, they should not be paid members. This council would occupy a similar position in West African administration to that which the House of Commons occupies in English.

Under this Grand Council there should be two sub-councils reporting to it, one a joint committee of English lawyers and medical men, the other a committee of the native chiefs. Neither of these councils should be paid, but sufficient should be granted them to pay their working expenses. The members of these sub-councils of the Grand Council should be appointed--the medical and legal committee by say, the Lord Chancellor and the College of Physicians respectively, and the committee of African chiefs by the chiefs in West Africa.

I make no pretence at believing that either of these sub-councils for the first few years of their existence will be dove-cots--lawyers and doctors will always fight each other: but the lawyers will hold the doctors in and _vice versa_, and the common sense of the Grand Council will hold them both well down to practical politics. With the council of chiefs there will probably be less trouble, and this council will be an amba.s.sador to the white government at headquarters capable of representing to it native opinion and native requirements.

Representing the Grand Council and nominated by it, subject to the approval of the Crown, as represented by the Chief Secretary for the Colonies and the Privy Council, there must be one Governor-General for West Africa: he must be supreme commander of the land and sea forces, with the right of declaring peace and war, and concluding treaties with the native chiefs; he must be a proved expert in West African affairs; he must be paid, say, 5,000 a year; he must spend six months on the Coast on a tour of inspection, during which he must be accessible alike to the European and native. He may, if he sees fit, spend more than six months out there; but it is not advisable he should reside there permanently, for if he does so, he will a.s.suredly get out of touch with the Grand Council, of which he should _ex officio_ be chairman or president. This grand council with its sub-councils is all that is required in England for the government of West Africa. It is not, as you see, an expensive system _per se_: with its power to raise supplies, it could vote itself sufficient to carry on its out-of-pocket expenses in the matter of clerks and goods inspectors. The connecting link between it and Africa is the Governor-General; between it and England, the Chief Secretary for the Colonies--not the Colonial, or Foreign, or any other existing Office: things it should be equal with, not subject to.

Out in Africa, the Governor-General should be the representative of the English _raj_--the Ober Hoheit of England--and the head of the system of Landes Hoheit, represented by the African chiefs; in him the two must join. Under his control, on the European side, must be the few European officials required to administer the country locally. These must be carefully picked, experienced men, provided with sufficient power to enforce their rule with prompt.i.tude when it comes to details; but the policy of the Ober Hoheit should be the policy of the Governor and Grand Council, not of the individual official.

Immediately in grade under the Governor-General should come a set of district commissioners or governors, one for each of the present colonies. These men should be the resident representatives of the Governor-General, and responsible to him for the affairs, trade and political, of their districts. These district commissioners should be paid 2,000 a year each, and have a term of residence on the Coast of twelve months, with six months' furlough at home on half pay, the other half of the pay going to the men who represent them during their absence at home--the senior sub-commissioners of their districts.[78]

The next grade are the sub-commissioners. These are only required in the districts now termed Protectorates; the Europeanised coast towns to be under a different system I will sketch later. Well, these Protectorate districts should be divided up among sub-commissioners, who should each reside in his allotted district. They should be responsible directly to the district commissioner, and they should represent to him constantly the chiefs' council of the sub-district and the trade, and on the other hand represent trade and the Ober Hoheit things to the native chiefs.