THE PRESERVATION OF THE NATIONAL LIFE
Among those to whom the government of the coloured races of mankind
appears in the light of a sacred trust committed to an Imperial white
people, as to the servants of that people possessing the widest
experience in the practice of such government, the preservation of the
national life of these races must be a matter of paramount importance.
Increased knowledge born of familiarity in the art of tropical government
and of anthropological knowledge, a clearer realization of human needs
which an expanding mental horizon brings with it, are teaching us many
things. They are teaching us that there can be no common definition
of progress or common standard for all mankind; that the highest
human attainments are not necessarily reached on parallel lines; that
man’s place and part in the universe around him must vary with the
dissimilarities of race and environment; that what may spell advance
for some races at a particular stage in their evolution may involve
retrogression, if not destruction, for other races in another stage;
that humanity cannot be legislated for as though every section of it
were modelled on the same pattern; that to disregard profound divergence
in culture and racial necessities is to court disaster, and that to
encourage national growth to develop on natural lines and the unfolding
of the mental processes to proceed by gradual steps, is the only method
by which the exercise of the Imperial prerogative can be morally
justified. Our one and only conspicuous Imperial failure was due to a
misguided belief that we could, and that it was desirable in our own
interests that we should, crush out nationality by violence. It inflicted
upon the victims immense misery and upon the performers embarrassments
which have endured for centuries. Elsewhere we are experiencing the
discomforting reflex of a policy based upon the supposition that East is
capable of assimilation with West under alien guidance. British India is
rent with confusion and mentally unsettled by a jumble of conflicting
ideals, to which the Protected Native States offer a contrast that cannot
but carry with it its own very significant lessons.
All the good work accomplished in Northern Nigeria during the last seven
years can be flung away by a refusal to benefit from experience in other
parts of the world. In pleading for the slow but sure policy everywhere
in Nigeria, and in pleading that where in Nigeria national life has
already expanded through the exercise of its own internal forces into
organized communities, possessing their own laws and customs, their own
machinery of government and their own well-defined characteristics, that
national life shall be protected, preserved and strengthened to enable
it to bear the strain of new conditions, one is pleading, it seems to
me, for the true welfare of the people and for the highest concept of
Imperialism.
These considerations hold good as regards every branch of European
activity. Effective British political control does not require constant
encroachments of departmental activity. British industrial interests can
be allowed to find a natural outlet in the ordinary play of economic
forces without calling upon Government assistance, for example, to
undermine a national weaving industry in which, as Barth remarked of
it many years ago, there is something that is “truly grand,” giving
employment and support as it does to innumerable families without
compelling them to sacrifice their domestic habits or to pass their lives
in immense establishments detrimental to health. British commercial
necessities do not demand that the big native cities should be thrown
open to the White trader, who can pursue his useful avocations just
as well, and certainly with much greater regard to health conditions,
outside than inside them. In the same way the advent of the missionary
into the organized Mohammedan provinces of the north before the country
is ripe to receive them, would be a positive danger, besides being an act
perilously akin to a breach of faith. Surely we have become sufficiently
intelligent to take a broadly human view of these things? There is a
field in pagan Northern and pagan Southern Nigeria sufficiently extensive
to occupy all the energies of all the missions put together, without
invading the heart of Moslem Nigeria. The advent of Christian missions
into Kano or Katsina or Sokoto, for example, would be regarded as an
act of aggression. Their presence in Zaria is a great mistake, and I
make bold to assert that it is only comparable to a man smoking a pipe
on a barrel of gunpowder. We hold this newly occupied country by the
force of our prestige, far more than by the very small number of native
troops in our service. That it is the duty of Government to prevent
the introduction of elements, whatever their character and however
lofty their motives, whose presence is calculated to cause unrest, is
sufficiently self-evident as not to need emphasizing. No Government can
afford to disregard so clear a view as that formulated, for example, in
the Emir of Kano’s letter given in Chapter VIII. But one would desire, if
possible, that the leaders of the Christian Churches themselves should be
brought to appreciate the justice of the contention. The establishment
of Christian missions in the Mohammedan Emirates would not succeed in
damming up the self-propelling currents of Islamic propaganda which are
permeating Nigerian paganism. That is the true problem which the Churches
have to face.
The question of economic development is on the same plane. That peace,
the advent of railways and the growth of population will eventually
result in the creation of a large commercial movement of affairs with
Northern Nigeria—apart from the mineral output—is not to be doubted. But
exaggeration as regards immediate prospects is to be deprecated, and
the claims of economic development, important as they are, should not
be allowed to play too great a part in administrative solicitude. The
main concern of the Administration for the next few years should be that
of placing the political, financial and educational organization of the
country upon secure foundations. Political unrest and social confusion
are stumbling-blocks to commercial progress, and everything should be
done to avoid them. Those in a position to realize the marvels already
accomplished in this region of Africa by the handful of British officials
administering the country, and the many problems requiring on the part
of those who are called upon to deal with them the utmost delicacy and
tact in adjustment, cannot but enter a _caveat_ against all tendencies,
from whatever source they may emanate, be they of self-interest or of
unselfish devotion, to “rush” Northern Nigeria. Rapid expansion does
not necessarily mean progress. Sometimes it means exactly the reverse.
Let us, rendered wise by experience elsewhere, set our faces like flint
against the “Europeanizing” of Northern Nigeria. In Sierra Leone, in the
Gold Coast, in the Western Provinces of Southern Nigeria we have daily
object-lessons of the deplorable results of this denationalizing process.
That Northern Nigeria should be preserved from it must be the earnest
wish of all who are acquainted with its peoples and alive to their
possibilities.