AN UNAUTHORIZED SCHEME OF AMALGAMATION
An effort was made in the previous chapter to depict some of the
disadvantages and drawbacks arising, and likely to become accentuated
with time, from the dual administrative control now obtaining in
Nigeria. For the following suggestions as to the character amalgamation
could assume, the writer claims no more than that they may, perhaps,
constitute an attempt, put forward with much diffidence, to indicate a
few constructive ideas which might form the basis for expert discussion.
The objects an amalgamation might be expected to secure, apart from the
inconveniences needing removal, would, in the main, be four in number.
(_a_) Financial management directed not only to meeting present needs
but to making provision for the future. (_b_) The right sort of man
to fill the important and onerous post of Governor-General. (_c_) The
division of the territory into Provinces corresponding as far as possible
with natural geographical boundaries and existing political conditions,
involving as few changes as possible. (_d_) A comprehensive scheme of
public works.
These various points can, in the limits of a chapter, be best examined
collectively.
In the accompanying map Nigeria is divided into four great Provinces. I.
The Northern or Sudan Province, comprising the regions where a Mohammedan
civilization has existed for many centuries, and where the majority of
the people, except in Kontagora, are Muslims. The ruling families in
Kontagora are, however, so closely related with those of Sokoto that
it would probably be found expedient to incorporate the former into
the same Province, which would, therefore, consist of Sokoto, Kano,
Bornu, the Zaria Emirate and Kontagora. Its headquarters would be Kano.
II. The Central Province, comprising the pagan section of the present
Zaria province, _i.e._ Zaria outside the limits of the Emirate proper,
and the Nassarawa, Bauchi, Niger, Yola, and Muri (north of the Benue)
provinces. It is not quite easy to forecast where the centre of gravity
of the Central Province will ultimately fall, but if, as is possible, the
Bauchi highlands become in time a second Simla for the Central Executive,
the headquarters of the Central Province would presumably be fixed at
Zungeru, the present capital of the Northern Protectorate. III. The
Western Province, comprising all that is now incorporated in the existing
western province of Southern Nigeria, plus—to the north—Kabba, Ilorin
and Borgu, while the right bank of the Forcados and Niger would form the
eastern boundary, the boundaries of the Province following natural lines.
Its headquarters would be Oshogbo, or its immediate neighbourhood. IV.
The Eastern Province, comprising what is now the eastern province of
South Nigeria, but with its western frontier coterminous with the left
bank of the Niger and Forcados and its northern frontiers pushed up to
the south bank of the Benue, embracing Bassa and part of Muri, Yola,
however, being left, for political reasons, in the Central Province, as
noted above. Its headquarters would be Old Calabar, the starting-point of
the future eastern railway (see map).
Each of these great provinces would be ruled by a Lieutenant-Governor,
with Residents and Assistant Residents under him, and, wherever possible,
the present political boundaries of what are now provinces, but would
become known as districts and sub-districts, would be retained. Thus in
the Northern or Sudan Province nothing would be changed in this respect,
save the separation of Mohammedan Zaria from pagan Zaria; nothing would
be changed in the Central Province, so far as the units remaining within
it were concerned, except the division of Muri, which would offer no
political embarrassments. The enlargement of the Eastern Province as
proposed, would in some respects facilitate the work of administration
and would not cut across any ethnic divisions. In the Western Province
the principal alteration would be the re-grouping of the different Yoruba
sections in their old state form (_vide_ Part II.) under a Resident
who would reside at Oyo; Ilorin, Kabba, and Borgu would remain under
Residents as at present. Warri (the capital of the existing central
province of Southern Nigeria) would become the seat of a Residency for
the Bini, Sobo, Ijaw and Jekri speaking peoples.
Lagos town would continue to be what the expenditure of much money, and
the enterprise of the Yorubas, have made it, the commercial emporium of
at least the western portion of the Protectorate, and the headquarters
of the small surrounding area known as the “Colony” (_vide_ Part II.),
administered by a “Lagos Council,” which would replace the present “Lagos
Legislative Council,” and be composed of much the same elements as the
latter now consists of, presided over by a Resident. The functions of the
Lagos Council would be confined to the Colony.
The headquarters of the Governor-General and the central seat of
Government would be the high plateau immediately behind Lokoja, known as
Mount Patte, situated in the very centre of the Protectorate, commanding
the Niger and the Benue, within easy steam of Baro the starting-point of
the central railway, and linked up with the western railway by a branch
line to Oshogbo as indicated on the map. The Governor-General would
be assisted by an Executive and Legislative Council. Of the former the
Lieutenant-Governors and Senior Residents would be _ex officio_ members,
together with the Chief Justice, the Colonial Secretary, the Financial
Secretary, and the officer commanding the troops. The official members
of the Legislative Council would include the Directors of rail and river
transport, of public works, of agriculture, of forestry and of commercial
intelligence; the Director of mining; and the Principal Medical Officer.
The unofficial members would include selected representatives of the
educated native community, and, later on, one or two distinguished
Mallams, and selected representatives of the European commercial and
mining communities.
Possibly, in course of time, the work of the Council could be carried
out in conjunction with periodical Durbars attended by all the important
Emirs, but in no case would the functions of the Council be allowed to
conflict with the Native Administrations of the Mohammedan Provinces.
[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF NIGERIA, SHOWING SUGGESTED REARRANGEMENT OF
PROVINCES.]
The method of handling the finances of the Protectorate would depend to
a large extent upon the capacity of the Home Government, in conjunction
with the potential Governor-General and other advisers, to map out ahead
a considered scheme of railway construction and improvement of fluvial
communications, which would proceed from year to year and for which
provision would be made. The whole problem of communications, both rail
and river, ought to be placed under a special department, subject to
periodical inspection by an independent expert sent out from home by the
Colonial Office, and the services of consulting engineers in England
disposed of if possible. The situation financially lends itself, in a
general sense, to a certain boldness of treatment and departure from
ordinary British West African precedent. Two distinct classes of budgets
might with advantage, perhaps, be evolved, viz. a Colonial budget and
the Provincial budgets. In other words, there would be a central budget
and four local budgets, one for each Province. The Colonial budget would
be fed by the customs revenue, the whole of which would be credited to
it. (It may be estimated that two or three years hence the total customs
revenue collected in Nigeria will amount to £2,500,000.) It would be
augmented by the profits on the railways, the mining royalties, harbour
dues, and pilotage fees (there should be a system of public pilotage on
the waterways). The Protectorate could be authorized to raise a loan
on its own recognizances of £5,000,000 redeemable in a term of years.
This loan would be expended in a succession of public works—some of the
necessary lines of rail are indicated in the map—in accordance with the
scheme of construction mapped out as previously suggested. The Colonial
budget would determine the successive instalments of expenditure out
of loans, and would provide the interest on the new loan and on the
existing loan of £5,000,000 contracted by Southern Nigeria (for public
works in Southern and Northern Nigeria). The revenues of the Colonial
budget from whatever source derived, other than from loans, would be
distributed by the Governor-General in council for the administration
of the four Provinces in accordance with their respective needs. These
needs would show marked variation for some years to come. For instance,
the hypothetical Northern and Central Provinces (_i.e._ the territory
which now comprises the bulk of Northern Nigeria), relying upon the
increasing regularity and juster assessment of internal direct taxation,
the nature of which may roughly be termed a graduated property tax, might
be expected to advance steadily towards the self-supporting stage. When
that stage had been reached, the surplus would be set aside under the
Provincial budget for extending the system of fixed salaries to native
officials, for expenditure on provincial public works and economic
research, improvements in sanitation, and so on, in collaboration
with the native authorities of its various sections. A portion of my
hypothetical Northern or Sudan Province is already self-supporting,
viz. Kano. Indeed, but for the military establishment the whole of that
Province would be showing to-day a handsome surplus and, apart from the
public works to be met out of loans, would require—even if it continued
to be debited with the military establishment—very little assistance from
the Colonial budget. The hypothetical Central Province would require more
assistance for a time, but, as in the Northern Province, the basis of an
expanding land revenue is securely laid and a not inconsiderable mineral
development bringing revenue, apart from royalties, is assured to it. On
the other hand, most of the hypothetical Western Province and almost the
whole of the Eastern Province—_i.e._ in combination, Southern Nigeria of
to-day—produces no internal revenue whatever except licences, the amount
derived from which will assuredly grow but will not become really large
for many years. Therefore, until and unless the delicate problem of
introducing direct taxation among peoples—the majority of whom we have
been in touch with for years without requiring of them the payment of
any form of tribute—were approached, the Colonial budget would have to
furnish these Provinces with most of their administrative revenues.
An alternative scheme would be to abandon the idea of a Central
Legislative Council for the whole Protectorate and of a new
administrative headquarters, the Governor-General spending a certain
time at the headquarters of each Province. Lagos would, under such a
scheme, become the capital of the extended Western Province (see map),
and the action of the Lagos Legislative Council would extend to the
whole of that Province. A Legislative Council would be created for the
extended Eastern Province. The administrative machinery of the new
Central and Northern Provinces would be left as it is now. On the finance
side the alternative scheme to the one I have sketched would be to let
each Province contribute to the Colonial budget in accordance with its
capacities upon a definite proportionate basis, the sums thus accruing
to the Colonial budget, _plus_ the loan funds, being utilized in the
creation of public works on the lines already sketched. This alternative
scheme, amalgamation on federation, would possess some advantages over
the first, and compares unfavourably with it in others.
It will be objected that these suggestions do not take into account
the present military expenditure of the Protectorates and are dumb
with regard to the Imperial grant to Northern Nigeria. I have left a
consideration of these two questions until now because they can, I think,
be taken together. The military establishment of Southern Nigeria costs
£100,000 per annum. That of Northern Nigeria costs £160,000 per annum.
Neither is excessive in itself, although in the latter case it amounts to
no less than 33 per cent. of the total expenditure of the Protectorate!
It is not one penny too much, and to reduce the number of troops would
be folly, having regard to the immensity of the country and the kind of
political problem facing us. And yet could anything be more topsy-turvey?
Here is a financially struggling Protectorate urgently in need of the
most vital necessities; incapable even of building decent houses for
its over-worked and short-handed staff; forced to deprive the latter of
even their travelling allowances, and to sacrifice considerations of
reasonable comfort and, therefore, of health for its _personnel_; in a
position to pay so little for posts of enormous responsibility that the
entire political expenditure is only some £70,000 per annum; able to
devote but a miserable £1300 a year upon economic forestry, but saddled
with this incubus of £160,000 upon a military establishment which has
already been called upon (in the case of the last Ashanti war) to provide
contingents for service outside the Protectorate, which would infallibly
happen again, in the by no means remote contingencies of a further
outbreak in Ashanti or disturbances in the Sierra Leone hinterland. This
situation needs to be examined in conjunction with the Imperial grant
about which so much fuss is made.
The nation imagines that Northern Nigeria is costing the Imperial
Treasury something like £250,000 to £300,000 per annum. Nothing of
the kind. The grants in aid from 1906 to 1909, inclusive, amounted to
£1,220,000, or an average of £305,000. But against this must be set
the direct profit to the revenues of the United Kingdom derived from
the profit which the Mint makes upon the silver coin exported, in ever
increasing quantities (and the process will go on extending), to the two
Nigerias. The average yearly cost of silver in the last nine years has,
I believe, varied between 2_s._ 0¾_d._ and 2_s._ 6⅞_d._ The coin at par
value is issued at 5_s._ 6_d._ an ounce, and I am credibly informed that
the profit to the Mint is considerably more than half the net import by
Nigeria, seeing that half the face value of the coinage is greater than
the cost of minting, plus maintenance of gold reserve and provision for
remitting. The net export of coinage, virtually the whole of it silver,
to the two Nigerias (_i.e._ the total exported _minus_ the coin returned)
amounted from 1906 to 1909 to £981,582. If the profit of the Mint is
taken at only 50 per cent., it will thus be seen that the nation is
making a direct average profit of nearly £125,000 a year out of the two
Nigerias, against an average of £305,000 paid to Northern Nigeria by way
of a temporary grant in aid. To say, therefore, that Northern Nigeria
is costing the British taxpayer a quarter of a million a year or more,
is to make a statement which is not in accordance with fact. What the
nation advances directly, it recoups itself for directly in part; without
counting that these grants are in the nature of a capital investment.
Let this grant under amalgamation be cancelled, and let the Imperial
Government, on the other hand, foot the bill for the military expenditure
(which, as we have seen, amounts to £260,000), looking upon it, say, for
the next ten years as Imperial expenditure. Nothing would so alleviate
the whole situation, while at the same time simplifying it, and, as has
been shown, the actual disbursement of the nation on this item would be
considerably less, even now, than what it would appear nominally to be,
owing to the profit made by the Mint on the silver coin sent out.
As already explained, the above proposals, illustrated in part by the
accompanying map, are put forward merely as a basis for the discussion
of a problem of some difficulty but of great urgency. I claim for them
nothing more than that, and no conceivable scheme of amalgamation
could be set down which would not lend itself to copious criticism.
But that the mush of anomalies now obtaining cannot be perpetuated
without increasing detriment to Imperial interests in Nigeria, I am
fully persuaded. The existence of two public policies side by side in
a single territorial area, where internal peace is rapidly fusing the
indigenous communities, divided by an imaginary line which does not even
correspond to natural boundaries and exhibiting multiple differences of
aim and method—in some cases, acutely antagonistic interests—presents
many obvious inconveniences and paves the way for future embarrassments
of every kind. If these remarks can influence in any way an early and
serious examination of the problem by the Colonial Office, they will
not, however open to criticism, have been made in vain. Amalgamation
must come. All realize that. Unforeseen events might very well, at a
given moment, compel decisions of far-reaching moment being precipitately
reached without due consideration being given to all the features of
the case, such as characterized the amalgamation of the Lagos Colony
and Protectorate with old Southern Nigeria in 1899. The advantages of
clear thinking out ahead, and of taking the inevitable step before the
situation has got tied up into more knots than it already contains,
with calm deliberation, after a full and serious study of all the
facts, surely needs no emphasizing. As to the man, a last word. The
responsibility of selecting the official to be in supreme control
over the amalgamated Nigerias is no light one. The task confronting a
Governor-General, especially in the first five years, will be replete
with difficulties. The post will need heavy calls upon tact, patience,
and a peculiarly high type of constructive statesmanship. The only remark
I would venture to make on the point is this. Any serious administrative
error perpetrated in handling affairs in the north would be attended with
consequences of exceeding gravity. That is a proposition I think no one
will be inclined to dispute. It suggests either that the Governor-General
himself should be personally acquainted with the political conditions
of what is now known as Northern Nigeria, or, at least, that the
Lieutenant-Governors of the hypothetical Northern and Central Provinces
should be chosen from among the most experienced of the existing Senior
Residents.
PART IV
ISLAM, COTTON GROWING, AND THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC
CHAPTER I
CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA
I have referred to Christian missionary propaganda in Mohammedan Northern
Nigeria. There has now to be considered the question of Christian
missionary propaganda in Southern Nigeria, and the corresponding growth
therein of Mohammedanism. The relative failure of the one and the
admitted success of the other are at present the subject of much debate
and give anxious thought to the heads of the Church. The fundamental
cause appears to lie in a disinclination to face the fact, however
obvious, that a religion which took centuries upon centuries to take root
in Europe, owing, very largely, to its ethical demands upon man, cannot
hope to establish itself in the now accessible tropical forest regions
of West Africa in a few decades, while a religion embodying a distinct
advance upon paganism but not involving the complete structural change
in native society which the Christian Church exacts, has every chance of
doing so. Then, too, there is another question which the ecclesiastical
authorities may never, it is true, find it possible frankly to confront,
but which laymen, it seems to me, are bound to do—those, at any rate, who
are persuaded that the African race is one of the great races of mankind,
not intended by the Almighty Architect to disappear from the scene of
human affairs. I refer to the physiological requirements, in the present
age, of the Nigerian forest peoples in their struggles with the forces of
primeval Nature.
All that remains of the Portuguese attempts to Christianize the deltaic
region of Nigeria in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are a few
names and the addition of crucifixion to native punishments of criminals
or happy despatch of sacrificial victims. The chief obstacle to the
modern efforts of the Anglo-Saxon in Southern Nigeria and the real
explanation of the successful modern efforts of the African Muslim, are
to be sought in the appeal respectively made by Christianity and Islam
to the patriarchal communities to which they are addressed, and in the
methods and character of the respective propaganda. Christianity in
West Africa either cannot be divorced, or cannot divorce itself, from
Europeanism and the twentieth century. It remains for the people of
Nigeria, and of all West Africa, an alien religion taught by aliens who
cannot assimilate themselves to the life of the people. Islam, on the
other hand, has long ceased to be an alien religion. It is imparted by
Africans. It is disseminated by Africans. It has its roots in the soil.
It has become a religion of the people, losing much of its rigidity and
fanaticism as it works down to the coast absorbing the true negro.
Everything is against Christianity as presented to the Nigerian (I
venture to emphasize this), and everything is in favour of Islam,
although Christianity, in itself, contains more that should appeal to
the Negro character than does Mohammedanism. The conditions of Southern
Nigeria are the conditions of the Old Testament. The crying need of
the country, as of all western tropical Africa, is the need which
is proclaimed in, and stamps itself upon, every page of the book of
Genesis, the Divinely ordained requirement—population. Vice plays only a
microscopic part in the relationship of sex in Nigeria. Race propagation
is the motive force which regulates sexual relationship. The Nigerian,
incessantly striving with the destructive agencies of Nature, responds
to the instinctive and mysterious call of racial necessity. Infant
mortality is terrible. With the Nigerian the reproduction of the species
is the paramount, if unanalyzed and, no doubt, uncomprehended obsession.
It must continue to be so for a period whose limit will be determined by
the rate of his progression in coping with these destructive agencies.
This is not the place to discuss what the attitude of the Christian
missionary should be to this paramount racial need, but it is obvious
that his insistence upon an acceptance of a sex relationship contrary
to the promptings of Nature must present a barrier—one of the greatest,
if not the greatest—to the acceptance of the Christian faith, or,
perhaps, it would be better to say, of orthodox Christianity. One might
be permitted, perhaps, to suggest that those who are disposed to regard
the condition of the Nigerian forest-dweller in these matters as calling
for hard and rigid regulation, are too prone to forget what Lecky
describes as the “appalling amount of moral evil, festering uncontrolled,
undiscussed and unalleviated under the fair surface of a decorous
society,” in civilized Europe, monogamistic social laws notwithstanding.
Sex relationship, whatever its character and whatever the conditions of
society or climate, is never, and can never be, free from abuses. West
African polygamy contains many ugly sores, and so does the European
system.
Family bonds are equally threatened by Christianity, _as propounded
to the Nigerian_, for it trains the child, whether deliberately or
otherwise, to look upon his parents as living a life of sin, thus
introducing a subversive element into the household. Those who assert the
absence of affections and sanctities in Nigerian family life assert that
which is untrue. Native authority is likewise menaced, for how can the
convert entertain his former respect for rulers whom he has been taught
to regard as morally and spiritually his inferiors? These are some of the
reasons why Christianity, _as propounded to the Nigerian_, at the opening
of the twentieth century, presents itself to him in the light of a
hurtful and disintegrating influence. And this creed is proffered either
by aliens between whom and the inner life of the people there yawns an
unbridgeable gulf, or by denationalized Africans who have become in the
eyes of the people, strangers well-nigh as complete as the alien himself,
part and parcel of the alien’s machinery. As if these did not constitute
sufficient deterrents to the permanency of its footing, the alien race
which tenders to the Nigerian this creed—this creed claiming for all men
equality before God—is the conquering, controlling, governing race that
scorns to admit—because, being an Imperial race, it cannot—equality of
racial status with the Nigerian whom it subjugates and controls. Between
the race of the converter and that of the would-be convert there gapes
an abyss of racial and social inequality which does not lessen, but, if
anything, widens with conversion—the colour line.
Finally, there is the lamentable intolerance displayed by Christian
proselytizers towards one another. Only the other day I read in a West
African newspaper the address of a white American Protestant Bishop,
whose sphere of work lies in Africa, to his flock. This episcopalian
interpreter of the Gospel of Christian charity to the benighted African
is concerned in his address with the downfall of the Portuguese Monarchy
and the accession of the Republic which, he says, “opens wide every
door leading to Christian work among millions of native Africans.” He
proceeds: “Of course Rome howls. On October 13, 1910, among weeping
Jesuits, speaking of the new nation, the Pope said ‘A cursed Republic!
Yes, I curse it!’ The curse of Balaam against the people of God was
turned into a blessing by Jehovah; and so, too, will this blasphemy be
turned into a blessing to the struggling people of Portugal.”
Islam, on the other hand, despite its shortcomings, does not, from the
Nigerian point of view, demand race suicide of the Nigerian as an
accompaniment of conversion. It does not stipulate revolutionary changes
in social life, impossible at the present stage of Nigerian development;
nor does it undermine family or communal authority. Between the converter
and converted there is no abyss. Both are equal, not in theory, but in
practice, before God. Both are African; sons of the soil. The doctrine
of the brotherhood of man is carried out in practice. Conversion does
not mean for the converted a break with his interests, his family, his
social life, his respect for the authority of his natural rulers. He
is not left stranded, as the Christian Church, having once converted,
leaves him, a pitiful, rudderless barque upon a troubled sea. He does
not become, through conversion, an alien in thought, in custom, and in
outlook; a foreigner in his own land, a citizen of none. He remains
African, attached to his country, looking for inspiration inwards,
rather than towards an alien civilization across thousands of miles of
unknown seas. No one can fail to be impressed with the carriage, the
dignity of the Nigerian—indeed, of the West African—Mohammedan; the
whole bearing of the man suggests a consciousness of citizenship, a
pride of race which seems to say: “We are different, thou and I, but
we are _men_.” The spread of Islam in Southern Nigeria which we are
witnessing to-day is mainly social in its action. It brings to those
with whom it comes in contact a higher status, a loftier conception of
man’s place in the universe around him, release from the thraldom of a
thousand superstitious fears. It resembles in its progress the annual
overflow of the Niger diffusing its waters over the land. The extensive
ramifications of internal trade, now greatly fostered by the construction
of additional roads and railways and rendered wholly safe by the _pax
britannica_, leads to the multiplying of facilities for human intercourse
among the various peoples of the Protectorate. The Hausa pushes ever
further south his commercial operations. The Delta, and still more the
Western Province, yearly attest to the widening area of his activities.
Not to be outdone, his trading rival the Yoruba taps in additional
numbers the markets of the north. Railway construction finds the
Mohammedan labouring side by side with the pagan in the same trench. A
sense of security and the increasing circulation of a portable medium of
exchange in the shape of silver and nickel coinage attract to the great
native markets of the Central Province, such as Onitsha, for example,
the tattoed pagan Ibo and his pagan colleagues the Anams, Katundas, and
Kukurukus, where they rub shoulders with the Mohammedan Hausa, Nupe,
and Igarra. In and around Ibadan, Oyo, and Lagos you meet the Kano and
Sokoto trader with his donkeys and pack-bullocks, and even the Tuareg
with whom you parted company months before in the far north, travelling
on the roads or camping for the night near some local village. The road
is at once the club-house and public rendezvous for Nigerian humanity.
A vast commingling, a far-reaching fusion unexampled in the history of
these peoples is taking place. The expansion of an African religion
which, somehow, succeeds in investing the convert with a spiritual and
social standing that at once raise him among his fellows, follows as a
matter of course. The Mohammedan teacher wanders over the face of the
country visiting the centres of human activity, haunting the roads and
market-places, unattended, carrying neither purse nor scrip, making no
attempt at proselytizing beyond saying his prayers in public, not in a
manner to cause obstruction, but quietly in some corner; waiting until
people come to him, literally fulfilling the command, “Take nothing for
your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money,
neither have two coats apiece.” The Mohammedan trader or agriculturist
settles in a pagan village, marries pagan women, enters the family and
social circle of the community and imparts to it his faith, the women
making even readier converts than the men.
This is why and this is how Islam is propagating itself and taking root
in pagan Nigeria without financial outlay, without doles and collecting
boxes. One of the oldest of Christian missionaries in Nigeria, a man of
venerable appearance and saintly character, who for twenty-five years
has laboured with hands as well as with heart and head for moral and
material improvement, not of his converts only, but of their unconverted
relatives, confessed to me his fear that nothing could stop Islam from
absorbing in course of time the whole of West Africa. He was almost
disposed reluctantly to allow that in the providence of God, Islam might
prove to be intended as the halfway house through the portals of which
it was necessary the West African negro should pass in order to lift him
out of a sterilizing paganism and make him a fitter vessel to receive
in course of time the nobler ideals of the Christian faith. Sir Harry
Johnston is right, I think, when he says that “to Negro Africa,” Islam
has come “as a great blessing, raising up savages to a state, at any
rate of semi-civilization, making them God-fearing, self-respecting,
temperate, courageous, and picturesque.” But Islam does more than this;
it preserves racial identity. In West Africa, Christianity destroys
racial identity. It should not: as taught it does.
“Picturesque,” says Sir Harry Johnston, and there speaks the artist. But
the word covers a profound truth. A great deal of the denationalizing or
Anglicizing process which is going on and which makes bad Africans and
bad Christians, is attributable to the discarding of the national dress.
Why cannot the Administration and the missionary societies combine in
some practical, positive form, to combat this curse of alien dress? There
is absolutely nothing to be said in its favour. The West African looks
better in African dress, the robe of the Mohammedan and of many pagan
Africans. It is much healthier for him. It is preservative of his racial
identity; and that is, perhaps, the most important of all pleas which can
be put forward for its retention. With very slight modification—such as
one sees among the native staff, and personal servants in many parts of
Northern Nigeria—it can be made suitable for any form of labour, literary
or otherwise. Clad in his national dress the African has a dignity which
in most cases he loses almost entirely when he attires himself in a
costume totally unfitted for the country, and hideous at best. Nothing
to my mind is more pitiable than to visit school after school in West
Africa, filled with little boys and girls and big boys and girls in an
alien dress, to see the denationalizing process going on day after day
and nothing whatever done to stop it. In the case of the women it is not
only dignity and nationalism which are concerned, but decency as well.
The national dress of the women in West Africa is classical and graceful,
and although leaving more of the body exposed than is usual at home
(except in the ballroom) it lacks suggestiveness. It does not accentuate
the figure. It emphasizes that racial difference—not inequality, but
_difference_—which it is so essential to emphasize. With the substitution
of European dress, especially of the prevailing fashion, the West African
woman loses much of what she need never lose, and acquires that which
is of no profit to her. These things cannot be altered in a day, nor
would it be possible in some cases for the present adult generation to
go back to African costume. But it would in many cases, and the reform
could be at once taken in hand so far as the children are concerned.
Government could do much. The missionary societies could do more. The
anglicised native community could do most. I believe that if some popular
Government official, known and trusted, could be led to appeal, in
private conference to the native staff and win them over, the movement
once started would spread and have enormously beneficial results. That
many members of the anglicised community would be hostile goes without
saying—that is the fault of the wretched system everywhere at work.
That a body of thoughtful men would not, I am satisfied by the many
representations on this very subject personally made to me. I shall
always recollect, in particular, the private visit paid to me in one of
the great Yoruba towns by one of the leading merchants of the place.
A magnificent specimen of an African, dressed in African costume and
speaking our language fluently, he came with the usual touching words and
gifts, and begged me very earnestly to take up the question of dress with
his compatriots.
And, in conclusion, there is another and a very serious handicap upon
Christianity in West Africa, in Southern Nigeria especially. Under the
native social system, religion and politics—the religious organization
and the political organization—go together. It is inconceivable to the
native mind that they should be separate or antagonistic. Islam, again,
preserves this ingrained conviction. But in West Africa the political
and religious organizations of the white man are separate and distinct.
The religious organization itself is split up into countless opposing
sections. And in Southern Nigeria the section specially identified in
the native mind with the white over-lord has for some years past played
a discordant note in that white over-lord’s political organization.
Its representatives are almost everywhere, and upon many subjects
persistently hostile critics of the Administration, begetting unrest and
disloyalty to Government. The mass of native opinion concludes there is
something rotten in the system presented to it, and the Islamic wave
rolls on.
CHAPTER II
THE COTTON INDUSTRY
Is Nigeria a cotton-growing country? Is an export trade in cotton, of
any large dimensions, a possibility—early or remote? I will endeavour to
answer these questions to the best of my ability. I am not, however, an
expert on cotton-growing, and I am in general sympathy with the work the
British Cotton-growing Association is trying to carry out, although, as
will be seen, I am not entirely in agreement with all its methods, either
here or in Nigeria. To that extent it will be possible for any one who
wants to do so to discount the views here expressed.
One of the earliest impressions one forms out there is the contrast
between the presentation of the case at home and conditions on the spot.
The view at home—somewhat modified by recent events—has seemed to be
inspired by the idea that if the number of square miles which Nigeria
covers is totted up in one column and the number of inhabitants it
supposedly contains in another and these totals compared with conditions
in the cotton belt of North America, then you arrive at a conclusion
which enables you to speak of the “huge possibilities” of Nigeria, and
even to forecast that Northern Nigeria alone “at some future date” will
be able “to supply the whole of the requirements of Great Britain and to
leave an equal quantity over for the other cotton-consuming countries.”
Four years ago a prominent British statesman declared publicly that
“once the fly belt near the river was passed ... cotton would be grown
under exactly the same conditions as it was grown under on such a great
scale in America.” He went so far as to say that the native of Northern
Nigeria was “beginning to cease to grow cotton” because he could get
British manufactured goods in lieu of his home-grown article. Well,
between these statements and actualities there is a “huge” gulf fixed.
In the first place it can be said of Nigeria that in a part of it only
is cotton now grown, and that in a part of it only will cotton ever be
grown. To talk of Nigeria, as a whole, being a cotton-growing country
_par excellence_, either now or potentially, is absurd. Three-fourths
of Southern Nigeria and a third, probably more, of Northern Nigeria are
quite unsuitable for cotton-growing, and this for many reasons. To talk
of Nigeria supplying the whole requirements of Great Britain (to say
nothing of the promised surplus) is tantamount to saying that some day
“Pleasant Sunday Afternoon” excursions to the moon will be a regular
feature of the national life. Both may become possible “at some future
date,” but there is so much future about the date that such flights of
rhetoric might well be left to the compilers of gold-mining prospectuses.
These extravagances have not helped the Association. The sincere and
sober persons connected with that body are merely hindered by them. As
to cotton being produced in Northern Nigeria under the “same conditions”
as in the States, and the natives of the country “beginning to cease” to
grow cotton, one can only remark that they are too silly to deal with.
In Southern Nigeria, the deltaic region, the Eastern Province, virtually
the whole of the Central Province, and a considerable portion of the
Western Province—_i.e._, four-fifths of the whole Protectorate—may be
ruled out of account as a cotton field. The deltaic region will not
produce cotton. The forest belt behind it, passing (with occasional
breaks) from dense to secondary growth and fading away into open country,
no doubt would. But only if you cut down the forest first. To destroy
the West African forest to any extent in order to grow cotton would be
economic madness. Indeed, the Administration is working hard to preserve
the forests from the ignorance and improvidence of primitive man, and to
build up for the native communities, and in the public interest, a source
of future revenue from the methodical exploitation of its inexhaustible
wealth. With trifling exceptions the whole of this region is the home of
the oil-palm, the most beneficent tree in the world, and such activities
as the inhabitants can spare from their own requirements are given
over, in the main, to the palm oil and kernel trades. It is the home of
valuable cabinet woods, of vegetable oils, gums, and rubbers, and in
time is likely to become a great natural nursery for the cultivation of
plantation rubber and such a moisture-loving plant as the cocoa; never, I
think, of cotton.
In the Western Province large areas of forest have been destroyed; the
population is, in a certain measure, more enterprising, and a fair
amount of cotton for export may reasonably be expected, especially, I
venture to suggest, if certain methods now prevalent are modified. The
Egba district (1869 square miles, with a population of 260,000), the
capital of which is Abeokuta, a town of about 100,000 inhabitants, is
the principal but not the only centre for cotton-growing in the Western
Province, and here the Association has a large and well-equipped ginnery,
as it has at Ibadan and Oshogbo. Out of 2,237,370 lbs. of lint cotton
exported from Southern Nigeria in 1908, Abeokuta and neighbourhood
was responsible for 722,893 lbs. The Egbas are good farmers and not
strangers to cotton-growing for export. The industry owes its origin
there to a Manchester man, Mr. Clegg, who introduced it at the time of
the American Civil War. In 1862 the export amounted to 1810 lbs., rising
in 1868 to over 200,000 lbs., and continuing, I believe, at that figure
or thereabouts for some years. Cotton then began to fall heavily in
price, and the Egba farmer, finding no profit in growing it, turned his
attention to other crops. The industry was revived on a much larger scale
by the Association in 1905. The exports of cotton lint from Southern
Nigeria from 1906 to 1910—_i.e._ since the Association came upon the
scene—have been as follows:—
1906 2,695,923
1907 4,089,530
1908 2,237,370
1909 4,929,646
1910 2,399,857
The total value of these five years’ output amounts to something like
£350,000. It is entirely creditable to the Association that it should
have been instrumental in reviving a decayed industry in one district and
creating one in others, and in five years to have fathered an export of
cotton to so considerable an amount. I found the best-informed opinion
in Southern Nigeria imbued with the belief that the 1911 crop will be a
poor one, though better than last year’s, but that the prospects for the
crop of 1912 are good. The newly opened ginnery at Oshogbo is said to be
doing well. The ginnery at Oyo, however, is apparently lying idle. At any
rate, it had done nothing, I was there informed, ever since it was put
up, some four years ago. A good deal seems to have been spent upon the
experimental plantation at Ibadan, with indifferent results. It has now
been taken over by the Government, whose officers, I was informed, found
it in a very neglected condition.
Personally, I do not attach, in a sense unfavourable to the growth of
the industry, much importance to the drop in the output. The field, it
must always be remembered, is small, the entire Western Province being
only 27,640 miles square, and much of it, as already stated, covered
with forest. In West Africa new industries are always liable to violent
fluctuations. The drop in the maize export is much more considerable than
the falling off in cotton. Unfavourable seasons, too much rain or too
little, late sowing, and other considerations play a determining part
in these matters. Things move very slowly in West Africa as a rule. The
cotton crop is not the easiest to handle. Compared with ground nuts,
for instance, it entails a great deal more time and trouble. All kinds
of obstacles have to be encountered and overcome which people at home
have difficulty in fully appreciating. The experimental stage of any
enterprise, especially in a place like West Africa, is bound to leave
openings for error, and error in West Africa is a costly luxury. The
Protectorate is under considerable obligations to the Association for the
good work it has done and is doing.
It seems to me that the British Cotton-growing Association may perhaps
find it advisable, so far as the Western Province of Southern Nigeria is
concerned, to reconsider two aspects of its policy. Fundamentally that
policy is without question sound—viz. the recognition that agricultural
development in West Africa can only be possible on any scale worth
mentioning when undertaken by the natives themselves. A policy of large
plantations run under white supervision by hired native labour will not
pay in West Africa, and, politically speaking, is virtually impossible.
The Association should receive public support in resisting any pressure
which might be placed upon it to alter its fundamental policy by those of
its supporters who may be impatient of a comparatively slow advance—slow,
_i.e._, in comparison with the unwise optimism displayed by some of the
Association’s friends upon public platforms. I doubt, however, if an
export trade in cotton will ever reach substantial proportions—let us
say 100,000 bales per annum twenty years hence—in the Western Province
unless the element of competition is introduced. Hitherto, by combining
with the merchants, the Association has established a fixed buying
price. In the initial stages this was a good thing. The native farmer
wanted the certainty that his crop would be purchased if he were induced
to grow it. Now that the industry is well on in its stride it may be
seriously questioned whether the Yoruba farmer, the certainty of sale
notwithstanding, will be content with the prices offered him under the
monopoly agreement now obtaining. He has always the oil palm to fall
back upon; but he has, in addition, cocoa and maize. Cocoa is rapidly
increasing, and the profit realized by the cultivator is a good one.
The timber trade, too, is growing slowly, and the forest is always
yielding fresh elements of trade. The bulk of the cotton produced in
the Western Province to-day is roughly similar to “middling American,”
which is now quoted, I believe, at 8_d._ a pound, but some of the Yoruba
cotton fetches up to 3_d._ above “middling American.” It is asserted by
the Association that 4 lbs. of seed cotton are required in the Western
Province to produce 1 lb. of lint. The native cultivator is (now)
supposed to get from the combine—_i.e._ from the Association and the
merchants, as the case may be—from 1d. to 1⅛_d._ per lb. of seed cotton.
I say “supposed,” because I was informed that the actual producer had not
always got the amount which he was understood to be getting. As regards
Northern Nigeria, until the close of last year the native had never been
paid 1_d._ a lb. cash, and I was given to understand that conditions
had been much the same in the Southern Protectorate, except at Ilushi,
where it was proved to my satisfaction that the amount of 1_d._ cash had
actually been paid.
The Association reckons, I understand, that at this rate every pound
of lint landed in Liverpool costs the Association 6½_d._ I cannot check
that figure. I merely quote it. But one may point out that in addition to
the profit at the present price of “middling American” disclosed by this
estimate, there must be a considerable profit to the Association on the
seed, which, upon arrival in England, is worth, I believe, between £5 and
£6 per ton. Moreover, as already stated, some of this Yoruba cotton is
fetching a higher price than “middling American,” and I do not think it
is beyond the mark to say that, but for the fact that the Association’s
ginneries are not continuously employed, the Association’s profits on
Southern Nigerian cotton to-day would be substantial. It must be fairly
obvious from what precedes that if the industry were placed upon an
ordinary commercial footing like any other, with merchants competing on
the spot for the raw material, the Yoruba farmer would have no difficulty
in obtaining very much more than he gets at present for his crop.
Cultivation, under those circumstances, would become proportionately
more profitable and a greater acreage would be laid out in cotton. No
doubt it would cut both ways, the native restricting his acreage when
the price fell, but it may be fairly argued that no special reason now
exists for treating the cotton industry on an artificial basis, that it
must take its chance like any other, and like any other become subject
to ordinary economic ups and downs. We cannot expect the native farmer
to concentrate upon one particular crop if he can make a greater profit
in cultivating another. No industry can develop healthily on artificial
lines. If this suggestion were thought worthy of consideration, the
Association’s _rôle_ could be confined to ginning, and, if asked to do
so, selling on commission, or that _rôle_ might be combined with buying
and selling in cases where the producers preferred to deal with the
Association, or found it more convenient to carry the cotton direct to
the various ginneries. That, no doubt, would force the Association into
competition with the merchants, and the merchants, bringing out their own
gins (if it paid them to do so), might cause the Association’s position
to become precarious. The first alternative would, therefore, appear the
most desirable, the merchants being the buyers and the Association, the
ginners, and, if necessary, sellers on commission. Each force would then
be operating within its natural orbit, and an unnatural alliance would
cease, unnatural in the sense that one price means one market, and that
one market is not an inducement to economic expansion, especially when
the price of other tropical products produced by the Yoruba farmer with
an open free market to deal in has been steadily rising during the last
few years. The Association has always contended that its primary object
is not money making, but the establishment in our oversea dependencies of
an Imperial cotton industry calculated in the course of time to relieve
Lancashire, in whole or in part, of her dangerous dependence on American
speculators.
The other point which those responsible for the management of the
Association might conceivably think over, is one that impressed me in
Northern Nigeria when inspecting the beautifully kept cotton plantations
in the Kano and Zaria provinces. I was later on to find that it was
one upon which very strong, though not unanimous, opinions were held
by persons of experience and judgment in the Southern Protectorate. A
great deal of energy, and doubtless money too, is apparently expended
by the Association in experimenting with and distributing seeds of
non-indigenous varieties of cotton. Now, although one cannot say without
careful cultivation, speaking of the north, one can at least say without
perpetually improving scientific cultivation extending over a century,
Nigeria is able to produce indigenous cotton, fetching to-day 1¼_d._,
2_d._, and even 3_d._ per lb. above “middling American.” Does not
this fact constitute the strongest of pleas for concentrating upon the
improvement of the indigenous varieties instead of distributing effort
by worrying about the introduction of exotics? If these indigenous
plants, without a century’s scientific care, can produce cotton superior
in value to “middling American,” what could they not do with a tithe of
the attention which has been lavished upon the industry in the States?
I know the experts will argue that the indigenous varieties make a lot
more wood, and that an acre planted with American varieties will yield
much more lint than an acre planted with a Nigerian variety. Not being
an expert I would not venture to dispute this. All that I would make
bold to query would be whether experiments tending to prove it have in
Nigeria been sufficiently continuous and carried out under conditions
of fairness to the indigenous cotton sufficiently conclusive to place
the matter beyond the pale of discussion. Even if this were so, I am not
sure that it could be taken as an irrefutable reply to the contention I
have ventured to put forward. For, on the other side, must be reckoned
the diseases which invariably attack all exotics, animal, vegetable, and
human, introduced into the West African forest region. At every halt
on my trek from Riga-Chikum to Kano, a matter of twelve days, wherever
I saw cotton plantations, and often enough at points on the road, I
made it my business whenever practicable to put a number of questions
to the Sarikis (chiefs) and to individual farmers on the subject of
cotton-growing. I always prefaced these questions with an assurance that
I did not belong to the Government and that I was not a commercial man,
but merely a Mallam (I believe my interpreter sometimes inserted on his
own account the word “wise” before Mallam), who travelled about and wrote
“books,” and that my friends could therefore feel satisfied that they
would not be causing me any pleasure at all by answering my questions in
any particular manner—that, in short, I did not care a row of yams what
their answer might be. One question I never failed to ask was whether the
Government had distributed seed to that particular village or in that
particular area, and if so, what result had followed the sowing of it?
Sometimes the answer was in the negative. When it was in the affirmative
it was invariably the same. The Government seed had come. It had been
sown. But it was “no good.” Now, I disclaim all attributes of wisdom in
this matter of cotton. But I beg you to believe me when I say that the
Hausa farmer is no fool.[14]
CHAPTER III
THE COTTON INDUSTRY—_continued_
Cotton is grown extensively in parts of Northern Nigeria, not for
export—outside the Hausa provinces—but for home consumption. In Kano
province—28,600 square miles in extent with 2,500,000 inhabitants,
more than one-fourth of the total population of the Protectorate—its
cultivation is accompanied by what can, without exaggeration, be termed
a national industry of weaving, manufacturing, embroidering, and dyeing
the garments, both under-garments and over-garments, which the Kano
people wear. But not the Kano people alone. For many centuries, for
nearly 1000 years probably, the Kanawa have been famed throughout the
great region comprised between the bend of the Niger and the ocean as the
expert cotton manufacturers of Africa; the most interesting region in all
the Dark Continent, where divers races have ceaselessly intermingled,
attracted thither by its fertile soil and abundant pastures; Libyan and
Berber, Egyptian and Semite, and the mysterious Fulani. Three-fourths of
the “men of the desert,” too, the fierce-eyed, black-lithamed Tuareg,
descendants of the Iberians, who roam over the vast spaces between
Tripoli and the Chad, replenish their wardrobes from the Kano looms.
Throughout Bornu, Wadai, and Baghirmi, in the northern German Cameroons
as far east as Darfur, Kano cloths hold unquestioned sway. The Kanawa are
not the only Nigerians who manufacture cotton goods; but they are the
only people among whom the industry may be truly called a national one.
As carried out in Kano province this industry adds dignity, interest,
and wealth to the life of the people, assists their inventive faculties,
intensifies their agricultural lore, and sustains several other branches
of industrial activity, binding in close alliance of material interest
the agriculturist and the artisan. It gives a healthy, attractive
employment to many thousand homes—employment carried on in the free air
of heaven, beneath the bright sunshine of Africa. It has become a part
of the national life, the pride and profit of the people. Men, women,
and children participate in it, the men clearing the ground, hoeing and
sowing, the women and children doing the picking, the women cleaning the
lint of the seeds (on flat stones), teasing, the men weaving, tailoring,
and usually, but not always, embroidering. Woven in long, narrow strips,
the manufactured article is of remarkable durability and firmness
of texture. The predominating dye is the blue of the indigo plant,
extensively cultivated for the purpose, dyepits being common all over
the province. The embroidery, both in regard to design and execution,
is astonishingly handsome, and the colours harmoniously blended. A fine
specimen of a finished _riga_—the outer robe covering the shoulders, with
an aperture for the head and neck, and falling in folds to the knee—is
a work of art of which any people in any country might be proud. It is
a very heavy garment, and it is costly. But it is suitable for the cold
nights and chilly mornings, and it lasts for years.
[Illustration: WOMEN COTTON SPINNERS.]
[Illustration: MEN WEAVING.]
It is impossible to separate the cultivation of cotton from the
agricultural pursuits of the people generally. Cotton, like cassava,
onions, ochro, pepper, ground nuts, and beans, takes its place as one of
the secondary crops. The people are primarily a people of agriculturists,
raising vast quantities of cereals year after year for home consumption
and export to other districts—guinea-corn and millet, yams, maize, a
little wheat. In the Kano Emirate or division—as distinct from what is
known as the Kano province—the population is exceedingly dense, and
virtually the whole land is under cultivation. I have seen nothing more
remarkable in the way of cultivation either in France or Flanders. And it
is all done with the _galma_, a peculiar kind of short-handled hoe, which
would break the back of an English labourer to use, but which the Hausa
will wield for hours together. The pattern of the _galma_ is of great
antiquity. It came from ancient Egypt, with the original inhabitants
probably; the plough, which was used in Egypt when intercourse was
frequent between the valleys of the Nile and Niger, never seems to have
penetrated so far West—a curious and unexplained fact.
Long, deep, broad, parallel ridges cover the surface of the land, dotted
here and there with magnificent specimens of the locust-bean tree, the
shea, the tamarind, and many other varieties, under whose shade it seems
a favourite device to grow a catch crop of pepper. How does the soil
retain, year after year, its nutritive properties? That is the secret
of the Kanawa, who from generation to generation have studied it in
conjunction with the elements, as the Niger pilots have learned to read
the face of the waters and can steer a steam launch where no white man
could without running his craft upon a sandbank, especially at low water.
That they have acquired the necessary precise knowledge as to the time to
prepare the land for sowing; when to sow and how to sow; how long to let
the land lie fallow; what soils suit certain crops; what varieties of the
same crop will succeed in some localities and what varieties in others;
how to irrigate the land situate in the vicinity of the waterways and
planted with secondary crops in the dry season; how to ensure rotation
with guinea-corn, millet, ground nuts, and beans; when to arrange with
the Fulani herdsmen to pasture their cattle upon the land—so much at
least the outsider interested in agricultural problems can gauge to some
extent. For miles and miles around Kano city one passes through a smiling
country dotted with farms, riven by fine, broad native roads lined with
hedges of euphorbias and other plants.
Great care is lavished upon the cotton and cassava plantations—the two
chief secondary crops. When the cotton fields are in the neighbourhood
of a road, and very often when they are not, they are surrounded by tall
fencing, eight to ten feet in height, usually composed of reeds and
grass or guinea-corn stalks, to protect them from the depredations of
cattle, sheep, and goats, all of which abound. In April and May, with the
advent of the early rains, the land is cleared and hoed into furrows and
ridges. Along the ridges drills are made at a distance of two and a half
to three feet apart, the seed dropped in, and the ridge hoed up. In some
districts, however, this custom is varied by the ridges being made after
the sowing. The water lies in the hollows between the ridges, prevents
the seeds from being washed away by the torrential downpour, and allows
air to circulate freely, thus keeping the plants in a healthy state. A
month later, when the plants have grown to a foot or more, the ground
is again hoed. That is the first sowing. With variations according to
localities there are successive sowings up to July and even August. The
success of these late sowings depends very much upon the extent to which
the land has been previously manured. Conditions are slightly different
with the variety of cotton grown, but as a rule the plants are in a fit
condition for picking about five months after sowing. December, January,
March, and April appear to be the months when cotton is most abundant in
the markets. In November and December of last year I observed that while
in some of the fields the pods were bursting well and picking beginning,
in others they were still in full flower; in others, again, they had not
reached the flowering stage. Speaking generally, the plantations were
in excellent condition, and the absence of weeds would have done credit
to an up-to-date British farmer. But the difference in vigour of plant
growth was very marked—affected, doubtless, by locality and manuring or
the lack of it. One of the finest plantations I saw was at Gimmi, to the
north of Zaria province, and the intelligent _sariki_ (chief) of that
village informed me that his people not infrequently treated the plant as
a perennial up to the third year, when it was plucked up. I subsequently
ascertained that in the Hadeija division of the Kano province, where the
soil has a good underlying moisture, the perennial treatment is carried
on sometimes for no less than seven years. After the third year the
annual crop decreases. When so treated the plant is invariably manured.
I found it exceedingly difficult to obtain reliable figures as to the
average yield of cotton per acre in any one district, or the average
acreage under cultivation; and the Residents share the view that only
continuous residence in the country by a Hausa-speaking (that is
essential) European expert in constant and close touch with the farmers
will permit of anything approaching exact information being acquired on
the point. In the Katagum division of Kano province an acre is _said_ to
produce an average of 266 lbs. The average annual acreage under cotton in
Katsina is _said_ to be 16,000 acres. In Zaria province the soil, which
is a sandy clay, the subsoil being reached at six inches, is generally
rather poor, and the farmer is not so great an expert as his Kano
colleague. In some places it is so poor that one hundred plants are said
to be required to produce a single _riga_. In the true cotton-farming
districts of the northern part of the province—such as Soba, Gimba, and
Dillaya—the soil is, however, very much better, obtaining more moisture
than the higher ground of Kano province and producing even finer cotton.
Broadly, the problem which faces the native farmer in Zaria province
is how to increase the fertility of his land. Artificial chemical
manuring is out of the question; the rains would wash it all out of
the soil. Green manuring is well understood but might be improved. The
introduction of one or two shallow ploughs might work wonders by showing
the farmers how the subsoil could be broken up, but the experiment would
have to be carefully demonstrated. The native is only affected by actual
demonstration, and, so far, demonstrations inspired by Europeans designed
to show the Hausa farmer how to improve his agricultural systems have
done little more than provoke a smile. The white man has failed where
the black man has succeeded, because the white man thought he knew local
conditions and did not. A Government experimental farm was started at
Maiganna rather late last year, the sowings being made in July, if I
remember rightly, seventeen miles from Zaria city. This is an excellent
initiative which it is to be hoped will be maintained. It is really
Government work. The British Cotton-growing Association should be spared
all expense of this kind. Two varieties indigenous to the southern
provinces (Bassa and Ilorin) and “Nyassaland upland” were planted. I
was told last November by the official in charge that the indigenous
varieties were doing fairly well, but that the “Nyassaland” was suffering
from red-leaf. The British Cotton-growing Association was then about to
put up a large and costly ginnery at Zaria. The operation is proceeding,
and a substantial quantity of cotton has already been bought. I will
refer to that later on. Meantime I cannot help thinking that it might
have been better to have waited a little and set up the ginnery at Kano.
However, this is merely a personal opinion.
The chief varieties of indigenous cotton grown in the Kano province
are three in number. The first is known under the four following
names—_gundi_, _bagwandara_, _lutua_, or _mailaushi_; the second as
_chukwi_ or _labai_. These two are the best kinds, their quality being
about the same. The third is called _yerkarifi_ or _yergeri_. It is of
an inferior quality with a shorter staple, usually but not always grown
where the soil is not naturally rich enough to support the other kinds.
It is the _yerkarifi_ variety, I gathered, which is more often used as
a perennial. It fetches a lower price on the local markets and takes a
month longer to mature. Cotton plants are fairly free from insect pests,
but the following are identified: the cotton boll worm (_tsutsa_), what
is described, doubtfully, as an ant which attacks the root (_zago_), and
two species of blight (_makau_ and _madi_). The native remedy, apart from
constant hoeing, is to light a fire to windward, upon which the dried
leaves of a certain plant, and also dried fish, are thrown. The question
of indigenous _versus_ exotic varieties here crops up again. One hears
talk of flooding the country with exotic seed and doing away altogether
with the indigenous varieties. I refer to Zaria, where some five hundred
bags of exotic seed—or at least non-local seed—were distributed this
spring after a palaver with the Emir and his principal headmen. No
doubt it may be all right. From the non-expert point of view it seems
dangerous. As already stated, African insect life fastens with relentless
savagery upon exotic plant life, just as it revels in nice fresh blood
out from Europe. One season’s failure with an exotic or non-local
variety, sown by instructions of the Emir’s headmen in lieu of the
indigenous kind, might create a prejudice in the native’s mind that it
would take years to remove. Concentration upon improving the fertility of
the soil, and therefore the quality and quantity of the local varieties
(combined, of course, with seed selection) would be a slower process. It
is just possible that it might be a wiser one.
The distribution of the cotton now grown in Zaria and Kano provinces is
as follows: Zaria is visited by the weavers (or their representatives)
of Kano and of French territory—from the neighbourhood of Zinder
principally. They buy up between them virtually the whole crop, importing
live stock and manufactured goods, which they dispose of in the markets
for silver coin, buying with that coin the cotton. What is not taken
by the Zinder people is taken by Kano. The Kano division of the Kano
province consumes all the cotton it grows. So does the Katagum division.
The Katsina division exports a percentage to Kano and consumes the rest.
The soil of this division compares unfavourably with that of Kano, except
in the southern district, where it is even better than in Kano. In this
district cotton-growing forms the principal means of livelihood of the
inhabitants. The total annual output of the Kano province is estimated
at about 5200 tons—3500 from the Kano division, 1000 from the Katsina
division, 700 from Katagum-Hadeija. But these figures are mere estimates,
and not over-reliable at that. The country is too extensive and the
British occupation too recent to permit of accuracy in such matters at
present. I was unable to obtain even an estimate of the Zaria output,
which is, of course, very much lower—probably about one-fifth, or less
than that at Kano.
As already remarked, the whole of the crop now grown is used by the
local industry (except the Association’s purchases this year, which I
will refer to in a moment). So far this industry not only shows no signs
of decreasing, but the demand, especially from the southern markets
is, I was told, steadily increasing. The advent of the railway may,
apart from the activities of the Association, modify the situation
appreciably through the increasing influx of Manchester goods. As
well-being increases—and up to a certain point it is doing and will do
so as the result of our occupation—the consumption of Manchester goods
wall doubtless increase, but it does not altogether follow that the
output of the native looms will decrease. It is curious that the Kano
weavers themselves think that the railway will enlarge their market. I
was informed that the natives of the south, who have been in touch with
Manchester cotton goods for many years, very much prefer the Kano cloths,
which although dearer, are much more durable. In the north I heard
frequent complaints of the quality of the Manchester goods imported. Many
of them, so I was told, were much too thin, and so heavily starched that
on the first washing they became threadbare and useless. I saw nothing on
sale in the markets from Manchester suited for the early and late hours
of the day. Cheap prints are all very well for the hot hours of the late
morning and afternoon. But the people require warmer garments than that.
I used to strike camp when trekking at about 5 a.m. or 5.30 a.m., and
at that time, and for a couple of hours afterwards, I was glad of two
sweaters over a khaki shirt, riding. When the sun goes down it is equally
chilly. The robes worn by the better-class natives are of a consistency
and weight which would astonish us here.
I am persuaded that the British Cotton-growing Association is in every
way worthy of support, that its ideal is a fine one and a patriotic
one, and that the West African dependencies of Southern and Northern
Nigeria are very much indebted to it. At the same time I should not be
giving honest expression to the views I have rightly or wrongly formed
if I did not enter a _caveat_ against any Government action calculated
to undermine or destroy the weaving industry of the Kano province. That
industry may disappear as the result of natural causes. But nothing
should be done by the Administration to assist its decay. Frankly, I
am compelled to state that from the standpoint of the happiness and
welfare of these Hausa people, our wards, the disappearance of their
national industry would be deplorable. It would lower their outlook and
stunt their development, and send them down in the scale of civilization.
Their intelligence is of an order which would enable them under tuition
to advance their methods of production beyond the hand-loom. While the
duty of the Administration to lend its moral support, as it is doing,
from the Governor, Sir Henry Hesketh Bell (who is most interested in this
question) downwards, to any legitimate effort directed at increasing
the area of cotton under cultivation, increasing the yield per acre by
improving the fertility of the soil, facilitating communication and
the accessibility of markets, is unquestioned, I submit that there is
an equally clear call of duty on its part to encourage rather than
discourage an indigenous industry of great antiquity, of wonderful
promise, which is at once a source of profit to, and an elevating
influence in, the life of the people of the land.
I have now endeavoured to sketch the chief factors to be considered in
estimating the possibilities of a substantial export trade in raw cotton
from Northern Nigeria. There remains to be examined the question of price
and of competing articles of production. The British Cotton-growers
Association’s _début_ at Zaria has been attended with no little success.
They bought this season, I believe, something like 60,000 lbs. of
cotton, a considerable proportion of which, I am informed, came from the
Katsina division of Kano. Whilst the Association’s buyers, lent to its
representative by the authorities, could not compete in price with the
Kano and Zinder buyers in the big markets, they competed successfully
with them in the remoter small markets of the province which buyers from
the native weaving interest do not usually visit.
I hope I shall not be thought desirous of “crabbing” the Association’s
efforts or minimising what they have accomplished if I venture to
point out that there would be some danger—of which the Association is
doubtless aware—in drawing too definite conclusions from these first and
satisfactory results. The taxes fell due in Zaria province at the time
of the maturing of the crop, and the growers were anxious for cash to
meet them. The Emir of Katsina is a very intelligent man and wishful of
encouraging in every way he can any desires he deems the Government to
entertain. His influence would be directed to giving a tangible proof of
his interest and goodwill. This desire would be shared by his people,
by whom he is personally respected. It would be unwise, however, to
imagine that Katsina farmers will permanently be willing to send their
cotton all the way to Zaria for 1_d._ per lb., when in the ordinary run
of things they can get as much, if not more, than 1_d._ from the native
weaving interest. If the cotton were bought on the spot the farmers
might be willing to sell at 1_d._ The question of price is bound to
play an important part in the interesting developments which have now
begun. Taking year in year out, the local price of cotton in Zaria and
Kano varies from 1¼_d._ to 2_d._ per lb. in the seed. In Zaria last
November and December it varied from 1⅝_d._ to 2_d._ In Kano it kept
at 2_d._ throughout November, December, and part of January, having
fallen from 2¼_d._ in September. In the latter part of January it fell
temporarily to 1_d._ It went up again to 2_d._ in February. The bright
side consists in the possibility—the probability, perhaps—that the
knowledge of a permanent and unlimited market at a fixed price, albeit
a low one, in their midst will incline farmers to patronize that market
(and increase their acreage), assuring them as it does of an immediate
sale. Personally, I cannot but think that the Association will have to
put up its price if it is to obtain substantial quantities. Competition
here, as in Southern Nigeria, would undoubtedly tend to increase
production, but I believe that the advent of the European merchant to
Zaria and Kano is to be characterized by the same arrangement as I have
already commented upon in Southern Nigeria. There is, of course, what
there is not in Southern Nigeria, an element of competition in the
Northern provinces—viz. the native weaving interest—and the play of these
two forces, if both are allowed a fair field, will, no doubt, have a
stimulating effect in itself.
Another element comes in here which is worthy of note. I refer to the
price of foodstuffs. Everywhere the price of foodstuffs is growing with
our occupation of the country. Round the main highways and large markets
it has risen enormously in the past eighteen months. In one part of
the Niger province the native farmer now reckons upon getting, I was
informed, £8 to £10 per acre out of yams. Cotton at 1_d._ per lb. would
bring him in from £3 to £4. That is rather an extreme case, I admit, nor
does the whole country produce yams, and the farmers generally do not
appear yet to have fully grasped the economic importance for them of the
increased demand for foodstuffs. On the other hand, it is, of course,
true that the sowing of cotton between the ordinary food crops is not
uncommon.
I have thought it well to describe the position just as I read it, and
to make certain suggestions, the outcome of personal observation and
discussion on the spot. It may well be that in certain respects I have
read the situation wrong and that the suggestions made are faulty.
Prediction at the present time, I am convinced, must be largely made
in the dark, and they are no friends of the British Cotton-growing
Association who describe the outlook in Nigeria in “high falutin’” terms.
It is too soon to say how matters will develop. That development will
in any case be slow may be taken for granted. The Administration is in
urgent need of a properly equipped agricultural department with at the
head of it the very best man that money can secure.
Reviewing the whole situation, the only definite conclusions I have been
able to arrive at in my own mind are—first, that all attempts at giving
an artificial basis to cotton production in the Nigerias will, in the
long run, defeat its own ends; secondly, that by some means or other the
price paid to the native farmer must be raised if any extension of the
industry worth talking about is to be looked for. Everywhere in Northern
Nigeria, whether the personal view inclines to optimism or pessimism, I
found the officials without exception deeply interested in and anxious to
assist in every way the effort to build up an export industry in cotton,
and fully persuaded of the great importance and value of the work of the
Association.
CHAPTER IV
THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA