THE CROWN COLONY SYSTEM
Wherein it is set down briefly why it is necessary to enter upon
this discussion at all.
Now, you will say, Wherefore should the general public in England
interest itself in this matter? Surely things are now governmentally
administered in England's West African Colonies for the benefit of all
parties concerned.
Well, that is just exactly and precisely what they are not. The system
of Crown Colonies, when it is worked by Portuguese, does, at any rate,
benefit some of the officials; but English officials are incapable of
availing themselves of the opportunities this system offers them; and
therefore, as this form of opportunity is the only benefit the thing can
give any one, the sooner the Crown Colony system is removed from the
sphere of practical politics and put under a glass case in the South
Kensington Museum, labelled "Extinct," the better for every one.
I beg you, before we go further in this matter, to look round the world
calmly, and then, when you have allowed the natural burst of enthusiasm
concerning the extent and the magnificence of the British Empire to
pass, you will observe that in the more unhealthy regions England has
failed. I say she has failed because of the Crown Colony system--failed
with them even during days wherein she has had to face nothing like what
she has to face to-day from the commercial competition of other nations.
In order to justify myself for holding the view that it is possible for
any system of English administration to fail anywhere, I would draw your
attention to the fact that the system used by us for governing unhealthy
regions is the Crown Colony system. The two things go together, and we
must assign one of them as the reason of our failure. You may, if it
please you, put it down to the other thing, the unhealthiness. I cannot,
for I know that no race of men can battle more gallantly with climate
than the English--no other race of men has shown so great a capacity as
we have to make the tropics pay. Still to-day we stand face to face with
financial disaster in tropical regions.
If you will look through a list of England's tropical unhealthy
possessions, leaving out West Africa, you will see nothing but
depression. There are the West Indies, British Guiana, and British
Honduras. All of these are naturally rich regions and accessible to the
markets of the world. There is not one of them hemmed in by great
mountain chains or surrounded by arid deserts, across which their
products must be transported at enormous cost. They are all on our
highway--the sea; nor are they sparsely populated. Their population,
according to the latest Government returns, is 1,653,832, and this
estimate is acknowledged to be necessarily imperfect and insufficient.
But with all these advantages we find no prosperity there under our
rule. Nothing but poverty and discontent and now pauperisation in the
shape of grants from the Imperial Exchequer. You say, "Oh! but that is
on account of the sugar bounties and the majority of the population not
being English;" but that argument won't do. Look at the Canary Islands.
They were just as hard hit by aniline dyes supplanting cochineal. Their
population is not mainly English; but down on those islands came an
Englishman, the Spanish Government had the sense to let him have his
way, and that Englishman, Mr. A. L. Jones, of Liverpool, has, in a space
of only fifteen years, made those islands a source of wealth to Spain,
instead of paupers on an Imperial bounty. "But," you say, "we have other
regions under the Crown Colony system that are not West Indian."
Granted, but look at them. There are the West African group; a group of
three in the Mediterranean, Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus, two
fortifications and a failure; away out East another group, which are
prosperous from the fact that they are surrounded by countries whose
fiscal arrangements are providentially worse than their own, and this
seems to be the only condition which can keep a Crown Colony on its
financial legs at all. For all our Crown Colonies adjacent to countries
who can compete with them in trade matters are paupers, or their
efficiency and value to the Empire is in the sphere of military and
naval affairs, as posts and coaling stations. These possessions of the
Gibraltar, Malta, and Hong-Kong brand should be regarded as being part
of our navy and army, and not confused with colonies, though essential
to them.
"Still," you say, "you are forgetting Ceylon, the Fiji Islands, the
Falklands, and the Mauritius." I am not. Ceylon is part of India and
practically an Indian province, so is out of my arguments. I present you
with the others wherefrom to build up a defence of the Crown Colony
system. Say, "See the Falklands off Cape Horn, with a population of
1,789, and heaps of sheep and a satisfactory budget." I can say nothing
against them, and may possibly be forced to admit that for such a
region, off Cape Horn, and with a population mainly of sheep, the Crown
Colony system may be a Heaven-sent form of administration. But I think
England would be wiser if she looked carefully at the West Indian group
and recognised how like their conditions are to those of the West
African group, for in their disastrous state of financial affairs you
have an object lesson teaching what will be the fate of Crown Colonies
in West Africa--Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Lagos--if she
will be not warned in time to alter the system at present employed for
governing these possessions. It is an object lesson in miniature of what
will otherwise be an infinitely greater drain on the resources of
England, for West Africa is immensely larger, immensely more densely
populated, and immensely more deadly in climate than the West Indies.
For one Englishman killed by the West Indies West Africa will want ten;
for every L1,000, L20,000--and all for what? Only for the sake of a
system--a system intrinsically alien to all English ideals of
government--a system that doddered along until Mr. Chamberlain expected
it to work and then burst out all over in rows, and was found to be
costing some 25 per cent. of the entire bulk of white trade with West
Africa; a system that, let the land itself be ever so rich, can lead to
nothing but heart-breaking failure.
Now I own the Crown Colony system looks well on paper. It consists of a
Governor, appointed by the Colonial Office, supported by an Executive
and Legislative Council (both nominated), and on the Gold Coast with two
unofficial members in the legislative body. These Councils, as far as
the influence they have, are dead letters, and legislation is in the
hands of the Governor. This is no evil in itself. You will get nothing
done in tropical Africa except under the influence of individual men;
but your West African Governor, though not controlled by the Councils
within the colony, is controlled by a power outside the colony, namely
the Colonial Office in London. Up to our own day the Colonial Office has
been, except in the details of domestic colonial affairs, a drag-chain
on English development in Western Africa. It has not even been
indifferent, but distinctly, deliberately adverse. In the year 1865 a
Select Committee of the House of Commons inquired into and reported upon
the state of British establishments on the western coast of Africa. "It
was a strong Committee, and the report was brief and decided.
Recognising that it is not possible to withdraw the British Government
wholly or immediately from any settlements or engagements on the West
African Coast, the Committee laid down that all further extension of
territory or assumption of government, or new treaties offering any
protection to native tribes, would be inexpedient, and that the object
of our policy should be to encourage in the natives the exercise of
those qualities which may render it possible for us more and more to
transfer to them the administration of all the governments with a view
to the ultimate withdrawal from all, except, perhaps, Sierra Leone."[57]
Remember also this. This one in 1865 was not the first of those sort of
fits the Colonial Office had in West African affairs. It was just as bad
after the Battle of Katamansu in 1827, and had it not been for the
English traders our honour to the natives we had made treaties with
would have been destroyed, and the Gold Coast lost whole and entire.
This policy of 1865 has remained the policy of the English Government
towards West Africa up to 1894. In spite of it, the English have held
on. Governor after Governor, who, as soon as he became acquainted with
the nature of the region, has striven to rouse official apathy, has been
held in, and his spirit of enterprise broken by official snubs, and has
been taught that keeping quiet was what he was required to do. It broke
many a man's heart to do it; but doing it worked no active evil on the
colony under his control, the affairs of which financially prospered in
the hands of the trading community so well, that not only had no West
African colony any public debt, except Sierra Leone, which was a
philanthropic station, but the Gold Coast, for example, had sufficient
surplus to lend money to colonies in other parts of the world. But at
last the time came when the aggression on Africa by the Continental
powers fulfilled all the gloomy prophecies which the merchants of
Liverpool had long been uttering; and one possession of ours in West
Africa after another felt the effects of the activity of other nations
and the apathy of our own. They would have felt it in vain, and have
utterly succumbed to it, had it not been for two Englishmen. Sir George
Taubman Goldie, who, when in West Africa on a voyage of exploration,
recognised the possibilities of the Niger regions, and secured them for
England in the face of great difficulties; and Mr. Chamberlain.
Concerning Sir George Goldie's efforts in securing a most important
section of West Africa for England, I shall have occasion to speak
later. Concerning Mr. Chamberlain, I may as well speak now; but be it
understood, both these men, whatever their own ideas on their work may
be, were men who came up at a critical point to reinforce Liverpool and
Bristol and London merchants, who had fought for centuries--not to put
too fine a point on it--from the days of Edward IV. for the richest
feeding grounds in all the world for England's manufacturing millions.
The dissensions, distrust and misunderstandings which have raged among
these three representatives of England's majesty and power, are no
affair of mine, as a mere general student of the whole affair, beyond
the due allowance one must make for the grave mischief worked by the
human factors. Well, as aforesaid, Mr. Chamberlain alone of all our
statesmen saw the great possibilities and importance of Western Africa,
and thinking to realise them, forthwith inaugurated a policy which if it
had had sound ground to go on, would have succeeded. It had not, it had
the Crown Colony system--and our hope for West Africa is that so
powerful a man as he has shown himself to be in other political fields,
may show himself to be yet more powerful, and formulate a totally new
system suited for the conditions of West Africa, and not content himself
with the old fallacy of ascribing failure to the individuals, white or
black, government official or merchant or missionary, who act under the
system which alone is to blame for England's present position in West
Africa; but I own that if Mr. Chamberlain does this he will be greater
than one man can ever be reasonably be expected to be, and again it is,
I fear, not possible to undo what has been done by the resolution of
1865.
Possibly the greatest evil worked by this resolution has been the
separation of sympathy between the Merchants and the Government. Since
1865 these two English factors have been working really against each
other. Possibly the greatest touch of irony in modern politics is to be
found in a despatch dated March 30th, 1892, addressed to the British
Ambassador at Paris, wherein it is said, "The colonial policy of Great
Britain and France in West Africa has been widely different. France from
her basis on the Senegal coast has pursued steadily the aim of
establishing herself on the Upper Niger and its affluents; this object
she has attained by a large and constant expenditure, and by a
succession of military expeditions. Great Britain, on the other hand,
has adopted the policy of advance by commercial enterprise; she has not
attempted to compete with the military operations of her neighbour."[58]
I should rather think she hadn't! Let alone the fact that France did not
expand mainly by military operations, but through magnificent explorers
backed up by sound sense. While, as for Great Britain "adopting the
policy of advance by commercial enterprise"--well, I don't know what the
writer of that despatch's ideas on "adoption" are, but suppression would
be the truer word. Had Great Britain given even her countenance to
"commercial enterprise," she would have given it by now representation
in her councils for West Africa, a thing it has not yet got. True, there
is the machinery for this representation ready in the Chambers of
Commerce, but these Chambers have no real power whatsoever as far as
West African affairs are concerned; they are graciously permitted to
send deputations to the Colonial Office and write letters when they feel
so disposed, but practically that is all.
Truly it is a ridiculous situation, because West Africa matters to no
party in England so much as it matters to the mercantile. I am aware I
shall be told that it is impossible that one section of Englishmen can
have a greater interest in any part of the Empire than another section,
and, for example, that West Africa matters quite as much to the
religious party as it does to the mercantile. But, to my mind, neither
Religion nor Science is truly concerned in the political aspect of West
Africa. It should not matter, for example, to the missionary whether he
works under one European Government or another, or a purely native
Government, so long as he is allowed by that Government to carry on his
work of evangelisation unhindered; nor, similarly, does it matter to the
scientific man, so long as he is allowed to carry on his work; but to
the merchant it matters profoundly whether West Africa is under English
or foreign rule, and whether our rule there is well ordered. For one
thing, on the merchants of West Africa falls entirely the duty of
supplying the revenue which supports the government of our colonies
there; and for another, it seems to me that whether the Government he is
under is English or no does matter very much to the English merchant.
His duty as an Englishman is the support of the population of his own
country, directly the support of its manufacturing classes. Everything
that tends to alienate his influence from the service of his
fellow-countrymen is a degradation to him. He may be individually as
successful in trading with foreign-made goods, but as a member of the
English State he is at a lower level when he does so; he becomes a mere
mercenary in the service of a foreign power engaged in adding to the
prosperity of an alien nation. Again, in this matter the difference
between the religious man and the commercial shows up clearly. Let the
religion of the missionary be what it may, his aim is according to it to
secure the salvation of the human race. What does it matter to him
whether the section of the human race he strives to save be black,
white, or yellow? Nothing; as the noble records of missions will show
you. Therefore I repeat that West Africa matters to no party in the
English State so much as it matters to the mercantile. With no other
party are true English interests so closely bound up.
West Africa probably will never be a pleasant place wherein to spend the
winter months, a holiday ground that will serve to recuperate the jaded
energies of our poets and painters, like the Alps or Italy; probably,
likewise, it will never be a place where we can ship our overflow
population; and for the same reason--its unhealthiness--it will be of no
use to us as a military academy, for troops are none the better for
soaking in malaria and operating against ill-armed antagonists. But West
Africa is of immense use to us as a feeding-ground for our manufacturing
classes. It could be of equal value to England as a healthy colony, but
in a reverse way, for it could supply the wealth which would enable them
to remain in England in place of leaving it, if it were properly managed
with this definite end in view. It is idle to imagine that it can be
properly managed unless commercial experts are represented in the
Government which controls its administration, as is not the case at
present. It is no case of abusing the men who at present strive to do
their best with it. They do not set themselves up as knowing much about
trade, and they constantly demonstrate that they do not. Armed with
absolutely no definite policy, subsisting on official and non-expert
trade opinion, they drift along, with some nebulous sort of notion in
their heads about "elevating the African in the plane of civilisation."
Now, of course, there exists a passable reason for things being as they
are in our administration of West Africa. England is never malign in
intention, and never rushes headlong into a line of policy. Therefore,
in order to comprehend how it has come about that she should have a
system so unsuited to the regions to which it is applied, as the Crown
Colony system is unsuited to West Africa, we must calmly investigate the
reason that underlies this affair. This reason, which is the cause of
all the trouble, is a misconception of the nature of West Africa, and it
must be considered under two heads.
The thing behind the resolution of 1865 is the undoubted fact that West
Africa is no good for a Colony from its unhealthiness. There is no one
who knows the Coast but will grant this; but surely there is no one who
knows, not only the West Coast of Africa but also the necessities of our
working classes in England, who can fail to recognise that this is only
half an argument against England holding West Africa; because we want
something besides regions whereto we can send away from England men and
women, namely, we want regions that will enable us to keep the very
backbone of England, our manufacturing classes, in a state of healthy
comfort and prosperity at home in England, in other words, we want
markets.
Alas! in England the necessity for things grows up in a dumb way, though
providentially it is irresistibly powerful; once aroused it forces our
statesmen to find the required thing, which they with but bad grace and
grievous groans proceed leisurely to do.
This is pretty much the same as saying that the English are deficient in
statesmanship, and this is what I mean, and I am convinced that no other
nation but our own could have prospered with so much of this
imperfection; but remember it is an imperfection, and is not a thing to
be proud of any more than a stammer. External conditions have enabled
England so far barely to feel her drawback, but now external conditions
are in a different phase, and she must choose between acquiring
statesmanship competent to cope with this phase, or drift on in her
present way until the force of her necessities projects her into an
European war. A perfectly unnecessary conclusion to the pressure of
commercial competition she is beginning to feel, but none the less
inevitable with her present lack of statecraft.
The second part of the reason of England's trouble in West Africa is
that other fallacious half reason which our statesmen have for years
been using to soothe the minds of those who urged on her in good time
the necessity for acquiring the hinterlands of West Africa, namely,
"After all, England holds the key of them in holding the outlets of the
rivers." And while our statesmen have been saying this, France has been
industriously changing the lock on the door by diverting trade routes
from the hinterland she has so gallantly acquired, down into those
seaboard districts which she possesses.
"Well, well, well," you will say, "we have woke up at last, we can be
trusted now." I own I do not see why you should expect to be suddenly
trusted by the men with whose interests you have played so long. I
remember hearing about a missionary gentleman who was told a long story
by the father of a bad son, who for years went gallivanting about West
Africa, bringing the family into disrepute, and running up debts in all
directions, and finally returned to the paternal roof. "Dear me! how
interesting," said the missionary; "quite the Parable of the Prodigal
Son! I trust, My Friend, you remembered it, and killed the fatted calf
on his return?" "No, Sar," said the parent; "but I dam near kill that ar
prodigal son."
FOOTNOTES:
[57] See Lucas's _Historical Geography of the British Colonies_, Oxford,
1894.
[58] Parliamentary Paper, C 6701, 92.