CHAPTER II

THE OLD AND THE NEW

“The past has gone with its follies and its waste.... Let us then face the present and contemplate the future.”

In the previous chapter we discussed in practical fashion the grounds upon which the British public is called upon to devote more attention to the affairs of West Africa than it does at present, and an attempt—I hope a successful attempt—was made to show how very short-sighted and singularly misinformed is the opinion which would disinterest itself from a part of the world where the possibilities of commercial development are so strikingly manifest. There has never been such urgent need for an intelligent appreciation, on the part of the British public, of the problems which confront this country in West Africa. In a few short years the policy of Great Britain in West Africa has undergone a complete change. Events have followed one another with bewildering rapidity. Official indifference has been galvanised into life by French activity, and after a brief but dangerous period of international rivalry, British political rights have been established over a considerable extent of territory, not, however, nearly so considerable as a pacific, consistent, well-thought-out programme adopted some years previously would have brought, had our merchant-pioneers been listened to, and had successive Governments been able to throw off the paralysing influence of the resolution of 1865. There is a story told of a certain Minister in charge of the Foreign Office—it was related to me by one of those present at the interview—which illustrates very forcibly the feeling which prevailed in Government circles in those days. A deputation of merchants waited upon his Excellency with the request that he would permit the hoisting of the Union Jack on certain parts of the West African littoral where British merchants had long been trading, and where the rulers of the country were genuinely desirous of receiving a British protectorate. _Pro-formâ_ treaties were produced by the deputation between these rulers and the resident merchants. The merchants asked for no reward. There was no question of expenditure involved. All that the Government was required to do was to meet the wishes of the chiefs. The deputation pointed out that, so far as the relations between the natives and the commercial representatives of Great Britain were concerned, the acceptance of the Government would in no wise alter them, but would simply have the effect of cementing a friendly understanding which already existed. But, urged the deputation, the treaties, if agreed to by the Government, would prove an invaluable diplomatic instrument if the time came, as it seemed likely to do, when England might find herself faced in West Africa by foreign competition. The Minister flung the treaties across the table.

It was a time of wasted opportunities, when a little political foresight would have conferred upon this country great future benefit, and it seems extraordinary, but is unhappily true, that the same failure to look ahead as regards West Africa appears to afflict our Foreign Office to-day despite the lessons of the past. Of this, more anon.

But if successive Governments showed unpardonable negligence in safeguarding British interests in West Africa, for decade after decade, down to the very time when the French had worked their way so far southward into the natural _hinterlands_ of our old Colonies that action became imperative if anything was to be saved from the wreck, the British press and public were greatly to blame also. I well remember that at the very height of the recent Anglo-French controversy which culminated in the Convention of 1898, when rival English and French expeditions were rushing hither and thither through the territories west of the Niger, and when British and French efforts were concentrated upon wringing out of the unfortunate Borgu Chiefs all sorts, kinds, and conditions of agreements, sowing Union Jacks and Tricolors by the wayside, the well-known editor of an equally well-known newspaper to which I then contributed, asked me to show him Nikki[8] on the map, as he had not the least idea where it was.

Mr. Chamberlain came into power just at the moment when French enterprise in the West African uplands had reached its maximum of threatening intensity, and he set himself to vigorously counteract it as far as he could. The invertebrate policy had, however, compromised the situation almost beyond remedy, and had it not been for Mr. Joseph Thomson’s success in obtaining treaty rights with the Emirs of Sokoto and Bornu in 1884 on behalf of the National African Company of Merchants—subsequently the Royal Niger Company—and, it may be added, for the loyal adherence of those native States to the treaties passed with the Company, the magnificent possession of Northern Nigeria would have gone the way of Futa Jallon, of Mossi, and of so many other countries lying at the back of our Colonies; that is to say, would have fallen into French hands. The man who deserves the most credit for saving Northern Nigeria to the Empire is Sir George Taubman Goldie, and however one may deplore some of the uses to which he put his Charter—things we are paying for now in the French Congo and elsewhere—it is but common fairness to assert that, if it had not been for Sir George Goldie, the possessions of Great Britain in West Africa would have been reduced by about one half. It is a matter for some surprise that the Government should not have succeeded in securing the continuation of Sir George Goldie’s co-operation in West Africa after the Royal Niger Company’s Charter was cancelled. An old opponent has lately said of him that “there is no one more competent to guide our West African Administration on practical, humanitarian, economical, prudent, and statesmanlike lines, no one more fitted to take a high position in West African affairs political and commercial,” a statement which will meet with wide acceptance.

But this, after all, is ancient history, and what we are chiefly concerned with now, is the present. What we are called upon to seriously consider is the general trend of England’s policy in West Africa, administrative, financial, political and commercial. Internationally, we are secure in the possession of our territories. The only rivalry we have to fear is the peaceful rivalry of commerce, but commerce is the explanation of our presence in West Africa: it constitutes the sinews of our administration, and its requirements demand the constant vigilance, the most careful attention of the official world.

It is the bounden duty of those who, believing in the immense importance of West Africa to Great Britain, and similarly believing that the present policy which is being pursued by Great Britain in West Africa is open on several grounds to grave objection, to say so, and to give their reasons for saying so, with the assured conviction that, however unpopular their arguments may be, the general interest demands that they should be put forward.