CHAPTER III

THE REAL AND THE IDEAL

“The nature of the natives, the climate, everything is against precipitate and hasty action. To advance slowly, leaving no bad or unfinished work behind, to gain the respect and liking of the natives, and only to use force when compelled as a last resource to do so, are the means which in my humble opinion lead to success in West Africa. To quote from the words of a celebrated French traveller: ‘Do not let us dream of a hasty transformation of Africa. Let us employ a method, slow but sure. Let us try and teach the natives what knowledge we have acquired, and not try and make them learn in a few years what it has taken us twenty centuries to learn.’”—SIR CLAUDE MACDONALD in Liverpool, 1892.

“These figures are surprising. One would naturally have expected that as the trade increased the proportion of expenditure would have decreased.... From that date, however, the expenditure has advanced by leaps and bounds, and in 1900 amounted to 28 per cent. of the exports. In other words, the expenditure has increased more rapidly than the trade.... If, however, the expenditure had been on the basis of former years ... we could have given over £1,000,000 worth additional European goods in exchange for the same amount of produce. In other words, the heavier the expenditure the higher price must the merchant ask for his European goods, or the less he is able to give for native produce. This must have the double effect of reducing the demand for manufactures and diminishing the energy of the natives in gathering produce. There is another possibility which should not be lost sight of: our colonies are hemmed in by our French and German neighbours. If in consequence of increased expenditure and the resulting heavier taxes we are unable to offer the natives as large a quantity of manufactures and as good a price as our competitors are enabled to do, produce which is grown on the borders of our Colonies may be diverted to foreign territory with a consequent loss of trade to this country.”—Mr. ARTHUR HUTTON, President African Section, Manchester Chamber of Commerce.[9]

A wise man has said that there is no way of conveying a rebuke so efficiently as upon the back of a compliment, and as a preliminary to criticism of certain phases of British administration in West Africa, a measure of praise is both just and needful. To avoid personalities—whether in the sense of praise or otherwise—should be the constant endeavour of any critic in approaching the subject under discussion, because it is primarily the system, and not the agents of the system, which is in question. Unfortunately the Crown Colony system being what it is, a despotism—though by no means necessarily a tyrannical despotism—there is great difficulty, if not actual impossibility, in altogether avoiding the personal equation.

The revolution in British West African policy is indelibly associated with the advent to power of the present Colonial Secretary, the Right Honourable Joseph Chamberlain. His entry upon the scene was contemporaneous with the culmination of certain events which must infallibly have modified our previous attitude in relation to West Africa whoever the statesmen responsible at the time might have been. The point need not be laboured, but it is often overlooked. Be that as it may, it is an undoubted fact—a fact redounding greatly to Mr. Chamberlain’s credit—that no Colonial Secretary before him has displayed so lively and personal an interest, both publicly and privately, in the affairs of British West Africa, an interest which has continued unabated during the entire period of his administration. In specific directions the result has been all to the good. Railways, the preliminary surveys of which had been made by direction of Mr. Chamberlain’s predecessor, the Marquis of Ripon, before he quitted office, have been constructed; others are commenced; the routes of more have been surveyed. The study of malaria has received the right honourable gentleman’s warmest support. A general publicity has been given to British West Africa by its identification with so powerful a politician as Mr. Chamberlain, which has materially contributed to remove it from the rut of oblivion and popular ignorance. It may also be added that the Colonial Secretary’s confident public declarations in respect to the future of the gold-mining industry in the Gold Coast has done much to attract capital to that Colony, and that the damper which he recently felt it wise to apply to the introduction of the more undesirable elements connected with the revival, under modern conditions, of gold-mining enterprise in a part of the coast celebrated for its former export of the precious metal, was entirely to his honour, although it would perhaps have been more useful had it come somewhat earlier in the day; while the memorandum he caused to be drawn up in September 1901 embodying the principle of treating native labourers on the Gold Coast, is perhaps the most admirable document ever issued from the Colonial Office.[10] In like manner, it can be taken for granted that all officials in West Africa are animated by the best of intentions, and however profoundly one may differ, from time to time, from certain of their actions, it is always essential to bear in mind that the system under which they work—the inconvenience of which not a few of them in private conversation readily admit—leaves the door wide open to the commitment of errors for which the system is in the first place responsible, while the climate is most trying to the constitutions and temper of Europeans. But it is unreasonable, and subversive of the true interests of the Empire, that the tendency should be encouraged to denounce honest criticism of a specific act of policy in West Africa with which this or that official must in the nature of things be associated, although he need not be, and often is not, the originator of it, as a personal attack upon an absent man, to be resented as an outrage and stigmatised almost as a crime, as an offence at any rate against common decency and fairness. The contention is absurd, and mischievous and unfair. The autocratic power which the Crown Colony system confers upon West African Governors, District Commissioners, and military commandants makes it absolutely essential that independent criticism, so long as it is legitimate, should be exercised by the public at home, whether or no full sanction has been obtained by a particular official from the Colonial Office for the application of measures giving rise to criticism, or whether the measures have been initiated by the Colonial Office itself. By public criticism alone can we hope to avoid the repetition of such deplorable mistakes as led to the Hut Tax war in Sierra Leone and the last Ashanti outbreak; the framing of legislation far in advance of the needs of the country and antagonistic to native feeling, which interest and duty alike imperatively demand, should be taken into consideration; the constant recurrence of punitive expeditions, which in another portion of our Tropical African Empire have worked such incalculable injury; and financial embarrassments, outcome of mismanagement, extravagance, and errors of policy.

There is always danger in reaction, as in the body physical, so in the body politic; and it is not altogether astonishing, perhaps, that the long spell of official apathy in West Africa, being suddenly changed to precipitate action, should have given rise to some objectionable features. But it cannot be admitted that the latter, instead of being a passing phenomenon, should take permanent root, and become part and parcel of the new order of things. If this be the case, we shall presently be witnessing yet another reaction in West Africa, and with embarrassed finances, a yearly expenditure far in excess of any visible increase in producing power, increased taxation, a native population alienated and disorganised, and energetic rivals forging ahead while we continue to struggle painfully in a quagmire of self-imposed difficulties, the public will lapse once more into its old attitude of indifference tinged with dislike, until some brilliant gentleman at the Foreign Office, deeming the moment opportune, hands over a further slice of British West Africa to a Foreign Power, in exchange for cod-fisheries, or something equally vital to the Empire’s prosperity.[11] The forward policy in West Africa has had its uses; it has served its purpose. We are secure in the possession of a large territory some 700,000 square miles in extent, unsurpassed in natural wealth by any other region in the globe, containing a population of probably 30,000,000 to 35,000,000 souls, of whose habits and customs we possess but the haziest knowledge, whose very languages we are in the main ignorant of; a population composed of the most diverse elements, the resources of whose widely scattered habitat are barely tapped, whose willing co-operation, which is essential to the success of our rule, can only be gained by scientific, painstaking study and the most tactful, sympathetic treatment. Now should be a close time for British West Africa. The country needs political rest. It has been turned topsy-turvy by European rivalry; old landmarks have been swept away; the boundaries of Native States altered to suit the exigencies of European diplomacy; immemorial trade roads interfered with. The native requires breathing space. Official activity should in the main be limited to the construction, with due regard to method and economy, of certain indispensable public works, collecting data concerning the native peoples and respective regions in which they dwell, strengthening native authority so rudely disturbed by recent events; in protecting commerce, encouraging capital, fostering native industries—perfecting those in existence and preparing the ground for others; in short, a work of gradual, sure, systematic consolidation. It should be our object to intermeddle as little as possible with native institutions, abide with scrupulous exactitude to both the spirit and the letter of our treaties with the Chiefs; develop the native peoples along the lines of their own civilisation both in the case of Mohammedans and Pagans; use conciliation in preference to dictation, gold rather than the sword. Administrative extravagance should be rigidly held in check for fear of burdening new Colonies with a load of debt; the soldier and the policeman should be kept in the background, only to be used as a last extremity. Commerce, good roads, _and statesmanship_ should be our preferable choice of weapons for mitigating evils, some at least of which the example of Europe in the past has intensified, others lying in deep-rooted religious beliefs, requiring careful preliminary investigation and thorough understanding before being made the object of official action, and then only of a repressive nature after every pacific inducement had been tried in vain. Patience, more patience, and again patience. That should be, ought to be, the corner-stone of British policy in West Africa. It was the tortoise that won the race; not the hare.

Unfortunately the hare is the more popular beast just now, and the forward policy is as much in evidence in British West Africa to-day as it was five years ago, with the result that what may have been justifiable then bids fair, if it be not stopped in time, to be disastrous now that the necessity for it has passed away with the close of international competition. Energy is being misapplied and misdirected. Let it be conceded that the existing basis of rule in West Africa, the Crown Colony system, is the worst in the world to stand the strain of a naturally active directing influence at headquarters; let it be admitted that it is a clumsy, inelastic instrument which allows the governed no voice in the government, which places the suppliers of revenue, both direct and indirect, in the position of having no effective control over the expenditure of that revenue, which permits of the jeopardising of years of commercial effort by some ill-considered legislative act—let these and many other counts against the Crown Colony system be admitted. The fact nevertheless remains that that system is capable of reform, of modification, of being moulded in accordance with the requirements of the case. The task should not be beyond the capacity of statecraft. Is it to be seriously maintained that British statesmanship has sunk so low that machinery suitable to a bygone age cannot be improved and brought more into line with our altered situation: that we must needs cling to every ancient wheel and rivet though they be clogged with superfluous matter, and eaten through with rust? If the machine which it was sought to preserve intact had done yeoman service in past days, there might be some excuse for hesitating to supply it with new works. But that is emphatically not so with the West African machine.

And it is positively heart-breaking to see that the last few years, far from bringing any reforms, far from holding out the hope of reform in the future, have but accentuated the evil. We cannot, it is true, lose any more territory, unless we care to give away that which is assured to us by international agreement. But in almost every other respect the Crown Colony system, as it prevails in West Africa, and under the new circumstances in which it is performing its functions, is building up a legacy of trouble which can only be contemplated with equanimity, or viewed with indifference, by the thoughtless; by those good people who refuse to walk save in pleasant places, who constitutionally dislike criticism as much as a cat objects to a wetting.

Haste and hurry are the order of the day in British West Africa. Expenditure is going up by leaps and bounds,[12] altogether apart from expenditure on public works. In the case of public works, large and costly undertakings are arranged for on the most unpractical lines, with no effort to benefit by competition, no putting out to tender, no safeguards without which a business man of ordinary intelligence will surround himself in order that he may be sure of getting the best value for his money. An extraordinary theory in economics has become fashionable. It is that the higher the revenue of a given West African Colony the more prosperous that Colony must be, quite oblivious of the effect which every increase of taxation has upon the volume of trade in the way of reduction, and driving it away to the neighbouring territory of a foreign rival. If a West African Colony shows in a given year an increase of £10,000 in revenue, obtained from increased taxation, jubilation in official quarters is excessive: but either nothing is heard of the falling off in trade accompanying the increase in revenue, or it is explained in some other way. The fact that there is a gain in revenue is held to be proof positive of an abounding prosperity and wise management. Every fresh increase in revenue is followed by a corresponding increase in expenditure. The one is made to keep pace with the other. It does not always succeed, because the expenditure is not infrequently in excess of the revenue _quand même_. It is also becoming the usual thing to financially assist these Colonies by “loans” or “grants-in-aid” or “advances” quite on the West Indian model, while the official reports invariably lead off with the reassuring statement that “this Colony has no public debt”: a little farther on, casual reference to the “grant-in-aid” may be discovered by the aid of a microscope, tucked away in some obscure corner, a footnote for choice. Lagos, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Nigeria, are all at the present moment in the enjoyment of Imperial loans: Sierra Leone for the Railway and the late Hut-Tax war, Lagos for the Railway, the Gold Coast for the Railway and Ashanti war, Nigeria for the purchase of the Niger Co.’s treaties with the natives (the terms of which we have not adhered to), and for raising an army. Meantime, our neighbours the French are—in their West Coast Colonies proper, where comparison alone is possible—making their own Colonies pay a considerable part in the expenses of Railway construction; taxing their trade less, spending less on administration, governing more cheaply and quite as well—better by a long way in some cases.

The producing power of our Colonies, that is to say, the export trade, the only true test of prosperity in West Africa, is either increasing slowly by comparison with the expenditure, or it is stagnant, or it is retrogressing. When it is increasing, the increase is much below the corresponding ratio of increased expenditure. “Large doses”—veritable purgatives—of European conceived legislation are being thrust down the throats of the bewildered natives. The number of Ordinances passed in the British West African Colonies during the last few years, especially in Southern Nigeria,[13] is simply amazing. Most of them are far in advance of the times and cannot but remain a dead letter because, thank goodness, the existing machinery is not yet sufficiently extensive to carry them out. To make as few Ordinances as possible, and to ensure that such as are made shall be permanently useful, does not appear to enter into the official conception; and in the face of the growing objections to this rapidity and fertility of the official brain in forming premature legislation, not only on the part of the natives who are getting more and more confused, and—as the French put it—_déséquilibrés_, but by all people in affairs on the Coast who would desire that officialdom should move more slowly, carrying at each step real and understanding consent: the work of drafting portentous decrees, the exact meaning of which the very lawyers at home cannot comprehend, or reconcile with avowed intentions, goes merrily on.

Punitive expedition follows punitive expedition. We have had a war in Sierra Leone, a war in Ashanti, two expeditions in the Gambia, a big expedition up the Cross River in Southern Nigeria, together with minor affrays, while in Northern Nigeria, which so far is producing no revenue and has not attracted a single merchant (and but one exploring expedition for possible mining purposes), one punitive expedition succeeds another at an interval of a few weeks at most. I will not now labour the case of Northern Nigeria, as that most interesting portion of our West African dominions is discussed at some length farther on, but it is quite evident that the attention of Parliament to the expenditure of Northern Nigeria is becoming increasingly urgent. Lagos alone, under the able guidance of Sir William MacGregor, has known the blessings of peace. Long may it continue to do so.

Specific instances and examples of these general statements will be found scattered throughout this volume. It was, however, necessary to place them in collective form. In the next chapter, endeavour will be made to briefly indicate the lines upon which certain reforms might be attempted and the reasons for those reforms. Official optimism notwithstanding, it is an undoubted fact that, if something is not very shortly done to improve the prevailing system, the majority of the British West African Colonies will drift into a morass of financial confusion paralysing to their development and progress, while the native population within them will be comparatively poorer than in the neighbouring Colonies of commercial rivals.