TOPICS OF THE DAY.
A CANKER IN IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION.
IT is with reluctance that we return to the questions raised by Mr. Scoresby Routledge in his letter to the Times of December 3rd, a letter which we summarised in our issue of last week. Mr. Scoresby Routledge there put on record a case in which an Acting District Commissioner in British East Africa had used his official power and official position to procure as his mistresses two native girls of about thirteen years of age. On an inquiry by Judge Barth at the instruction of the Governor, it was established that one of the girls was unwilling, and that the other had been removed from the protection . of a native policeman, who strongly resented the action of the Commissioner. In a very unsatisfactory answer given in the House of Commons by Colonel Seely, Under-Secretary for the Colonies, the truth of this allegation was admitted. Colonel Seely also made a statement as to the punish- ment accorded to the Acting District Commissioner, which punishment, we are bound to say, appears to us to be inadequate. But though we are obliged to remind our readers of the facts, we do not wish to dwell upon the individual case. We fully recognise that in an Empire as great as ours there must often be cases in which men living under the very trying conditions that result from isolation, from the absence of a healthy public opinion, and from the special temptations which surround the possessors of unlimited power over a naturally slavish population, yield to those temptations. As a rule, how- ever, these are exceptional, and are best dealt with by the authorities on the spot. They are in no sense sympto- matic, and it would be the greatest mistake to exaggerate their significance.
It is different when there is reason to believe that oases such as that raised by Mr. Routledge, even if few in number, are not exceptional and individual, but are typical of unsound and dangerous conditions prevailing in a particular administration. It then becomes absolutely necessary for all those who care for the welfare of the Empire to insist on strong and thorough action. We do not wish to take up an extreme or puritanical view in regard to the question of sexual morality involved, but we do say—and we feel sure that here we shall be supported by every sound Imperial administrator, no matter what his views on the moral problem—that it would mean nothing short of ruin to the Empire if we were once to allow the notion to get abroad that men charged with the duties of administration can be permitted to exercise the tremendous powers placed in their hands to gratify their animal passions. If we fail to punish with the utmost severity men who have used their official position for purposes such as the official in question is stated to have used his, then the ruin of the Empire must be at hand. Such a prostitution of the trusteeship which is involved in civil administration over uncivilised peoples cannot be tolerated without depraving our whole system of Imperial administration. The man who uses the forces of the Empire in order to gratify his lust one day may use them for the purposes of illicit gain the next, or, if he does not do so himself, may set an example in misdoing and want of self-control which will be followed, not only in one, but in a dozen directions. For this reason the Govern- ment of India, whose experience is uui ivalled in such matters, though it very properly makes no attempt to exercise inquisitorial functions over the private morals of its officials, will not tolerate for an instant anything which approaches the misuse of official position for ignoble private ends. If Lord Crewe and Colonel Seely want to know the proper way in which to deal with a case such as that which has just come before them, they have only got to ask for precedents at the India Office.
Inquiries which we have been able to make since the publication of Mr. Routledge's letter induce us to believe, as we have said above, that the case he refers to is not exceptional, and that in British East Africa the condition of the administration, especially as regards its personnel, is in a high degree unsatisfactory. A. canker is at work there which, if not eradicated by drastic treatment, may do incalculable harm. In saying this we must be careful to avoid the injustice of a general • indictment. We are satisfied that there are in British East Africa a considerable number of excellent men who are doing their duty in most difficult and depressing circumstances. It is to be feared, however, that the accepted standard of administration is far lower than that of the Empire as a whole, and has, indeed, reached a point of peril.
We now come to the question which chiefly interests us, and must chiefly interest all sound Imperialists. What are the remedies that ought to be applied when, as in this case, a province is suffering from official demoralisation ? In ow opinion, the first thing to do here, as elsewhere, is to exact responsibility from those on whom responsibility ought to rest. We shall never get sound adminis- tration unless we make the Governor—the man with whom the Colonial Office deals at first hand—feel that if his province becomes demoralised as a whole, and apart from individual and accidental cases, the responsibility will be his. The Governor or chief adminis- trator of a Crown Colony or dependency must be a man strong enough to keep his province in order. If he is not, however able or however deserving he may be from other points of view, he must be got rid of and a more suitable man put in his place. No business and no Empire can be managed on any other system. This is the first point to be remembered. If we look a little closer, we shall find, to put the matter crudely, nay, brutally, that a better class of official is, speaking gener- ally, required for the principal and subordinate posts. We have not got in British East Africa the right type of man. The next question is,—how is the right type of man to be obtained ? We believe that he is to be obtained here, as elsewhere, in the first place, by paying him properly. That may sound to some ears a some- what commercial way of stating the case, and vet we are convinced that it is a perfectly sound statement. We hold it to be little short of a crime against the Empire to give men the tremendous powers possessed by the district officers in British East Africa—the power of life and death, among others—to subject them to the temptations to which they are subjected, and then to pay them the salaries which are now given. We understand that in many cases the pay of the men in question is as low as £200 a year. It is not safe, but rather it is an act of administrative folly, to put authority into the hands of men thus remunerated. A practical-minded Bishop is said to have declared that it was impossible to be a good Christian on less than £1 a week. Whether this is a true allegation we will not now consider, but we are perfectly certain that it is impossible for a white man, and an Englishman living in Africa, to be what we want him to be—a mixture of benevolent despot, upright Judge, and high-minded official—at a salary of from £200 to £300 a year. Indeed, we will go so far as to say that the men to be blamed in a breakdown of the kind which has taken place in British East Africa are not so much the men who receive the salaries as those who pay them.
We know well enough the official answer which will be made to our contention, for it has been made again and again in such cases. It is that the Colonial Office can obtain any number of men at the salaries it pays, and that therefore it is impossible to ask the Treasury to sanction any higher rate of remuneration. To such a policy we will reply in the words used by Lord Cornwallis to the Court of Directors of the East India Company. Lord Cornwallis warned the directors that the salaries paid by them to their servants in India—men who were exercising the functions of Judges, Ambassadors, and Ministers of State—were perilously low, and that they were not getting the best type of men. The India House replied that the Governor•General must be mistaken, because they had no difficulty whatever in getting plenty of Englishmen to enter their service. The applications were far in excess of the vacancies. Lord Cornwallis's rejoinder was as follows. He told them that he had no doubt that 60 could get any number of men to fill the office of Governor-General of India for half the salary which was paid to him, or indeed for no salary at all, but he ended : " Would it be worth your while to take a Governor-General on such terms ? " We reply to the Colonial Office : "Is it really worth your while to pay such salaries, and get the type of men that as a rule goes with such salaries ? " No doubt the financial position in these African Colonies is a very difficult .one. Upon this point we will only say, however, that it would be far better to have one well paid man in a district, however large, than two badly paid men, or indeed to abandon the attempt to administer parts of the country rather than have them administered by the wrong stamp of men. After all, this was the simple secret of Lord Cromer's success in Egypt and the Soudan. Whatever the temptation, whatever the excuse, he would not have poorly paid white men deing administrative work among uncivilised people, with the result that in the end his administration, though dear in individuals, was cheap and sound in the aggregate. Like other rulers, he did not of course escape an occasional bad bargain; nor did ho attempt any unreasonable inquisition into the private lives of his subordinates. At the same time, and though his administration was subject to the closest possible scrutiny by vigilant enemies of all kinds, he avoided anything in the nature of an administrative scandal. Those who worked under him, though by no means lavishly paid, at least received that which would enable them to live decently and to keep in touch with England. He thus obtained a body of men whom be was able to inspire with a sound tone and a true esprit de corps. The Egyptian was, and is, a service with a high standard, and this is what is essential for Imperial administration.
We do not doubt that Lord Crewe is quite as deeply concerned as we, or indeed any of the critics of his Department, can be in regard to the moral as well as the material welfare of the Empire. Though we have _held no communication of any sort with the Colonial Office on this matter, we are quite as much convinced as if we had heard it from their own lips that the Secretary of State and his Under-Secretary are at this moment profoundly occupied with the problem of how to set things right in British East Africa, and to restore a healthy tone to the administration. That being so, we may venture to make one or two practical suggestions, inspired by the principle that lookers-on, even though they cannot claim any expert knowledge, may sometimes be able to make practical suggestions of value. In the first place, we are obliged, though we say so with regret, to suggest that the present Governor of British East Africa must be held responsible for the condition of the country under his charge, and that that responsibility must be visited upon him to the full. Next, we would suggest that some man of wide Imperial experience and tstrength of character should be asked to go on a special mission to British East Africa to inquire upon the spot into the general condition of the administration, and to report to the Colonial Office as to the best means of putting the Colony in order. Such a High Commissioner with plenary powers, even if he would only consent to go to the country for, say, two years, or even for a year, might be able to make most useful suggestions. The kind of man we have in our mind is Sir. George Goldie, or, failing him, some retired Anglo-Indian officer of experience. Whether Sir George Goldie would be able to undertake the work we cannot, of course, say. We merely mention his name to illus- trate the type of man required. He could be trusted not to take any fanatical or unpractical view of the situation, but at the same time he would be well aware of the absolute need of raising the standard of administration.
In addition to such immediate action by the Colonial Office, we should like to see a Committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the whole administration in British East Africa. No doubt the Colonial Office would, prim ii facie, dislike what they would call interference by the House of Commons. In reality, however, we believe that such an inquiry would prove highly beneficial. It would have, to begin with, a most useful educative effect on a certain number of Members of the House of Commons, and through them a still larger body of Members might be inocu- lated with true views on Imperial administration. Very probably the Radical majority of the Committee would begin with somewhat .rude and strange ideas as to how to put things right; but we feel convinced that if proper evidence were placed before them, and they were really made acquainted with the facts, they would, as sound and sensible Englishmen, whatever their party complexion, arrive in the end at just conclusions, and almost certainly hold that we are not paying our administrators enough, and therefore are not getting the right kind of man. But if such a conclusion were arrived at, the demand for better payment would be enormously strengthened, and the difficulty of Treasury opposition overcome. After all, the amount of money that would be required to make the difference between a good administration and a bad one is by no means great. In the end, too, the provision of better salaries would prove economical rather than the reverse. We hope that if the Government cannot see their way to take the initiative in the appoint- ment of a Committee, some independent Member of Parliament will now, or early next year, ask for the appointment of such a body. What is wanted is prompt inquiry followed by prompt action. If we do not get this, but only official "doubt, hesitation, and pain," a great opportunity will have been lost for removing a canker from the body politic before it is too late.
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