Spare the Politician
PHE Express has described as 'shocking' the 1. news that political opponents of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana may be flogged. This will come as some surprise to its readers, who have been under the impression that the Express approves of the lash. It is possible that Lord Beaverbrook does not like the idea of politicians being flogged, even if they are in opposition; but the most likely explanation is that flogging is a traditionally British pastime: for blacks to adopt it is presumptuous. The least the Ghana Government can do, if it persists in its ludicrous belief that the customs of a civilised people can thus be transplanted at whim to more primitive nations, is to ensure that competent British in- structors are flown out to show them how.
As eminent an authority on this subject as Lord Cromer was careful to insist that when members of subject races were flogged, even if they were only Egyptians, the preliminarY arrangements must be carefully attended to, so as to ensure that everybody concerned reaped the maximum benefit; there are floggings and floggings, and it is not to be supposed that any inexperienced bushwhacker can be called in out of the jungle to do the job—he may not even know how to arrange it so that the scars remain for an indefinite period. And there' is possibly a further complication; that they may not show up so well on a black background. If Lord Beaver- brook cannot spare the time to supervise the arrangements himself, perhaps he could be per- suaded to send one of his leader-writers?
Previous page
