White Settlement and the African Native Africa and Some World
Problems. By General J. C. Smuts. (Clarendon Press. 75. 6d.) White and Black in Africa. By J. H. Oldham. (Longmans.
2s.)
GENERAL SMUTS in the book befoit us has republished several of his recent lectures, including the Rhodes Memorial Lectures. We summarized them at the time of their delivery and here we shall only pick out certain points for the purpose of contrasting his views with those of Mr. J. H. Oldham, who has been provoked to a reply.
The main issue between these two thinkers is whether white settlement in Africa, as hitherto conducted, helps or injures the natives. General Smuts regrets the recent slowing-up of white settlement, particularly in East Africa. This has happened, he says, " at the very time when there should be a determined move forward." He declares that the long range of highlands extending from Rhodesia right up to Kenya invites settlement. (Mr. Oldham, by the way, does not admit that there is any such uninterrupted range of hills suitable for European settlers and their families.) General Smuts is persuaded that without white settlement the mass of African natives will not be inspired to develop out of their intellectual immobility. He says that South Africa is an admirable example of what the white man can do for the native. " White employment is the native's best school ; the gospel of labour is the most salutary gospel for him." He looks upon the native as characteristically a sweet-tempered child who cannot be brought out of his childlike state without constant contact with the white man.
General Smuts is, however, for preserving native customs and traditions as far as possible. As regards taxation, he says that the but tax is a very justifiable levy on the native ; it is the native's contribution to the organization of the life of the country from which he profits equally with the white man. On the other hand General Smuts condemns all labour taxes—taxes designed to make the native offer his labour against his will. It must not be deduced from all this that General Smuts thinks it possible for whites and natives to live casually intermingled. He is a segregationist. Unfortunately, although South Africa is leading the way in formulating a doctrine of segregation, the doctrine has come too late, because the South African lands have already been parcelled out.
The only matter in which General Smuts would interfere with native custom is agriculture. He says that the communal holding of land has had disastrous results. Land is carelessly tilled and abandoned when it ceases to be fertile. Then new areas are cleared ; forests are sacrificed, and the rain- fall is affected. Every student of British history knows that the " common land " system of England was similarly baneful, The standard of agriculture was very low, because the growth of weeds could not be controlled on the unfenced lands and weak cattle were free to roam about and spread their diseases. General Smuts suggests that in East Africa the proposed High Commissioners should be definitely entrusted with land settlement as well as with native policy. The most important of his other suggestions is that Annual Conferences on African problems should be instituted, and that to these Conferences delegates should come from all the British African States, from Kenya to the Union of South Africa.
Mr. Oldham's critical analysis of General Smuts's African lectures is finely written and argued. We shall not at this stage take sides, for the controversy must go very much further and more information must be obtained. General Smuts himself would not pretend that in his lectures he was able to do more than give a sketch of the African prospect. Mr. Oldham, however, thinks that an Oxford audience can know little of Africa if it listened to General Smuts's lectures without making reservations. His case is that South Africa has not, on the whole, done well for the native in either education or industrial advancement. He does not precisely deny that the natives have increased more rapidly in South Africa than in the rest of the continent—General Smuts takes that alleged increase as a proof of the benefits of white settlement—but he very much doubts it. He thinks that the substitution of individual for communal tenure of the land would not do more than " touch the fringe of the problem." As for other industrial opportunities, Mr. Oldham says that anyone who crosses the frontier between Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo is struck by the change. In the Belgian territory he finds natives driving trains and acting as guards. We do not suppose, however, that Mr. Oldham would compare the history of the Belgian Congo as a whole favourably with that of the British States.
When Mr. Oldham disputes the suitability for white settle- ment of the immense area in which General Smuts foresees a new Dominion, we daresay he is right ; but is not medical science only at the beginning of its work in Africa ? In another part of Africa has not the " white man's grave " been turned into a relatively healthy' district ? More important is Mr. Oldham's argument that there can never be a justification for a white Dominion in East Africa. One obvious comment upon this is that never is a long time. He would like to see General Smuts's scheme of scientific. experts (who are to save modem democracy from breakdown) applied as the only method for East Africa.
We wholeheartedly agree that the interests of the natives must come first. That, indeed, is the declared British policy and we must see that it is not tampered with. But we are afraid that some day if economic policy, as well as native policy, remained unchangeably in the hands of appointed Imperial representatives the cry might once more be heard against " government from Downing Street." Rightly or wrongly it might be said that the struggle which began in the American Colonies must begin over again. Economic policy is a matter of money, and it is just about money that men feel most strongly. It may be that Mr. Oldham has written with over-emphasis here and there in order to correct the balance which he thinks has been badly upset by Genera! Smuts. As we all know, heresy arose when those who intended to be most orthodox went too far in their emphasis in an earnest desire to correct somebody else's departure from truth.
This African problem, at all events, is one of the greatest moral tests before our Imperial democracy. We hope that General Smuts's lectures and Mr. Oldham's examination of them will be very widely read. No doubt somewhere there is hidden the mean which will provide the perfect protection and training for the native without demoralizing the white settler by in effect telling him that he has no share of the responsibility for the natives' welfare.
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