22 OCTOBER 1954, Page 4

Two Years of Mau Mau

The emergency in Kenya has now been going on for exactly two years and the occasion was marked by a report issued by the Kenya War Council on the progress of operations against Mau Mau, and by a subsequent press conference given by the members of the Council. The information thus laid before the public can hardly be called reassuring. No doubt, it is comforting to be told by the Governor of the colony that the country's life, particularly its economic life, is still going on in a very great degree,' and the detention of 46,000 Africans in camps can possibly be regarded as a ma* of the activity of the security forces rather than of the magnitude of the threat that faces them. Still, it is disturbing to learn that, in spite of suffering casualties of nearly 20,000 men the Mau Mau hard core' consists of some 7,000 terrorists with about a thousand precision weapons. Surrenders have averaged twenty a week since July, but there can unfortunately be no repetition of the attempt to organise mass surrenders through local Mau Mau commanders. The tone of the War Council's report, in fact, has a striking similarity with other official pronounce- ments on the situation in Kenya—pronouncements which have been characterised by a failure to recognise that, in this sphere, a standstill means a deterioration. The recent brutal murder of the Leakey family is only one sign that time is not necessarily on our side in the colony,