[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR, —In "News of
the Week" (your issue of July 2nd) an unfair and misleading statement appears which calls for comment. It is a pity that it should appear in the Spectator:
Lord Moyne points out that Europeans in Kenya pay no snore than 308. a head in direct taxation. There is clearly, therefore, a case for a moderate income-tax."
Contributions to revenue by the three communities is stated by the Government statistician to be as follows :
Taxation
Population. Taxation, per head.
European .. 17,285 £665,781 £38 10 4 Asian .. .. 56,903 £385,658 6 15 6 Native .. .. 2,950,000 £791,100 0 5 4
Much seems to be made of the alleged few facilities for native education. What about the hundreds and hundreds of native schools conducted by the missions throughout the country. No notice is taken of the fact that every settler is compelled by law to carry large stocks of medicines for the use of their natives and provided at the expense of the farmer. That a sick native has to be conveyed to and from hospital and all hospital fees paid by the farmer and that a train. journey of 100 miles to convey the native to hospital is not uncommon. That very many settlers maintain schools on their farms at their own expense for their natives and those of their neighbours. That all natives employed on farms receive in addition to their pay, food, blankets, medicines, fuel, housing, land for cultivation on which their families raise large quantities of produce for sale, grazing for their stock and that 20 cows per native with anything from 200 to 500 sheep and goats . is a fair average. In addition all these native employees have their stock in the reserve or hidden on adjoining farms and on Crown land. To pay their annual hut tax the pastoral native sells one sheep or goat. The wily Kikuyu near a town sells a few fowls, and the tax is paid. Does the English working man get food, clothing, housing, medical treatment, land for agri- culture, grazing for cattle, sheep and goats, schooling, fuel, medicines for all his family and relatives free in addition to his pay ?
Our direct taxation is 60s. per annum, increased this year to 90s. Our system of taxation is different from that in England as our needs are different in a new country where farms are slowly being won from bare veld which thirty years ago and less was uninhabited except by wild animals or raiding parties of the cruel and bloodthirsty Masai who massacred all they met.
Our taxation of last year of /38 10s. 4d. per head is this year increased by an additional Poll tax of 30s. per head and levied on girls of eighteen and over if in receipt of a small salary and the Governor's new Budget of last year which according to H. E.'s speech, only adds £7 10s. per head per annum, man, woman and child, for each European.
Taking an average family of a man, his wife and two children, that family contributes £180 is. 4d. per annum towards the cost of Government and receives what? Unceasing misrepresentation by a section of the English Press, by notoriety seeking politicians who have not even lived in Africa and by a few disgruntled ex-officials of the Kenya Civil Service who now enjoy fat pensions in England where at a distance of 6,000 miles they can slander with impunity their fellow-countrymen who are engaged in building up painfully and slowly against the concealed antagonism of their rulers in England a new Dominion which in time will rival even Canada and Australia.
A market for the Home Country and a future home for thousands we hope of British immigrants who will settle and build up homes and families.
The Colonial Office is blindly following the policy which lost America, raised rebellion in South Africa and has lost Ireland to the Empire.—! am, Sir, &c., [If our correspondent has any complaint, it is against Lord Moyne, whose statement the Spectator quoted as it stood. Other passages in the letter are of interest in the light of Mr. Roden Buxton's communication above.—En. Spectator.]
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