COLONIAL ACHIEVEMENT
I T is a significant and encouraging fact that two of the soundest contributions to the discussion of the colonial problem in the past week have come from prominent members of the Labour Party. From Lord Snell need only be quoted the sane and suggestive assertion that "the British Empire is not breaking-up, it is growing up:" Mr. Herbert Morrison's speech at Newcastle on Sunday calls for larger consideration. That Mr. Morrison should have made such a speech at all is of some interest. Neither the self-governing Dominions nor the colonial dependencies are in any way connected with the Home Office, which he administers, nor do they come under him as a member of the War Cabinet. But he is a leading, some might say the leading, member of the Labour Party, and the place his Newcastle speech holds between an earlier one on the domestic situation and a forthcoming one on the international situation lends the trilogy considerable interest. All that is relevant here, however, is what Mr. Morrison had to say about colonies. If it is asked whether he was officially voicing an approved Cabinet policy the answer may be found in a comparison between this speech and another, delivered a month earlier by Lord Cranborne in the House of Lords. There can be no doubt about the authority behind the latter, for Lord Cranbome is the Government spokesman in the House of Lords, and at the time he made the speech in question he had just relinquished the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies. In fact the two speakers were in complete agreement at all points, and since public speeches are a great deal better reported in these days than the proceedings of Parliament it is all to the good that the view of our colonial responsibilities enunciated by a Conserva- tive leader in the House of Lords should be expounded by a Labour leader on a public platform at Newcastle.
Nothing can be more important than that the nature of these responsibilities should be understood, and there is no hope of that unless the immense diversity of the colonies under the British Hag is realised. The self-governing Dominions, of course, lie outside this discussion, except—and it is a most important excep- tion—as typifying a status towards which many lesser depen- dencies are consistently moving. One at least, Southern Rhodesia, has virtually attained that goal already. In such colonies as Bermuda, Bahamas and Barbados constitutions have been in exis- tence for centuries, and those islands, again, are virtually self- governing. Malta after the war will inevitably fall into the same category. Ceylon is not likely to lag far behind India in the achievement of complete self-government ; complete indepen- dence she is unlikely to desire. In various less advanced stages of development than these come dependencies like Fiji, Malaya, Uganda, Kenya,. Nigeria, other West Indian islands than those mentioned, Cyprus, Mauritius and the three protectorates, Swazi- and, Bechuanaland and Basutoland, in South Africa. Each of these has its individual characteristics and its individual problems, and it is clear that no rule-of-thumb methods can be applicable to the colonies as a whole. But certain fundamental principles n be and are, and they were accepted unequivocally by Lord anborne in his House of Lords speech. One is recognition of e doctrine of trusteeship, the principle that the interests of the ative inhabitants of a given dependency must be paramount ; e other is unswerving adhesion to a policy of ultimate self- overnment in the colonies.
There is much that might be said about both these propositions. ltimate self-government can in some cases only be spoken of ith marked emphasis on the "ultimate." As Mr. Morrison well 'd, to confer self-government on still primitive and undeveloped opies "would be like giving a child of ten a latch-key, a bank count and a shot-gun." Our duty in those cases is plain. It is to regard the child of ten as a ward, whose interests must be defended even against British commercial or other forces that might work to his detriment, and by means of education adapted at once to his capacities and his needs to raise him by a gradual process to adult stature politically. That in a measure is being done, in the African colonies and elsewhere. Achimota College in Gold Coast Colony, which has already ptoved its value in turning out competent native administrators, has been sup- plemented by Makerere in Uganda, where Mr. George Turner, the late Master of Marlborough, is building up a similar system. These are only pioneer institutions ; their number needs to be multiplied ; but that raises difficult financial problems, for the' burden the colonies can lay on the British taxpayer is and must be limited. The problem of native education, moreover, needs to be further explored yet, for it is quite certain that in that field as little as in the political are Western models and methods the criteria that should prevail. The best service, possibly, that could be rendered to most of the African colonies would be in the pro- duction of native administrators and officials, to whose charge the government of the territory concerned could be gradually entrusted as their numbers and capacity justified it. But even within the area of the African colonies there can be no flat uni- ' formity. In some, like Nigeria and Uganda and the mandated area of Tanganyika, the system of indirect rule through native chiefs is yielding good results—though there is some danger that that type of administration may foster conservatism rather than pro- gress. In others a skeleton staff of British officials is reinforced in its lower ranges by natives working directly under British guidance. There is ample room for such diversity and many lessons to be learned from a comparison of different methods.
If there is ground for just pride in British colonial administra- tion, there is no room for any easy complacency. If we were the leaders in the emancipation of slaves it is worth remembering that one of the prizes secured by the Treaty of Utrecht in 0713 was the Asiento, or the right (wrested from Spain) of selling African slaves to the Americas. And if our policy of trusteeship for natives today is genuine and sincere we cannot expunge from our history, and ought not to even if we could, some black records of cruelty and oppression and exploitation. They were not common, and an ill service is done by the propagation of the legend that they were. But they existed, and we may remember them for our chastening. Today there is little danger of a recrudescence of such evils. There is the beginning at least of a public conscience in this country regarding the colonies, though far too little is known of what is, in fact, being accomplished by self-sacrificing British officials all over Africa, and for that matter in other colonies, in organising education, in fighting such scourges as malaria, venereal disease, yellow fever and tubercu- losis, in combating erosion, in improving agriculture, in irrigation, in inculcating the elements of sanitation. To all this the new art of publicity should be applied. There is no reason why after the war booklets no less inspiring than have com- memorated the deeds of Fighter or Bomber or Coastal Commands or the Defence Services should not be prepared by the same or equally talented writers to familiarise the elector at home with some of the miracles of progress that have been achieved in his name in the depths of a continent he will never see.
That does not mean that all is going so well that no colonial question arises. Whether it is going well or not, a colonial ques- tion will be raised from outside the Commonwealth, for, partly owing to our lack of enterprise in the matter of publicity, the state and status of our colonies, and the aims that animate us in our administration, are ill understood. There has been talk on both sides of the Atlantic of the organisation of the various colonies of European Powers (or of the United States) in a given area under regional councils, on which non-colonial Powers in that area might have places, for purposes of general supervision and, consultation. That is a proposal which must be first formu- lated in detail and then diligently scrutinised, but it is one which this country would be very ill-advised to oppose in principle. And that for two reasons. In the first place nothing would be wiser than to do, what we can well afford, throw the whole of our administration of colonies open for public inspection ; we have nothing to conceal ; we have much in which we can take satisfaction ; and if at some points defie:encies are revealed cn• which external criticism may fasten we need not hesitate to admit them if they are real and set about correcting them forthwith. In the second place our own experience, so lengthy, so extensive, so varied, cannot fail to be of some service to other colonial Powers sitting with us on a regional council. On such a body we should Certainly have something to contribute, and as certainly something to learn. In our colonial policy today we have very little to apologise for. Mr. Morrison had good ground for declaring that he wanted the British Commonwealth to last, not merely because it was British but because it was good, and would be better yet.
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