Impatience in Kenya
Since the Mau Mau trouble broke out we have learned to distinguish between the two main types of British settler: the reasonable, liberal-minded type, and the illiberal, noisy minority whose short way with the blacks is the swift application of whip or noose. It is the latter with their ana- chronistic attitude who, more than anything else, are res- ponsible for a certain reluctance in the Press here to give the settlers completely undivided and unqualified support. This in turn has helped to intensify the bitter resentment which settlers in increasing numbers feel towards London. Mau Mau has been represented as quite simply a reversion to savagery, and so indeed it is, but quite apart from the immediate crisis the enormous gulf between white and black' in Kenya, in standards of living and education, rates of pay, housing, and the rest, can be represented as making nonsense of the British doctrine of co-partnership and racial equality. It' is clear that the majority of settlers are no more satisfied with this state of affairs than their critics abroad, but the damage has been done, and what has to be reckoned with now is a new gulf between the settlers and London. It is not only among the exponents of rough and ready " justice " that impatience with Colonial Office rule has come to a head, and, with terrorism continuing, who is to say that their impatience is unjustified ? At Thomson's Falls on Monday Mr. Blundell made it clear that the demand is now not only for sterner measures to put down Mau Mau, but also for the transference of power from London to Nairobi and a new constitution pro- viding for the government of Kenya by Kenyans of all races, under British leadership. Hitherto the emergency has been primarily a burden on the backs of the settlers and the loyal, or at any rate innocent, Africans. The real test for the Colonial Office begins now. These demands of the European-elected members of the Legislative Council are .made in earnest, and there is every indication that if the Government rejects their recommendations (one of which, not unreasonably, urges the appointment of a co-ordinator for all anti-Mau Mau operations, who would act as General Templer has acted in Malaya), there will be trouble of a new and different variety.
