East African Aspirations
A conference in Nairobi of representatives of the Kenya Electors' Union and of the Tanganyika European Council has resolved to ask the British Government to issue a re-statement of colonial policy which will " make it clear beyond all question or doubt that the British people will remain in East Africa as builders of Christian civilisation, and that it will be the privilege of the British people for a long time ahead to be the controlling, directing force in East Africa." This, in the East African settlers' opinion, is the best way to end racial discord, which arises, according to another resolution at the same conference, from the African's impression " that British rule, leadership, and enterprise are temporary expedients, the end of which can be hastened by political agitation." Evidence of the serious concern of Europeans in East Africa with race-relations is welcome ; so is one of the speeches at the conference, urging that the remedy for present discontents is a change of attitude towards Africans, entailing personal interest in their endeavours. If that is to be the policy of Europeans in East Africa it will evoke general sympathy here. But if we are to affirm officially that we are the builders of Christian civilisation in Africa we must make sure that politicians and missionaries there mean the same thing by " Christianity." Some Africans have a vague feeling that it ought not to mean the permanent domination of one race by another, and that Europeans are in Africa from motives of self-interest rather than of altruisth. But, in fact, the two motives are not mutually exclusive. H is possible to frame policies that will serve the interests of European and African alike. It is possible, too, that in individual cases self-interest may come to bulk less and altruism to bulk more. The claim to be builders of a Christian civilisation involves a good deal in the way of Christian practice.
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