BOOKS.
THE DUAL MANDATE Lti BRITISH TROPICAL AFRICA.* Tars is an invaluable work by a great colonial administrator. Sir Frederick Lugard has earned a very high place in the line
of a noble tradition, and this book will place him higher. We cannot praise too much the sincere consideration which he displays towards all subject populations, while he at the same time asserts that the products of tropical countries are necessary to the whole world and are therefore in a sense the property of humanity. He would never sanction the alienation of personal property from the native, but he declares that colonial adminis- trators have a duty and a trust to develop the products of tropical countries. This double principle has inspired the title of his book. The British Empire holds a mandate for the subject races in whose interest it governs, but it also holds a mandate on behalf of civilization.
Sir Frederick, though he deals with a wilderness of facts, has the power of never losing sight of his main arguments, and every chapter is most readable. This great work will be indis- pensable in every library dealing with colonial. affairs. Sir Frederick Lugard's experience is world-wide. He has served
as a soldier in India, Egypt, Burma and East Africa, and has been an official, rising from one post to another in East Africa, in
Uganda, in West Africa, South-West Africa and Nigeria. Great Britain has not often made a better appointment than when Sir Frederick Lugard was made the High Commissioner for Northern Nigeria. The development of Nigeria under his direction was unceasing and unspoiled by any blemishes. The keynote of his writing, apart from its readable quality, is fairness. He reminds us of Lord Cromer by the manner in which he presents both sides of a question and then, by an
almost invisible -feat of disentanglement, seems to leave only one solution open to the acceptance of men of moderation and common sense. Like Lord Cromer, he has a great belief in the principle of the open door for trade, regarding it as a system which causes not only the maximum creation of wealth but the least amount of irritation between nations. He has, of course, seen a great deal of the work of chartered companies, and he lays down the wise rule that a chartered company should obtain its administrative revenue rather from funds raised by the ordinary methods of a Government than from commercial profits. Commercial profits, he says, should be strictly limited to sources which are open to all competitors.
Sir Frederick Lugard has made a particular point of trying to understand the character of the people with whom he is dealing and the sort of mental processes which are the motives of their actions. Here is an anecdote which is not only delightful to read, but has a material value in the scale of that class of evidence which Sir Frederick Lugard has collected :—
" Later our scouting parties caught a man with a cow. He was a Ittkonde, one of the timid unvrarlike tribe which had been wiped out by the slave-raiders, and to whose rescue we had come. Questioned as to how he had got the cow, he replied that he had stolen it from the Arab stockade. Crawling up in the dark of night he had slowly dug out one pole after another, and made a breach through the wall until he had effected an entrance. Did he not feel afraid when he heard the sentries of the Slavers chanting their challenge to each other from their watch-towers close by ? He explained in reply that there was no ground for misgiving, since he himself was only worth as a slave a quarter part of the value of the cow. The risk was worth taking, for the prospective gain was 3 to 1 on his stake. That it should
• The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa. By the Right Hon. Sir F. 1:0. Lugard, G.C.H.G., C.B., D.S.O. London : Blackwood. (42s. not.]
make any difference that his own life was the stake in question was outside his comprehension, and his apologies were abject for his presumption in having secured an article so much more valuable than himself. He implored me to take it and spare his life. When I praised him for his pluck, and sent him away the possessor of the cow, his delight was ludicrous, but both he and his captors thought me mad. Criminals condemned to death show the same lack of apprehension until tho moment of execution arrives."
One of Sir Frederick Lugard's great difficulties in Africa was the lack of administrative talent among Africans. But is civilization " bad " for African natives ? Ought we to conclude that because they may never be able to think as we think the imposition of any kind of Western civilization upon them is in a sense a wrong? Sir Frederick sums up his discussion of that subject by saying that although the first impact of civilization on barbarism is bound to produce untoward results, there is encouragement for the future in the undeniable allevia- tion of human suffering which civilization has everywhere brought. Examining the problems of colonial administration from the point of view of the white officials, he lays great emphasis upon the importance of continuity of policy. When an adminis- trative system was in the making, he used to urge the desira- bility of officials being given frequent periods of leave. The point was that it was better in the interest of continuity that officials should be away fairly often for a short time than that they should stay at their posts till a very long rest became necessary during which they might quite lose touch. He quaintly remarks that decentralization, co-operation and con- tinuity in African administration correspond to faith, hope and charity in Christianity, and that the greatest of these is con- tinuity. His discussion of the preservation of health in Africa is most illuminating, and be incidentally points out that the separation of the living quarters of the natives from those of white people is essentially in the interests of health and has nothing whatever to do with race prejudice.
We have not space to follow his most interesting essays— for that is what they are—on the advantages of ruling through native chiefs, of levying direct taxation and of respecting the landed rights of the natives, and on the best kind of education. On the subject of education, after describing what objects should be kept in view, he writes :-
" My aim has been to urge that these results may hest be achieved by placing the formation of character before the training of the intellect, and to make some few suggestions as to how this may be done—by boarding-schools ; by an adequate British staff ; by so framing the grant code and regulations as to enlist the co-operation of the Mission Societies, and extend the control of Government over all educational agencies ; and finally, by the encouragement of moral and religious instruction. And by this I do not mean any particular system of philosophy or of creeds."
We wish that every Labour leader in this country could read what Sir Frederick Lugard has written about the value of tropical possessions to the massed populations of Europe. He finds that in thinking about British colonies the Labour Party is entirely on the wrong tack. He complains that the Research Department of the Labour Party recommends the relegation of colonial administration to international committees. The Labour motive in making this recommendation is the assumption that material development benefits only the capitalist. Yet for generations the British Empire has been spreading throughout the world the idea of liberty. Surely that should appeal to a democracy. Why are we sometimes forced to wonder, against our inclinations, whether most of the Labour leaders are really democrats ?
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