THE ASHANTI SCARE. T HE alarm about Ashanti is, we believe,
much exag- gerated. The contrast between the magnitude of their possessions and the tenuity of their military force weighs upon the imaginations of all Europeans in West Africa, and they are so conscious of the savagery of the millions around them that they attribute to them some- thing of the motiveless fury of wild animals. As a matter of fact, the negroes have something of the same liability to outbreaks of rage, or fear, or greed, but they are still civilised enough to dislike being beaten, to know when they are overmatched, and to hate one another more than they hate the general enemy. The insurrection around Coomassie is, we fancy, confined to a single tribe, provoked by a fear of losing the symbol of their former ascendency, and the tribe is only a mob of negroes armed with muskets, and, though formidable in the forest, incapable of seizing any well-defended place. Sir F. Hodgson had some black Regulars in Coomassie when he was assailed, be has been joined by some more Hausas, and the small detachments hurrying to his aid from the Gold Coast and Nigeria are believed to be sufficient to restore order. The scattered prospectors for gold who were most in danger have not been attacked yet, and if the Chief of Bektia, who adhered to us, is well rewarded, the outbreak may serve to strengthen our authority. We are glad, however, that the incident attracted attention, for it reveals the weak point in our position in West Africa, and may strengthen the hands of the Colonial Office in making a change which is imperatively demanded. We need a West African division of at least eight thousand men, organised on scientific principles, commanded by European officers, and supported by an adequate force of light artillery in hands different from those of the main body. It is simple folly to go on believing that we can govern a continent with a corporal's guard. We have possessed ourselves, wisely or foolishly, of as much of West Africa as would hold two kingdoms the size of France, we are annually increasing the number of untrustworthy allies, and we have pledged ourselves to give some sort of government to many millions of people who are more like evil children than anything else. In so doing we have accepted a heavy task, and we ought to perform it like statesmen and not like raiders. We may have, as we think we have, the right to conquer these black people for their good as well as ours, but we can have no right what- ever to conquer them, and then not establish the Pax Britannica which is the compensation we promise for the superiority we claim. That " British peace" requires force to support it, and we ought to create the force, even if the British taxpayer has to advance for a few years a large proportion of the cost. If peace can be established on a secure footing West Africa will pay for itself easily enough. This can only be done by drilling and arming a small army raised from among the negroes themselves. We cannot waste our white men among tropical swamps, even if we could get them, which is doubtful, and there are reasons, true or false, which make our rulers reluctant to use Indian troops. Sikhs would be delighted to go, and so would Maoris ; but it is said that the former die as rapidly as white men, and it is difficult to enforce with them the sanitary laws which will ultimately render West Africa as safe for English officers as the Asiatic tropics have become. We do not altogether believe the story, for Indian soldiers do excellently in Uganda, and Indian coolies keep their health both in Zanzibar and British Guiana. A good deal of the mortality recorded is, we are convinced, preventible by ordinary precautions in building forts and barracks, and a good deal more is due to that ironical spirit of Nature, noticed in all climates, which induces her first to decree that there shall be no food with- out turning the soil, and then to visit those who turn it first with punishments in the way of fever. There is, however, no necessity for any experiment. Negroes make capital soldiers and subordinate officers, there are any number of them hungering for military employment, and our officers can manage them just as well as they do the Soudanese. The force raised for Nigeria, about two thousand, though inadequate, is said to be very good, and, if the money is forthcoming, there are in fact only two difficulties in the way of effectually garrisoning West Africa. One is the consumption of officers. Forty per cent. of those employed in raising and drilling the men for Nigeria died or were invalided within three years, and it is supposed that under such circumstances an adequate supply of candidates would not be forthcoming. We believe there would be plenty even if the mortality were greater, the pressure for " openings " among the educated class becoming more unbearable every year, but there is no need for all this expenditure of good lives. If the doctors will only pick the men who they believe to be comparatively " immune " from malarious fever, and the officers themselves will obey three rules, never to drink- spirits or beer, never to swallow un boiled water, and never to sleep within eight feet of the ground —the practice which has saved the Burmese from their mosquito-infested swamps—they will live as long in West Africa as in India or China; that is, they will do service for twenty-two years without being utterly broken up. Officers must be picked for special climates as they are for any other special duty, and a man of bilious habit is no more fit for West Africa than a stupid man is for the Intelligence Department. The other obstacle is one of which the force is not yet quite measurable. There is a good deal of reason to believe that the negro soldier, in spite of his general placability, and his reverence for the white man, is specially liable to mutiny. He is a child with the unreasoning fury, fears, and caprices of a child, and when the fit is on no kind of treatment, no charm of discipline, seems quite to hold him in. He must break out, as an Australian rough must go " on the burst," and when he once breaks out he is a savage again. This is a considerable trouble, but we suspect that, once known, it is not an insuperable one ; that, in fact, by keeping the regi- ments small—say five hundred men in each—by picking for Colonels those who understand the negro, and by re- serving the artillery for some separate race—Bheels or West Indians would probably do best—the danger would be reduced to a minimum. It must in any event be faced, and it is always a less danger than that of governing savage tribes, full of evil traditions, wild superstitions, and unaccountable fears, without force sufficient to prevent massacre as a result of their momentary aberrations.
There is another reason for maintaining an adequate force in West Africa which will, we believe, when it is fully understood, weigh heavily with the people of this country. The safety of the Europeans employed by the State is the condition of the kindly and sympathetic government with which we are bound to provide the negro, and which we have not as yet completely secured to him. It is all very well talking, but men of a superior race whose wives and families are liable to murder by men of an inferior breed will not regard those men with kindly eyes, or relax the harsh chain of discipline when it is expedient. It is easier to be terrible, as the Boers are to the Kaffirs, but government by terror, besides provoking resistance, divides the races too far. If we are to turn West Africa into a second Bengal, which should be the ideal, there must be a regime of law instead of will, and if that law is to be rightly administered there must be in its adminis- trators some reasonable sense of security. That depends upon a background of force, and as it will cost but little. and that little only for a few years while the local revenue is growing, we trust that it will be provided with- out delay. After all, no Empire was ever yet maintained on twopence-halfpenny a week.
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