SIR GEORGE GOLDIE
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Miss Perham thinks that Lady Gerald Wellesley and I " claim too much " for Sir George Goldie. But she herself obscures the facts. " What Goldie gained for England was the control of the Lower Niger," she says. No ordinary reader would guess from this that Goldie subjugated two vassal States of the central Fulani empire, one of which put 80,000 men into the field against him.
She observes that the task of bringing Goldie's policy into -effect was carried out by others. But she omits to make clear that the opportunity of carrying it out was denied to Goldie by his own Government.
Why ? Mary Kingsley, writing at the time with close knowledge, held that the French wanted !` Goldie's head on a charger," because Goldie had been the chief obstacle to their advance. But Miss Perham suggests that there were other reasons. " Goldie was no more a plaster saint in his public than in his private life." Admittedly, he was lax in sex-morality. I know of no laxity in his public conduct. He never spared himself ; he never sought profit or reward. Did he fail on any occasion to maintain the interest and the honour of England ? I know of none. If a different answer should be given to this question it should be given clearly. As things stand, Miss Perham, through an unlucky choice of words, appears to damage by innuendo a name which, as she admits, has suffered " ungrateful neglect."—Yours faithfully, 47 Albany Street, N.TV .1. STEPHEN GWYNN.
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