Isolating Mau Mau
It is much too early to say with anything like certainty t113,1 the growth of violence in Kenya has been effectively checkreo' but for the moment at least the signs are encouraging. 1.11cei Government's repressive measures seem to have been apnlle soberly, and now the Kikuyu are said to be declaring them; selves in greater numbers against Mau Mau. It is a go°,u, sign also that some of the tribal leaders feel able to sPen.1 more freely. "I will not brook any nonsense from you," sal,' one of them at Nyeri to the squatters deported from Thomson s Falls to their reserve, "and now that you have returned You had better commence immediately to mend your ways and to co-operate with the Government." The broadcast by M. Mathu, leader of the African unofficial members in the Kean Legislative Council, must also have had considerable effect; It is a pity that he was not permitted to make his apne.lu• earlier, particularly if there was substance in his complain! that all previous broadcasts in the Kikuyu language on beha.11, of 4re authorities had been unintelligible. Meanwhile the ma: of Jomo Kenyatta and the other five suspects has begun n` Kapenguria (Mr. Pritt's attempt to have the hearing trans; ferred from a closed area having failed), and the outcome 01 this, whatever it may be, will be something to reckon with; for: guilty or innocent, they will emerge either as heroes or as, martyrs in the eyes of hardened Mau Mau adherents. But it seems.-elear that the authorities will in time succeed in 15,0- hating Mau Mau and restoring Jaw and order throughout toe greater part of the country. That accomplished, reforms designed to raise the African's standards of living and of edn' cation will be accelerated, and so in due course their ambitions, will be canalised into more respectable courses. The idea 01 partnership, fully accepted in some African colonies, has bee,n, slower in taking root in Kenya. There is no alternative to I,' except antagonism and disaster. But the immediate task is th' suppression of barbarism.
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