As in every Hausa Province, all these taxes are collected by the district Chief and paid into the Beit-el-Mal. Fifty per cent. is taken by the British administration and goes towards the cost of the supreme Government. It is the price for protection from aggressive wars by neighbouring peoples and for the control of their own rulers against the extortions and oppressive demands which past rulers exercised. No part of the present taxation is taken out of the country.
The 50 per cent. balance is divided roughly into two. One of the two parts is for the Emir of Zaria Province, who has a fixed civil list for his personal expenditure and the expenses of his Court and for the payment of native Judges and police and the upkeep of a central prison; the other part is apportioned among the town Chiefs of the Province, who pay their subordinate officials a salary previously decided on the proportion it shall bear from the collected taxes. The salaries must not, however, exceed the figure decided when each appointment is made.
Of course, any attempt, detected, on the part of the Chiefs or village Headmen who collect the taxes to act in an irregular manner is dealt with severely. The natives know they can appeal against injustice to the British Resident. But the Residents do not interfere between the native Chiefs and the population unless some great principle is violated. By utilising the machinery of social organisation, which has existed for hundreds of years, for the purpose of native government, a Civil Service has been obtained of men who understand their own people in a way no white could be expected to, and is obtained at a fraction of the cost incurred in having the work done by Englishmen, who could not carry it out with a tithe of the efficiency.
The Government officials’ bungalows at Zaria are the best in Northern Nigeria. Nearly all are of brick. The roads are excellent. They were laid out by the Public Works Department, with the exception of the main trading road to Zaria native city, which was made by the Emir with his own people, directed by those of them who had been on railway construction. The highway is 60 feet wide and is planted both sides with trees, which give a comforting shade.
Two groups of rest-houses are at Zaria. One is within a few feet of the station, in charge of the railway staff, and is very convenient for persons who arrive by a main line train and leave the following day by a branch line train, or vice-versâ; the other group is used by the Resident for travellers who may be staying a little longer.
It was to the latter group I went on my first stay; and it would ill-befit me to omit mentioning the courtesy shown at each visit. When here previously the Resident, Captain Fremantle, was occupied with preparations for moving into the native city for one of the usual periodical visits, lasting a few days; but the morning following my arrival he sent his next-in-command, Mr M. P. Porch, to enquire if I was comfortably quartered, and Mr Porch so thoroughly carried out his mission as to spontaneously ask whether I was short of any supplies, as, if so, he would willingly send me some of his. Dr Johnson, the medical officer, did not wait for the formality of an application for condensed water—that or the filtered variety is indispensable—but offered the necessary authority to draw a daily supply from the man in charge of the condenser. Dr Johnson had sufficient thought and human feeling to reflect that a new-comer might lack the appliances to convert liquid poison into drinkable stuff. He did not put across a polite note a pencil scrawl, “Apply to the railway people,” whose place is a mile away.
On reaching Zaria this time I find Captain Fremantle, whom I had looked forward to meeting, temporarily invalided to England, his place filled for the time being by Mr A. C. Francis, who had been described as one of the most delightful men in the Northern Nigeria Government service. That is just what I should say of him.
FIDDLE.
With strings and bow of horse-hair, rubbed with gum.