West African studies

by Mary Henrietta Kingsley

Then again in each town which forms the centre of a sub-commissioner’s district there should be representatives of any firms who may wish to trade there. They can each have their separate factories, or form a local association for working the trade of the district as it pleases them. I think it would be advisable that in each of these towns away in the interior there should be a warehouse, whereto all goods coming up for the separate trading firms should be delivered, and wherein all exports ready for transport to the coast should be lodged, and the figures concerning these things ascertained. This should be the business of the sub-commissioner’s secretary, and he can be aided in it by a black clerk. But it would not be a custom-house, because customs, like native regiments, do not exist out there under this system.

If any of the firms like to establish sub-factories in the district outside the town, they should have every facility impartially afforded them to do so. Any attack made on them by the natives should be promptly revenged, but outside the town in all trade matters the native law should rule under the administration of the local chief, with a power (in important cases—say, over £20 involved) of appeal to the chiefs’ council, and from that, if need be to the sub-commissioner.

Now in this town, acting with and directing the council of chiefs, you will have all that the hinterland districts in West Africa at present require for their administration and development, except, you will say, religion and education. As for the first, as represented by the missions, I think they will do best away from the rest, as I will presently attempt to explain. As for education, that will be in their hands too, and with them. The missionary stations about the district, however, will be under the direct control and protection of the sub-commissioner and his town. No gaol will be required there or elsewhere in West Africa; the sort of thing a gaol represents is better represented by a halter and convict labour gang. So much, as old Peter Heylin would say, for the sub-commission.

The district commissioner for a colony and its hinterland should have a residence at one of the chief towns on the coast, making tours round to his sub-commissioners as occasion requires; and he should always be accessible both to his sub-commissioners and to the district chiefs. At his head town should be the headquarters of the military force required by his colony, and the headquarters of the labour service.

We will now turn to the administration of the coast towns, places that have been long in our possession and have a sufficient white and Europeanised African population to justify us in regarding them as English possessions in the Landes Hoheit sense. These towns should be governed by municipality, and should be under English law, having accredited magistrates approved of by the Grand Council and paid, not by the municipalities, but by the Grand Council.

Each municipality should occupy in the system an identical position to that occupied by the sub-commissioner in his town, and communicate with the district commissioner direct, receive all goods, and make returns of them to him. They should each have and be responsible for hospitals and schools within the town, and for its police, lighting, and sanitary affairs. Each municipality should be paid by the Government the same pay as a sub-commissioner, £1,000 a year. They should get their extra resources from a charge on the trade of the town at a fixed rate made by the Grand Council for all municipalities under the system.

This system would do away with the division of our possessions, at present so misleading and vexatious and unnecessary, into Colonies and Protectorates, and substitute for that division the just division into regions under our Landes Ober Hoheit (municipalities), and those under our Ober Hoheit—(sub-commissioners’ districts). Both alike would be under the Governor-General as representing the Grand Council.

There still remains one important new development in our West African methods—the organisation of native labour. The institution of a regular and reliable labour supply seems to me one of the most vital things for the progress of West Africa. There is undoubtedly in West Africa an enormous supply of labour, and that the true negro can work and work well the Krumen have amply demonstrated. All that is required is method and organisation. This you could easily supply. If, for example, you were to direct those energies of yours which are now employed in raising native regiments in the hinterland to raising and regulating a native labour army, it would be better. A native regiment of soldiers is a thing you do not want in any hinterland district, whereas the native regiment of labourers is a thing you do want very badly.

There is also in this connection another fact: while, under the present state of affairs, one colony will be choked with men anxious for work, and another colony will be starving for labour, if all the English colonies were united under one system, and a regular labour department were instituted, this would be obviated.

There exist in West Africa two sources of labour supply, but I think the Labour Department had better deal with only one of them—the free paid labour—the other, the convict, would be better placed under the kind care of the municipalities.