West African studies

by Mary Henrietta Kingsley

I am bound to say I believe any ordinary Englishman would be fairly staggered if he went out to West Africa and saw what there was to show for the expenditure of the last few years in our Crown Colonies there,[61] and knew that all that money had been honestly expended in the main, that none of it had been appropriated by the officials, that they had only had their pay, and that none too great.

But, you will say, after all, if West Africa is as rich as it is said to be, surely it can stand a little wasteful expenditure, and support an even more expensive administration than it now has. All I can say is, that it can stand wasteful expenditure, but only up to a certain point, which is now passed; it would perhaps be more true to say it could stand wasteful expenditure before the factor of the competition of French and German colonies alongside came in; and that a wasteful expenditure that necessitates unjust methods of raising revenue, such as direct taxation on the natives, is a thing West Africa will not stand at all. Of course you can do it; you can impose direct taxation on the native population, but you cannot make it financially pay to do so; for one thing, the collection of that tax will require a considerable multiplication of officials black and white, the black section will by their oppressive methods engender war, and the joint body will consume more than the amount that can be collected. From a fiscal standpoint direct taxation of a non-Mohammedanised or non-Christianised community is rank foolishness, for reasons known to every ethnologist. As for the natural riches of West Africa, I am a profound believer in them, and regard West Africa, taken as a whole, as one of the richest regions in the world; but, as Sir William Maxwell said, “I am convinced that, from causes wholly unpreventable, West Africa is and must remain a place with certain peculiar dangers of its own”[62]; therefore it requires most careful, expert handling. It is no use your trying to get its riches out by a set of hasty amateur experiments; it is no use just dumping down capital on it and calling these goings on “Developing the resources,” or “Raising the African in the plane of civilisation;” because these goings on are not these things, they are but sacrifices on the altars of folly and idleness.

Properly managed, those parts of West Africa which our past apathy has left to us are capable of being made into a group of possessions before which the direct value to England, in England, of all the other regions that we hold in the world would sink into insignificance.

Sir William Maxwell, when he referred to “causes wholly unpreventable,” was referring mainly to the unhealthiness of West Africa. There seems no escape from this great drawback. Every other difficulty connected with it one can imagine removable by human activity and ingenuity—even the labour difficulty—but, I fear, not so the fever. Although this is not a thing to discourage England from holding West Africa, it is a thing which calls for greater forethought in the administration of it than she need give to a healthy region. In a healthy region it does not matter so much whether there is an excess over requirements in the number of men employed to administer it, but in one with a death rate of at least 35 per cent. of white men it does matter.

I confess it is this excessive expenditure of men which I dislike most in the Crown Colony system, though I know it cannot help it; it is in the make of the thing. If these men were even employed in some great undertaking it would be less grievous; but they are many of them entirely taken up with clerk work, and all of them have to waste a large percentage of their time on it. Some of the men undoubtedly get to like this, but it is a morbid taste. I know one of our possessions where the officials even carry on their personal quarrels with each other on government paper in a high official style, when it would be better if they put aside an hour a week and went and punched each other’s heads, and gave the rest of their time to studying native law and languages and pottering about the country getting up information on it at large, so that the natives would become familiarised with the nature of Englishmen first-hand, instead of being dependent for their knowledge of them on interpreters and the set of subordinate native officials and native police.

I wish that it lay in my power to place before you merely a set of figures that would show you the present state of our West African affairs, but such figures do not exist. Practically speaking, there are no reliable figures for West African affairs. They are not cooked, but you know what figures are—unless they be complete and in their proper stations, they are valueless.

The figures we have are those which appear in “The Colonial Annual Series” of reports. These are not annual; for example, the Gold Coast one was not published for three years; but no matter, when they are published they are misleading enough, unless you know things not mentioned in them but connected with them. However, we will just run through the figures published for one West African Crown Colony. For many reasons I am sorry to have to take those regarding Sierra Leone, but I must, as at present they are the most correct available.

Now the element of error which must be allowed for in these arises from the proximity of the French colony of French Guinea, which is next door to Sierra Leone. That colony has been really developing its exports. Goods have, up to last year, come out through our colony of Sierra Leone, and have been included with the exports of Sierra Leone itself, though Sierra Leone has not dwelt on this interesting fact. And, equally, since 1890 goods going into French Guinea have gone in through Sierra Leone, and though traceable with care, have been put in with the total of the imports. So you see it is a little difficult to find out whether it has been French Guinea or Sierra Leone that has really been doing the trade mentioned in the figures.

Nevertheless, it has been customary to take these joint, mixed up figures and get happy over “the increase of trade in Sierra Leone during the past ten year$1”;dquo;; but a little calm consideration will prevent you from falling into this idle error.