West African studies

by Mary Henrietta Kingsley

For reasons I need not discuss here it must be a duplicate system, with an English and an African side, these two united and responsible to the English Crown, but both having as great a share of individual freedom in Africa as possible. By and by the necessity for the duplicate system may disappear, but at present it is necessary.

I will take the English side first. There should be in England an African Council, in whose hands is the power of voting supplies and of appointing the Governor-General, subject to the approval of the Crown, and to whom firms trading in Africa should be answerable for the actions of their representatives. This council should be of nominated members, from the Chambers of Commerce of Liverpool, Manchester, London, Bristol, and Glasgow. Of course, they should not be paid members. This council would occupy a similar position in West African administration to that which the House of Commons occupies in English.

Under this Grand Council there should be two sub-councils reporting to it, one a joint committee of English lawyers and medical men, the other a committee of the native chiefs. Neither of these councils should be paid, but sufficient should be granted them to pay their working expenses. The members of these sub-councils of the Grand Council should be appointed—the medical and legal committee by say, the Lord Chancellor and the College of Physicians respectively, and the committee of African chiefs by the chiefs in West Africa.

I make no pretence at believing that either of these sub-councils for the first few years of their existence will be dove-cots—lawyers and doctors will always fight each other: but the lawyers will hold the doctors in and vice versa, and the common sense of the Grand Council will hold them both well down to practical politics. With the council of chiefs there will probably be less trouble, and this council will be an ambassador to the white government at headquarters capable of representing to it native opinion and native requirements.

Representing the Grand Council and nominated by it, subject to the approval of the Crown, as represented by the Chief Secretary for the Colonies and the Privy Council, there must be one Governor-General for West Africa: he must be supreme commander of the land and sea forces, with the right of declaring peace and war, and concluding treaties with the native chiefs; he must be a proved expert in West African affairs; he must be paid, say, £5,000 a year; he must spend six months on the Coast on a tour of inspection, during which he must be accessible alike to the European and native. He may, if he sees fit, spend more than six months out there; but it is not advisable he should reside there permanently, for if he does so, he will assuredly get out of touch with the Grand Council, of which he should ex officio be chairman or president. This grand council with its sub-councils is all that is required in England for the government of West Africa. It is not, as you see, an expensive system per se: with its power to raise supplies, it could vote itself sufficient to carry on its out-of-pocket expenses in the matter of clerks and goods inspectors. The connecting link between it and Africa is the Governor-General; between it and England, the Chief Secretary for the Colonies—not the Colonial, or Foreign, or any other existing Office: things it should be equal with, not subject to.

Out in Africa, the Governor-General should be the representative of the English raj—the Ober Hoheit of England—and the head of the system of Landes Hoheit, represented by the African chiefs; in him the two must join. Under his control, on the European side, must be the few European officials required to administer the country locally. These must be carefully picked, experienced men, provided with sufficient power to enforce their rule with promptitude when it comes to details; but the policy of the Ober Hoheit should be the policy of the Governor and Grand Council, not of the individual official.

Immediately in grade under the Governor-General should come a set of district commissioners or governors, one for each of the present colonies. These men should be the resident representatives of the Governor-General, and responsible to him for the affairs, trade and political, of their districts. These district commissioners should be paid £2,000 a year each, and have a term of residence on the Coast of twelve months, with six months’ furlough at home on half pay, the other half of the pay going to the men who represent them during their absence at home—the senior sub-commissioners of their districts.[78]

The next grade are the sub-commissioners. These are only required in the districts now termed Protectorates; the Europeanised coast towns to be under a different system I will sketch later. Well, these Protectorate districts should be divided up among sub-commissioners, who should each reside in his allotted district. They should be responsible directly to the district commissioner, and they should represent to him constantly the chiefs’ council of the sub-district and the trade, and on the other hand represent trade and the Ober Hoheit things to the native chiefs. These men, therefore, will be the backbone of the system, and primarily on them will depend its success; so they must be expert men—well acquainted with the native culture state, and with the trade. Each of these sub-commissioners should have in his district, his own town, from which he should frequently make tours of inspection round his district at large; but this town should be what Sir George Goldie calls “a town of refuge.” English law should rule in it absolutely, administered by an official, one of the class of men approved by the legal sub-council of the Grand Council. The sub-commissioner should also have in his town a medical staff of three men, nominated by the medical side of the sub-council of the Grand Council. These three (chief medical, assistant medical, and dispenser) should have a hospital provided, where they can carry on their work properly. Also in this town should be the military force sufficient to enforce rule in the district—either to go and prevent one chief bagging another chiefs belongings, or to assist a chief in a domestic crisis. It is impossible to say how large a military staff a sub-commissioner would require; some districts would require no more than fifty soldiers, while another might require 200. Details of this kind the Governor-General must decide; but whatever size this force may be, it should be composed of troops under efficient military control. I believe the West Indian troops to be the best for this service; but here again you will meet, if you take the trouble to inquire of people who ought to know, the greatest haziness of mind combined with an enormous difference of opinion. Some will tell you that the West Indians are no good, that they are cowardly and unfit for bush work, and require as many carriers as a white regiment. Others say the opposite, and hold forth on the evil of using raw savages as troops in such a country, and placing men who have been cast out on account of crime into positions of power and authority in the very districts wherein all the power they should have by rights would be to swing at the end of a rope.

There is much to be said on both sides; the only thing I will say is that military affairs in West Africa are in much the same scrappy mess as civil, and require reorganisation. There is, no doubt, excellent fighting material in many West African tribes, and turbulent native spirits are all the better for military organisation and discipline; it is certain, however, that such men should be deported from districts wherein they have private scores to settle, and used elsewhere after they have been disciplined. If it were possible for the native regiments now being drilled in the hinterlands of our colonies out there to be used actively to guard our people from foreign aggression, there would be a good reason for having them, but recent events have demonstrated, in the Gold Coast hinterland for example, that they cannot, according to Government notions, be so employed. Therefore they are worse than useless, for they merely add to the unjustifiable aggressions on the native residents by aggressions of their own; such things as native police under the white Government side for the districts of the protectorate should not exist. They are a sort of wild fowl who will get you and themselves into more rows than they will ever get any one out of, and they will squeeze you and the native population into the bargain. The chiefs of the district should be responsible for the internal administration of justice among their own people. If a chief fails in this he should be removed, with the assistance of the military force at the command of the sub-commissioner. When, in fact, a chief is found to be going astray, the fact should be promptly brought before the council of chiefs; a definite short time, say a month, should be allowed them to bring him to his bearings, and if at the expiration of this time they fail to do so, without any further delay the sub-commissioner should step in. In a very short time the chiefs’ council would see the advisability of keeping this from happening, and also see that it can only be prevented by enforcing good government among themselves.

Well, this West Indian guard should of course be under its proper military officers, and at the disposal of the sub-commissioner, and well installed in barracks, and made generally as happy as circumstances will permit.