Thirty years in Madagascar

by Thomas T. Matthews

The General was, however, far too shrewd and able a man to allow himself to be held long in leading-strings, or to have dust permanently thrown in his eyes. Still, it took him over a year to get at the real state of affairs, and to find out the facts for himself. He found that those whom he had sought to make tools of to harass the Protestants, and upset the work of the British missionaries in the supposed interests of France, were really making a tool of him, and a stalking-horse of France in the interests of Rome! He may have been as greatly deceived as the German professor, who published a book on Madagascar some time ago, so packed with fiction and false conceptions, that he gravely informs his readers that: ‘The London Missionary Society had a colony (sic) in Madagascar,’ and that ‘the clerical gentlemen were the real rulers,’—the late queen and prime minister seemingly being little better than their aides de camp!

The General told a deputation of missionaries who waited on him to pay their respects that a good deal had been done for the education of the people, but that religion had been a failure. There may have been more truth in that reflection than there ought to have been; still, he was neither an authority on religion, nor a judge in the case. He had not met with any of the really Christian portion of our people. His opinion on that and other points underwent a great change, after he had been round the island, and had seen for himself the difference between the heathen and the Christianized tribes. But it is from men who know as little about the mission field, and who are as ignorant of missionaries and their work, and as prejudiced against them as he then was, that too many take their ideas about foreign missions. No community would dream of impanelling a jury of cannibals to try a case of culpable homicide, or of appointing blind men judges at a flower-show, or deaf-mutes examiners for musical degrees. Even if they could and did do so, they would not act more irrationally than those who take their conceptions of missionaries and of their work from those who are destitute of all personal religion and all interest in missions.

As the general believed that we were political agents of the British government, he was determined—as he was reported to have stated—‘to break the power of the British missionaries in Madagascar.’ Until his eyes were opened to the real state of affairs he probably would have liked, had it been possible, to have expelled them from the island. Perhaps this result was hoped for by trying to make the place too hot for them, and their remaining seemingly useless. For this end the smashing of the machinery was resorted to. But then it was found that the power of the missionaries was a moral power, and could not be touched by such means.

The situation was very trying to all the members of the mission, but to some much more than to others. Two members gave up and left; and it was thought advisable, under the circumstances, that another should retire; but the rest kept at their posts and at their work, making up by deskwork for the work they were prevented from doing out in their districts. They were determined that, unless expelled, they would not retire until their furloughs were due. A few words would have secured expulsion; but as they had no anxiety to incur martyrdom for a word, they stuck to their work, and put up with much to which British subjects find it hard to submit.

In justice to the General it must be told that when he did find out his mistakes, and how grossly he had been imposed upon, he was man enough and gentleman enough to own his errors—though not in public. That could hardly be expected. He admitted that he had ‘wronged the Hovas and misjudged the London Missionary Society’s missionaries,’ and reversed his policy with regard to both. It ought also to be told that he did his best to atone for the grave error into which he was led with regard to the Governor of Tàmatàve, by his treatment of the family, especially of the eldest son. The guilt of that ‘judicial murder,’ as a French gentleman called it, must be laid mainly at the doors of the ‘good governor’s’ malignant enemies.

As he once admitted, the General went to Madagascar with the intention of stamping out Protestantism and making the people Roman Catholics, as the simplest way with the religious difficulty, and the easiest way of ruling the island, as he thought. From what he had seen of the so-called religion of the natives of the Soudan, and from what he had been told—that the people would be quite ready to change their religion, if he expressed a wish for it—he thought the matter would be very easily managed. He found that the religion of the Malagasy was of a very different kind from what he had met with in Africa. Their Protestantism was made of sterner stuff than he had imagined. The people, whose forefathers had died rather than renounce their faith at the bidding of their own sovereign, were not likely to renounce it now at the word of a European governor-general. Had he persisted in his course, a religious war would have been the result. Four-fifths of the people of the central provinces are Protestant.

General Gallieni and the French government came to see this, and wisely left the religion of the people severely alone. Religious liberty, which had been proclaimed before, became now more of a reality. The Radical government of M. Brisson, to their honour be it told, the day after they entered into power, ordered their colonial secretary to telegraph to Madagascar that the forty village churches which had been seized by the Jesuits in the Bètsilèo country were to be restored at once. This order had to be obeyed, and was a great blow to the arrogance and assumption of the Jesuits.

GENERAL GALLIENI.

It was hardly to be wondered at, that it was almost impossible for the French people, the French officers, and colonists to believe that the British missionaries were not agents of the British government—even permanent officials of the French Foreign Office believed it!—and that their missions were not political agencies, under the guise of religion, as that of the Jesuits had been. At one time the Jesuits received a large sum yearly, afterwards reduced to 15,000 f., for services rendered to the French government. The Jesuits are banished from France, but supported abroad. When M. Laroche freed the slaves, they took the credit of the measure, though they had less to do with it than the British missionaries had; for they were consulted, and the Jesuits were not.