BRITISH HANDLING OF NATIVES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 52, 29 August 1925, Page 17

BRITISH HANDLING OF NATIVES

Mr. A. C. G. Hastings, in "Nigerian Days" (Bodley Head), puts in a nutshell the secret of Britain's .success as a colonial Power. He says:- —'.'There is no race which can beat the British in handling natives. Where we score is that we believe in keeping up the native's end. We put aside all thought of a hurried exploitation of the country at the expense of its inhabitants. We start. by. abolishing the evily.which we find there; after that we check famine, prevent disease, ensure the safety of the land, and then we see how to turn it into a going concern. Meanwhile we do nothing much to make ourselves comfortable while we are at it. Nigeria has no towns like Dakar and Konakry in French West Africa, where you find boulevards, oafea, gardens, restaurants, end picture palaces. Cheerfully we settle down in homes of mud; with another patch of mud to play our games on; we eat rough food; we go sick, we die or we recover; but the point is that, take all. in all, wo leave the native in a rather better case than when we found him."