ART OF RULING

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 84, 10 April 1931, Page 3

ART OF RULING

HAS BRITAIN LOST IT ?

SIR HENRY DOBBS CRITICAL

COMMISSION

SEEDED

Few Englishmen c;ui feel happy about our present relations with tho more advanced of our Dependencies, mandated territories, and subordinate allies, writes Sir Henry Dobbs, onetime Administrator of (he Irak, in tho "Daily Telegraph."

In India the educated and commercial classes are violently opposed to us, and are infecting with their hatred tho agricultural classes.

In Irak, except for King Fcisal and his immediate circle, the j arc against us, and against what they term the "Palaec-Resideuey Alliance." It was only by special electoral methods that a Parliament willing to approve the new Anglo-Irak Treaty was secured. In Palestine neither the Jew nor tho Arab is content with us. In Egypt tho electors have, whenever they have had a chance, returned anti-British representatives. Ceylon is fermenting (though not so violently as India), and few have a good word for the new constitution. Only from Singapore and the Malay States do no serious murmurs rise against us. Even in backward Africa the feeling between whites and blacks is not" so ; good as it was. COMMON BELIEF. j It is commonly held that this widespread revulsion has been brought I about by the doctrine of solf-determina-tion rashly cast into the vortex of world-polities by President Wilson. But, if it were so, we should expect the colonies of other Powers to be in tho same state as our own. So far as can be seen they are not, except for the Philippines, where the Americans have had so much trouble that they are thinking of. abandoning them. Can. it be, -then, that the AngloSaxon races have lost their power of governing? Or is it merely that they have been climbing up .the wrong rope and have hitherto been too proud to climb down and try another? Have they not been too sure that they alone are successful colonists, and that they have nothing to learn from, other nations ?

Let us cast our eyes on the more advanced French colonies and mandates, I undeterred by the fact that most Englishmen have been brought up to believe that the French cannot manage colonies and dependencies as well as we can. NO TROUBLE. In Indo-China, with its 20,000,000 inhabitants, there has been some slight Communist trouble, but not enough to disturb French complacency. In Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco, all seems calm and prosperous, except for somo petty tribal fracas. In Syria, after tho frightful upheaval of 1925, which was comparable with the Irak rebellion of 1920, the French have imposed peace, and tho excitable and difficult population has settled down to an acceptance, however sullen, of French authority.

And what strikes the observer especially in all this is that the French spirit and civilisation seem to be permeating the mass of their subordinate peoples more profoundly than Anglo-Saxon civilisation has permeated the British and American dependencies, and that those peoples are as a rule proud of their connection with France.

In a French dependency one has the impression that tho French are enthusiastic believers in the superiority of French culture, and keeg before them the clear aim of its advancement. In a British dependency nowadays one finds that the British have lost faith in themselves and their mission. The heart has gone out of them; they have no propaganda spirit. They feel that the bonds of authority are being loosoned, that the future lies in a haze, and that inefficiency is on the increase, and may sweep away the material improvements on which they are engaged. WHAT GOAL? They caunot tell what they are working for. It is not the greater power of the Empire, for that cannot be achieved by a disruptive autonomy of its parts. It is not Imperial trade, for our rivals are daily taking larger shares of the trade \of our dependencies. It is not the spread of British culture, for everywhere the cry is for the restoration of the vernaculars to a leading place in education. |

It is not the prosperity of the people or tho enforcement of justice between them, for, as the Maharaja of Alwal said in the Hound Table Conference, "There will be less justice and less efficiency/ but what does that matter if the politicians get what they want?

In the other picture, that of the French dependencies, we see, together with a constantly increasing associa-; tion of the natives with the administration a firm French hold on the reins of government and a firm support of French culture and French commerce. Except in Syria, where the mandatory system forbids it, there is a very substantial Custom preference on French goods. The local Press, though often critical, is restrained in. tone, and does not indulge in the venomous outbursts against Europeans to which the Press of- India, Irak, Palestine, and Egypt has accustomed us during these rece-nt very disturbing years. TIME TO INVESTIGATE. What can be the reasons for this contrast? Is it not time that we should have the courage to admit its existence and to seek, by studying the methods

of other nations, to see where we have gone astray? Or arc wo too proud to learn by tho cxamplo and experiments of others with responsibilities elsewhere t

Some hint that the French hold the secret of familiar contact and friendship with Eastern and African races which is denied to tho cold and distant Anglo-Saxon, and that the foundations of tho movement against British Imperialism arc laid in social antipathy.

Some think that the glittering magnificence of French political theory, rhetoric, art, and architecture captivates tho imagination of subject races more than tho compound of sentimcntalism and utilitarianism which characterises English administrative policy. Others, again, believe that the modern English official and trader have sacrifice), their souls to sport, that they have lost the spirit of devotion to their work and the seriousness of their characters, and that-tennis, golf, and polo play the chief part in their lives. Still others attribute the want of touch between the British and the people among whom they live to tho increase of clerical work, which keeps them glued to their desks, with their noses buried in reports. Others say that the French have realised what we have not, that in the East and South the Press is not a safety-valve, but a bellows, and that they escape from sedition by refusing to allow it to be fanned. DEFECTS BLAMED. In short, where our comparative failure is admitted, it is attributed cither to some defect in the character of our race or to our administrative mistakes.

Surely it is vital to us that we should attempt to discern the true causes. If they lie in our character then there is not much hope, for we arc not chameleons. But if, as seems more probable, our administrative systems arc at fault, the mischief is not beyond repair. It is very remarkable that in all the discusions on the future o£ India, Ceylon, and Palestine no word has been said of what other Powers have- done.

Before we commit ourselves irrevocably, this should surely be remedied, and a- strong Commission should be sent to selected dependencies of Franco and, perhaps, Holland, to inquire into their administrative and representative systems, the comparative burden of their taxation, their treatment of the local Press and their relations with the governing Power. We should find that we had much to learn, even if we had something to avoid. ANOTHER VIEW. Colonel Weston Jarvis, chairman of the Eoyal Empire Society, upoa whom the honour of knighthood has just been conferred, discussed with a representative of the "Daily Telegraph" Sir Henry Dobbs's article. It is Colonel Jarvis 'a view that Britain had created for itself what diifi- j culties might exist by false sentimentality regarding the doctrine of selfdetermination.

On the whole, howover, he was inclined to think that Sir Henry Dobbs drew too gloomy a view of the situation.

! "The Koyal Empire Society," Colonel Jarvis said, "has honorary corresponding secretaries all over tho Empire, and if there was any serious unrest permeating the natives under British rule we should know all about it. As a matter of fact, we have, received no reports bearing out the impression conveyed by Sir Henry that there is this widespread discontent, or that 'the British have lost faith in themselves and their mission.' "

Our administration of native races is, he thinks, as perfect as it can be. The vast numbers of natives governed and controlled in Africa provided a case in point. Wonderful things, he said, were being achieved in all parts of the Continent, and not least in the Sudan, by a handful of white men. At the other end of Africa the native races of Khodcsia were happy and contented because of the wise administration.

Sir Henry Dobbs did not include the African Colonies in his review, because the natives wero too littlo advanced, but it was impossible to consider British colonial administration without taking account of Africa. Palestine and Irak did not come under British supervision at all until after the war, and in each case tho difficulties encountered were exceptional. In Africa there was practically no unrest, and, as General Smuts once isaid, the African native was the happiest individual in the world. This was largely because he respected the Government under which ho lived and had an enormous reverence for the King and the King's representatives. Colonel Jarvis was unwilling to contrast French and British methods of colonial administration, on the ground that he was not qualified to speak about the former. . ' The Germans, he said, used to administer their colonies from tho sergeantmajor point of view. This method might keep the natives down, but it created hostility, whereas our sympathetic administration did not. Sympathy did not mean relaxing the reins of government. _____——