ART OF RULING

Evening Star, Issue 20780, 30 April 1931, Page 3

ART OF RULING

HAS BRITAIN LOST IT ? SIR HENRY DOBBS CRITICAL COMMISSION NEEDED. Ecw Englishmen can feel happy about our present relations with the more advanced of our Dependencies, mandated territories, and subordinate _ allies, writes Sir Henry Dobbs, one-time Administrator of the Iraqi in tho ‘ Daily Telegraph.’ In India tho educated and commercial classes are violently opposed to us, and are infecting with their hatred the agricultural classes. In Iraq, except for King Feisal and his immediate circle, the politicians are against us, and against what they term the “ Palace-Residency Alliance.” It was only by special electoral methods that a Parliament willing to approve the new Anglo-Iraq Treaty was secured. In Palestine neither the Jew nor the Arab is content with us. In Egypt the 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 tho 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.

It is commonly held that this widespread revulsion has been brought about by the doctrine of self-determina-tion rashly cast into the vortex of world-politics by President Wilson. But, if it were so, wo should expect tho colonies of other Powers to be in the same state as our own. So far as can be seen they are not, except for the Philippines, where tho Americans have had so much trouble that they are thinking of abandoning them. Can it be, then, that the AngloSaxon races haVc lost their nower 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, undeterred by the fact that most Englishmen have been brought up to believe that tho 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 some petty tribal fracas. In Syria, after \ the frightful upheaval of 1925, which was comparable with the Iraq rebellion of 1920, the French have imposed peace, and the 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 AngloSaxon 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 the French are enthusiastic believers in the superiority of French culture, and kpep before them the clear aim of its advancement. In a British dependency nowadays one finds that the have lost faith in themselves and their mission. The heart has gone out of them; they have no propaganda spirit. They fee! that the bonds of authority > are being loosened, that the future lies in a haze, and that inefficiency is on the increase, and mav sweep away the material improvements on which they are engaged. WHAT GOAL? They cannot 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 the enforcement of justice between them, for, as the Maharaja of Ahvar said in the Round 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, wo see, together with a constantly increasing association 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 Customs preference on French goods. The local Press, though often critical, is restrained in tone, and docs not indulge in the venomous outbursts against Europeans to which the Press of India, Iraq, Palestine, and Egypt has accustomed us during these recent verv disturbing years. What can be the reasons for this contrast? Is it not time that wo should have the courage to admit its existence and to seek, by studying the methods of other nations, to see ■where wo have gone astruy ? Or aro wo too proud to learn by the example and experiments of others with responsibilities elsewhere ? , ■ ~ . Some hint that the French hold the secret of familiar contact and friendship with Eastern and African races which is denied to the cold and distant Anglo-Saxon, and that tho foundations of the movement against’ British Imperialism aro laid in social antipathy. Some think that the glittering magnificence of French political theory, rhetoric, art, and architecture captivates the imagination of subject races more than the compound of sentimentalism and utilitarianism which characterises English administrative policy. Others, again, believe that the modern English official and trader have sacrificed 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 the 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 safty-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 either to some defect in the character of our race or to our administrative mistakes.. _ Surely it is vital to us that wc should attempt to discern the true causes. If they lie in our character then there is not much hope, for wc arc not chameleons. But if, as seems more probable, our administrative systems are at fault, the mischief is not beyond repair. _ It is very remarkable that in all the discussions on the future of India, Ceylon, and Palestine no word has been said of what other Powers have done. Before wo commit ourselves irrevocably this should surely be remedied, and a strong commission should be sent to selected dependencies of France 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. Wo should find that wo had much to learn, even if wo had something to avoid.

ANOTHER VIEW. Colonel Weston Jarvis, chairman of the Roval Empire Society, upon whom the honour of knighthood lias just been conferred, discussed with a representative of tho ‘Daily Telegraph’ Sir Henry Dobbs’s article. It is Colonel Jarvis’s view that Britain had created for itself what difficulties might exist by false sentimentality regarding tho doctrine of selfdetermination. On tho whole, however, lie was inclined to think that Sir Henry Dobbs drew too gloomy a view of the situation. . „ . , “Tho Royal Empire Society,” Colonel Jarvis said. ‘‘ Ipis Honorary corresponding secretaries all over tlio Empire, and if there was any serious unrest permeating tho natives under British rule wo should know all about it. As a matter of fact, we have received no reports bearing out tho impression- convoyed by Sir Henry that there is ni« widespread discontent, or that ‘ tho British have lost faith in themselves and their mission.’” Our administration of native races is, ho thinks, as perfect as it can bo. The vr.sfc numbers of natives govenied and

controlled in Africa provided a case in point. Wonderful things, ho 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 Rhodesia were happy and contented because of the wise administration. Sir Henry Dobbs did not include the African colonies in his review, because the natives were too little advanced, but it was impossible to consider British colonial administration without taking account of Africa. Palestine and Iraq did not come • under British supervision at all until after the war, and in each case the difficulties encountered were exceptional. In Africa there was practically no unrest, and, as General Smuts once said, the African native was the happiest individual in the world. This was largely because ho respected the Government under which he lived and Jiad 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, lie said, .used to administer their colonies from ser-geant-major 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.