FUTURE OF AFRICA

Evening Star, Issue 22228, 4 January 1936, Page 14

FUTURE OF AFRICA

A HEW APPOHTMEMT ? LORD OLIVIER ON ITALY OBJECTIONS TO COURSE The “ prestige ” factor in the desire for colonies is important but not primary, writes Lord Olivier in the' ‘ Manchester Guardian.’ Looking at the problem as I do, from the point of view of Africa—that of the framers of our official formula “ natirlb interests must be paramount ” —I should not attach much weight to the claims of prestige. A position which takes more account of such European .considerations admits the theory of the dual mandate, which some regard as cant. Whether that is a fair term to apply to a pious conviction sincerely held by so many liberal-minded persons—and which is now being played upon by Signor Mussojini as it was played on by Cecil Rhodes in his precisely parallel exploit of smashing the Matabele, and with precisely similar aims, landgrabbing and exploitation of minerals —is a question of psychological casuistry. Mr Secretary John Milton in 1655, when he prepared the White Paper on Cromwell’s abortive raid on Santo Domingo, wiiich had to be satisfied with the petty prize of Jamaciai referred with what Rhodes might have described ns “ unctuous rectitude ” to “ the opportunities of promoting the glory of God and enlarging the hounds of Christ’s Kingdom, which we do not doubt will appear to be the chief end of our late expedition to the West Indies.” , THE TRUTH. The plain fact is that no enterprise of colonisation has ever been set on foot except by the push of economic or political interests or, if you will, necessities. Philanthropic and humanitarian considerations and cohipu notions arise and operate.afterwards, when the prey is being digested—and better late than never I Some think it clear that the placing of all British dependencies in tropical Africa under B mandates is both practicable and unobjectionable. Without mooting such captious cases as that of German South-west Africa —which was Germany’s nearest approach to a genuine colony, which Germans most want to have back and to have back without mandate, and which South Africa will not agree to her having—l think this view underestimates both the practical difficulties and the objections to> such a general proposal. The first great difficulty arising out of this new demand, for colonial re- ( distribution is that the whole idea of this line of development for controlling it involves a frontal encounter with the forces of capitalism. For (subject, I think, to an important partial exception) the process of colonial development is still conceived of by all the Governments- interested in it as that of exploitation of sources of raw materials by white capital and coloured labour. The important partial exception, I think, is the Italian demand: for Italian working cultivators and artisans are physically and temperamentally capable ■ of colonising Abyssinian highlands as Spanish “ coloni ” settled Cuba, Porto Rico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, and other sub-tropica] parts of "the New World. North Europeans cannot do this, any more than English labourers can in Kenya. They can only exploit by the employment of African labour, and in that economic relation Africa and the African will defeat them, unless they enslave, directly or by land monopoly, and by the process of forcing labour by corvee or by taxdtion—a policy which lias been exhaustively tried in our own colonies and its Failure proved—they can only develop themselves into “ poor whites.” Italians can make a civilised peasantry, as Africans can (and have done) in the mixed racial community of Jamaica, where they have been able to escape being converted into a proletariat—a feat which will be appreciated. The unsuccessful white settlers in Kenya are already discovering this truth, which our Foreign and Colonial Office might have known 30 years ago if their clerks had ever studied the contents of their own libraries. CANNOT BE CIVILISED. Tropical minerals and forest products can bo exploited by' capitalist enterprise, but no tropical country , can bp civilised except upon the foundation of a free population producing its own food supply. Capitalism can ruin such a community, but it cannot build it up. Until American capitalist enterprise laid bold upon Cuba and destroyed her sugar industry Cuba, was a pleasant and civilised country. Her “coloni” are now beggared, her undergraduates carry guns, and her former very welcome West Indian crop labourers have been excluded or expelled, to exemplify Cuban methods of unemployed “ demonstration ” in St. Vincent and elsewhere. . . I expect that Italian emigrants could, with advantage to all concerned, genuinely colonise parts of the Abyssinian plateaux, and that there is plenty

of room for them without depriving native cultivators of their land. I have never recognised that there is any right in Africans to exclude Europeans from settling upon lands which they can tiso without injury i to the native people. Nor were African natives desirous ot doing so till they had suffered. That is a very different thing from what has been done by Europeans in South and East Africa, and it would have to be controlled under mandate, as land acquisition is controlled by our laws in West Africa. As to Germany, the expressed views of Herr Hitler, which are at variance with those of the German colonial party, appear to' me very sensible. He has declared that he feels no interest in African territories because they cannot carry racially German communities, and he is i-ight. German land workers cannot colonise tropical Africa and do not desire to. But the purpose of the German forward colonial party is economic expansion in the familiar capitalistimperialist sense—to exploit raw materials with cheap labour and to sell goods in a closed market. Herr Hitler knows he could not govern Africans sympathetically. Their music makes him madder. And he has no desire to. Nor could any Nazi mandatory do so. NO THANKS. I consider, as I gather that Lord Lugard does, that -vague gestures of international liberality and generous impulses to propitiate Germany and give Italy a deferred consolation prize for her disappointment after the war—by redistributing desirable African properties, with black live stock complete—will bo • found when it comes to a show down * * to ’’work out to littlo or nothing that any other nation will thank us for offering unless we are prepared both to expropriate our own land pre-emptors and mineral concessionaries and to set back the clock in regard to native interests. With such knowledge as I have been able to assimilate during 50 years ot interest in Eur-African colonies, , 1 would gladly put my friends, Mr Hammond, Mr Barnes, and Mr Roden Buxton, upon a jury to determine whether it would be of advantage to the natives of Tanganyika that the mandate tor that territory should be transferred to Germany. ' , I should, like to see the mandate system extended, and I would like to see Abyssinia opened under League tutelage to genuine Italian colonisation by which I mean working settlement and not large concessions for exploitation. But, knowing how the progress of draft conventions against slavery and forced labour, to speak of no other matters, has been obstructed in the International Labour Office conferences by the resistance of States now having .mandates and, in the matter of the slave trade, by Italy, against the pushing of the British representatives, and ho“v these have themselves been trammelled by international capitalist influences, 1 cannot conceive what advantage could be ensured to Africans now under British government by their being placed under mandates. NOT FOR BETTER. As one who at any rate believes he appreciates the great human qualities of African racial character, and has done his feeble best intermittently, at least, to get others to recognise African rights, 1 say confidently that no one who has followed the proceedings of iff Mandates Commission and the International Labour Office would consider such step a change for the better. In regard to regions in which we have ourselves gone wrong and with which our Government still can deal—as it cannot with South Africa or Southern Rhodesia for example, Kenya, I cannot conceive that such errors as the alienation and white monopoly of vast areas of land can be or are likely to he amended until a Socialist Government is in power in England—and that it will be a tough enough job then. It certainly will not be helped by the spirit which manifests itself in tbe representation _ of other Powers that now have colonies, nor by spokesmen of German;/ or Poland who want them. There is a case for putting Portuguese African territories under mandate, and I wish that it may be done. But we should be betraying the trust which an increasing number of our people are beginning to recognise that we have for the natives of our own colonies if we were to think we were entitled to “ swap ” them about in international deals for the sake of making things pleasant in Europe. Let a qualified jury of colonial experts, sympathetic to the principles of Article 19 of the Covenant, decide whether any territories would be better off under mandates and start on them ; and apply in all colonies, under mandate or not, the principle of the open door to all nations and equal rights of trade and settlement, and screw up wherever we can on those lines.