THE POLITICAL VALUE OF A AFRICAN DISCOVERY

Waikato Times, Volume II, Issue 95, 7 December 1872, Page 2

THE POLITICAL VALUE OF A AFRICAN DISCOVERY

(From the SriiCTATOi;,) It is difficult, as -vve read (ho accounts of Dr Livingstone s travels in Africa, and Mr Stanley's adventures in tho .search after the explorer, to avoid a sigh »wr thc.httle result winch. the world will gain, from aIL that energy, capacity, and heroic persistence in endeavour. Scarcely any iigure linagina o c.>uld be grander' than that of the calm old Doctor burying himself for three years in the tropical marsh and mnglo, beyond civilisation or communication with civilised men, bearing hunger and sickness and heart-break, and unres mg, tmhasfing,. tramping on in his quest ot the truths ho ias devoted his life to underst and. Nor is grandeur .warning, though if be accompanied by something of the comic, m this other tinure, that, of the newspaper correspondent who, m the regular exercise of liis profession, moved neither by p ■). nor love of knowledge, nor by desire ol artvent u re, )t y an order .from [Mr Bennett, coolly plunges mto continent to interview a lost geographer, an«l af u inontlw of sußering such as only African travellers cniUu e uU n s below the equator an object desired by all mankin,d, to U repaid by the publication of a sensational despatch to tlio New York IL'rald. The utter bizarrerw ot the whole story, with its extraordinary mixture of seH-auaMlKmig and cold calculation, its grand teats described with ' eloquence, its great discoveries hashed up into messages loi the cable, its pathetic incidents related with a earetul eye to stage client, must not blind us to the tact that a great'deal has been accomplished/one which we must all wish should have a great result. And yet it cannot have a great result. I>r Livingstone's patient toil of years ; Mi btanlev's enterprising courage and Yankee fertility of resource have, as the polities of the world now stand, accomplished . little or nothing for humanity.* We do but know tor all they have done, a • little . more. We do not proless to understand clearly from the medley of messages telegrams, and condensed reports before the world what Dr Livingstone has discovered, but that is our fault, not his ; and it is quite possible thai when his narratives ha\e been examined we mav tind that we have gniined splendid additions to our knowledge of African geography, that we may knoio—know to a certainty, and not merely conjecture—t ha! a great chain of'waters, lakes, and rivers stretches unbroken, except by rapids which science lnieht ameliorate,from the Mediterranean - far away tlu-ou-li the heart of Eastern Africa, to 'fountains four thousand miles from their debouch ere in the Y\ est. 1 ie knowledge mav be sufficient, repayment ti>r Dr linings ,onc s labours in inves:igation, as a primacy among our correspondents" may be sufficient repayment,for Mr bt.in c\ sin the search for him, but of what, direct, profit will it bo to mankind? Dr Livingstone's discoveries do not open Africa. Mr Stanley's enterprise docs not,- bring those great lake regions, those numerous tribes, all that wealth ol lam mid inen, one whit nearer to the "vvol*kl -which alone con i use them well. No tribe will be civilised by (.lull kind of contact. No nation will be enriched by that kind ol knowledtre. . No living man, unless it be Dr Livingstone and Mr Stanlcv themselves, will be the nobler, or the more competent for all that profuse poring out of some of the noblest qualities of men, for all that patcnec and couragi am sagacity in the investigation of natural facts. We shall know the interior of Africa as we know oi the o .10 North-West Passage, and the knowledge could be mado ft It is conquest, not exploration, which the Valley of tho Nile, using those words in their fullest meaning, lequncs conquest of tho old, vulgar, fertilising kind, conquest .oy bayonets and bullets, directed by a civilised intelligence, animated by a determination at any cost, ol immediate sullering to get itself obdved.' If England did but own Egypt, instead 6f the wretched Turk who crushes her people and mortgages her resources for his own pleasure and self-will, if men suuh as built the Indian Empire commanded there an Arab infantry and a Nubian cavalry, maintained order by the sword, and extended education by the bullet vei j long i means, which the century discards, but the only ellective means—wo might conquer along the great, river, a district to-dav, and a province to-morrow, subdue, settle, and tax tribe after tribe and chieftain after chieftain till 111 a century wc had .changed a jungle full of wild beasts in the torni ol men into a state like Bengal, a vast I epical land inhabited liy seml-eh il'Mod and liiflustrioiis Ireeiueu to whom oruei and security made every progress possible. No leadei foi sr.oh tasks exists like an Englishman, it is his special Junction in thirpinnet, the capacity which makes him more than a • money-making machine ; and no instrument like the Am J, bravest, most frugal, and most faithful of all the soldiers that can live and light in the steamy heart of equatorial .-marshes, . ' who has, in fact, without; our guidance, fought liis way tliroughr Africa-to the cooler region of the Cape, where, with his blood spoiled by admixture ■ and his civilisation- lost in tho hungry desert, and his language degraded till it is - unrecognisable, he still as a <( Ivattir, with a aheepskin over his loins and a spear in his hand, stands-up-straight, a dangerous- opponent to the Ilighlaiicler with- his dangerous weapon oi precision. If the -Englis.i' ollicer and the Arab sepoy could but come together,with Egypt for,their base and granary, that-work could be undertaken with as much certainty ol result as the building ol a* railway through Bengal, to the salvation ot all the tribes it would atTect—-for-the Nubian does not perish out at white approach, but developcs under-his influence into a hunia.i' being—and to the vast improvement of the J3ritisli character,, which requires work of that sort to keep its fibre strong. Who would be the loser ? The settled Arab of-Egypt, who under British laws for the first time since Pharoah died would-reap the fruit of his labour ? Or the Arab of the desert, whose courage and endurance, and thrift would lor the first time since Omar be utilised in a great and useiui work? Or the negro,-who, freed from his isolation and compelled- to give up his savagery, might be able to display the qualities which'oilce made him master of the \ alley, - qualities wc will say, not to annoy enthusiasts, as high as those of the men who grow such crops in Louisiana, and who at least arc pro faulo, as regards those crops, beneficial to mankind. It would cost money ? ■ That we deny. Egpyt i 3 richer than Bengal, richer potentially than any other country in the worid of the same size, Holland not excepted. It would cost lives ? A great many, and how could they bo ] expended' to better purpose ? There are Indian officers by ' \ the dozen slowly dying in England of uselessncss, disappointment, and ennui, who, if but authorised by the State,

in five years would organise out of the dregs of our population—men useful only as manure,—and Arabs useless even, for that, and Nubians but hardly above the ehimpanzes, an army which would carry civilisation all clown the Nile from Alexandria to the equator, terminate disorder, end slavery and plunder and torture, and lay, before they died, the foundation of a state so strong that under its protection a continent might dwell in peace, till its people acquired the slow-coin-ing capacity of self-rule! The men who now use the electric telegraph were not a whit better. How any one who knows either history or geography, who comprehends what the sword in civilised hands can accomplish, or understands how feeble every other weanon is, can denounce such an enterprise as immoral, or even doubtful, wc are at a loss to conceive. What other hope is there for-these races ? A thousand Sir Livingstones, with all his splendid qualities, moral as well as intellectual, could do nothing for them in the course of centuries, compared with what could be accomplished Tjy one Englishman cf the Clive stamp leading a thousand English ruffians and ten thousand Arab savages to a work of civilising slaughter.- We put the scnteucc purposely into that brutal, form, for - it expresses precisely what wc mean,—-that the forgotten art of conquest and killing a few persons in order that many persons may consent to pass under the regime of law, in certain ages and under certain circumstances—which ages and circumstances exist together in the Nile Valley —the best, the swiftest, and the most ■ bnmanc instrument' of civilisation. We know perfectly well that we shall not get even a monetary hearing — unless, indeed, Baker-finds diamonds or gold down there that we shall only annoy and affront men who, like Mr Gladstone, held that- ■ the moral right to reclaim savages can only arise from a savage plebiscite ; but we know also that if.Englishjnen-undcVstood their duty, ana could comprehend for one instant their true function among the races of mankind, they would never rest until they had commenced the great task before them ; —the civilisation of the whole Y alley of the Nile. ■