THE GOLD COAST.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18946, 16 May 1933, Page 7

THE GOLD COAST.

WHERE NOBODY CAN STARVE. NATIVES CONTENTED. The Rev. P. B. Clayton, founder of Too H, who returned recently from a Toe H campaign in the Gold Coast of Nigeria, gave some of his impressions tc the London Sunday Times. "My impressions? They aren't depressions!" he said. “We had a good time in a had climate. “A lour of duty for eighteen months or two years is long enough to test the fittest European. However, it Is no longer the ‘White Man’s Grave' it was when Mary 'Kingslev wa = MM e n the way out that a real West Coaster ■pet. all tits clothes mildewed except his black coat for funerals which he used every day. Contented Natives. « The natives? They are more or less contented, although the limes arc hard for many of them. The country is uniquely fertile, and being unemployed is m l so liiul wlie-e clothes don't matter and you can't, go hungry. A native paper in Lagos started a fund for the unemployed in England, explaining how had things are in the 1 cold north. Seeing that native wages are about Cd tc Is a day, I thought this good. “Pidgin-Englisli is rightly going oul of use. hut some expressive ph"ases still remain. ‘De.iohulatcd’ is quite neat for those axed. ‘Pyjama-

) I house’ for small bag is pleasing. A I thing 'that has been mislaid is spoken | of ‘I look ’em, but I no see ’em.’ •i. “The British rule is trusted to be just by everyone except the native lawyer. We now need force only occasionally to prevent old tribal enemies producing trouble. Seven Too H Unit©. •'The British ami Toe II? That’s what I went for. All were agreed, including most of the missionaries, that Toe H must, on the West Coast, be for British. But French and Dutch and German members a"e in It all right, and there are now seven units going strong. “Accra and Lagos both have good i headquarters; Indeed, at Lagcs we have been so, fortunate, thanks to the : Governor, as to obtain the use of a first-rate house with residential quarters. “The progress made against disease , in the short years ef British occupation is an inspiring item in our record ; nor can a man feel anything but proud of the whole British atmos- ■ plierc of Justice, common sense and cheerfulness. “The native peoples, who would otherwise be in a slate of internecine war. a-e given a surprising measure of ■soir-govemmenl. anil are inlluencI nd more than ruled. Their attitude | t .wards the British is, in consequence, friendly, with the ra-est exceptions, ; and even in I lie furthcrest bush the , District Officers carry no arms. Native Troops. 'I "Behind a small fo M ce of police 1 1 stands a slill smaller force of natiye

I I troops skippered by British Officers | and British N.G.O.s. Less than one full brigade of infantry composes the fighting forces for both colonies, assisted by a single light battery. “This forms a strange contrast to I lie enormous forces, said to he over two million men, drilled toy the French In their North African empire. No ono could view the British situation as It now stands in the Gold Coast and in Nigeria without contrasting it favourably with those of other European races “The cne experiment Jn an African republic, Liberia, Is sufficient answer to those strange idealists who think that the native Is -already capable -of self-government. “The deepest Impression left upon my mind is the amelioration -brought about in West Africa toy the presence of the British women, wives., doctors and nurses, and educationists, whose coming to the Coast now in large numbers has altered the whole atmosphere.’’