Chapter IX: Part II: Civilization and the African (2)

Has the coloured barrister failed? If so where? Certainly not in British examinations where brains and energy provide the only standard. I shall probably be told by the critic that he has failed in practice. If this be so, how is it that whenever a Crown case comes along the British Government promptly briefs leading native barristers?

(Dr. Sapara is endeavouring to persuade the natives to adopt attire more suited to Tropical Africa than the frock coat and silk hat of the European.)]

Has the doctor failed? Again, where? Not in the English and Scotch hospitals, for he has frequently carried a higher degree than he finds amongst his European colleagues when he returns to the coast. That he is excluded from Government service proves nothing, except perhaps prejudice. It may be asked why in the Gold Coast colony the African medical man is allowed no place in Government service. We are told in reply, because white men, and more particularly their wives, would refuse to receive treatment at the hands of coloured medical men. This argument fails entirely when we remember that the majority of the hospital patients are not white, but coloured, and at present can only receive treatment from white doctors. Moreover, do we not know of white men, who, fearful of that rising temperature, that throbbing pulse, unable any longer to bear the suspense, have sent for a native medical attendant, and under his kindly treatment have recovered, in some cases to remember gladly the skill exhibited, but in others, alas, too easily to forget that they owe their lives to such tender ministrations.

[Sidenote: THE NATIVE DOCTOR]

Then, too, are there not to-day many white men on the coast who prefer native doctors—whose names I could mention—to the services of European medical men? Have we not heard and known of something still more eloquent—the calling in of native medical men to white women? Many a white merchant and Government official has taken out a delicate and highly-strung wife to assist him in his work, and almost every “coaster” knows how one of these heroic women was stretched upon, apparently, the last bed of sickness; the distracted husband had tried everything, had implored the white doctor to try something—it hardly mattered what—to give back health to the sufferer. Suddenly a thought occurred to him! The native doctor, fully qualified, was sent for and visited the patient, and then in consultation with his white colleague, other treatment was tried. Slowly the sick one fought her way back to life and health, and to this day the husband remembers to whom he owes the restoration of one who to him was everything—and this is no isolated case.

When death’s angel looks in at the window, which is pretty often in West Africa, race prejudice shamefacedly slinks out through the nearest doorway.

The administrator, the missionary, and the native, however, realize that the educational facilities at present at the disposal of the natives are not ideal; the march of progress has shown defects, and these must be remedied. If there is one administrative problem in British colonies important above another, surely it is that of education. In all things colonial, Great Britain has hitherto given a lead; let her maintain that proud tradition by appointing a commission to study the whole question of the education of the African peoples in her Equatorial possessions, with the object of ascertaining how far the Government may be able to secure a more even balance between the literary and technical training of the natives; how far it may be possible to so re-adjust existing systems as to avoid denationalization; how far it may be possible to extend that supremely important but largely neglected branch of education—practical agriculture.

[Sidenote: EDUCATIONAL GRANTS]

Then there is the question of Government grants. Can anyone defend the antiquated system which prevails in many colonies of giving lump sums of revenue to missions? An excellent departure from this rule has been commenced in the Gold Coast, whereby the missions receive a grant per capita for the finished product, _i.e._ when a scholar reaches a given standard in literary and technical knowledge, the Government makes a definite grant of from 20_s._ to 27_s._ 6_d._ for each scholar attaining to that standard. This experiment, already fruitful of so much good, might provide a model for other parts of the African continent. A commission could study how far this should be extended and whether it might be wise to lead on to scholarships for an extension of the education by providing grants for the study of agriculture in the botanical gardens and plantations of the tropical world. For example, if facilities were provided certain natives from the Gold Coast would derive great benefit from a study of cocoa plantations in different parts of the British Empire.

If race prejudice were too strong to admit of this procedure within the Empire, then such natives would undoubtedly benefit by a visit to the plantations of other Powers, in particular those of the Portuguese on San Thomé, where, although there is predial slavery, no race prejudice exists which would prevent a close study of one of the finest systems of cocoa production in the world—certainly second to none in West Africa.

Another problem which knocks loudly at the door of the British Colonial Office for consideration is that of Africans seeking a legal and medical education in the Mother Country. We cannot, and have no right to object to their doing so; on the contrary, we ought to welcome the idea, to be proud of the fact that our Administrations are so progressive that they help this movement forward. But we are not; we do not like some of the results which at present attend this practice. Again, I ask, are we not responsible? These young men at a most receptive age come in all their enthusiasm to the Motherland of their dreams; they expect to find a civilization, but one remove from the realms of eternal purity and bliss, and what do they find? No strong and friendly hand is outstretched to help them, no responsible person comes forward to take them by the hand and bring them in touch with the better elements of our national life. Alone in London or Edinburgh they drift into the worst channels and imbibe the most pernicious ideas and practices that float around the parks and parade themselves in the streets of our great cities. What wonder that their lives are fouled? Who can be surprised if the only seeds they carry back to the colonies are those evil ones which produce a crop of tares to the embarrassment of the Government?

[Sidenote: THE AFRICAN ALONE IN LONDON]

Philanthropy can do much to turn the thoughts of these young men into loftier channels, but philanthropy should not be left to do this work alone. Surely the Colonial Office, if it has no duty in the matter, at least for its own sake could render some assistance in giving these young students a closer knowledge of the men, the aims and the desires that inspire British Administration. In the whole world there is collectively no finer group of officials than those in the service of Downing Street; some seem to think they too closely resemble highly-specialized machinery; some of us know otherwise; some of us know that behind the official mask there are men whose hearts and consciences pulsate with lofty principle and humanitarian sentiment. Yet between this wealth of goodwill and experience, and the African youth amongst us, a great gulf is fixed; there is no medium of friendly intercourse between these noble-minded officials and ex-officials of the Government and the young Africans who are being trained to mould the character of their compatriots and of public opinion in Britain across the seas.

John Bull must wake up to the existence and the needs of these children, must realize that their education, whether in the colony or in the Mother Country, is of supreme importance, and that the friendly and wise oversight of their education is an Imperial responsibility of the highest order. It is more, for all nations have looked to us in the past for the solution of these problems, and upon such facts—rather than upon a colossal navy—rests the real strength of Great Britain.

VI

JUSTICE AND THE AFRICAN

The Powers of Europe—and Great Britain in particular—boast of the “justice” with which they treat native races. Happily the native tribes, as a whole, fully share this complacent belief in European rule, and this no doubt arises from the fact that before the Powers of Europe divided Central Africa between them, justice, as compared with might, had but a small place.

This belief, however, is perceptibly passing away, and in many of the West African colonies the natives are not now prepared to accept, without question, the acts of European administration. To such an extent has this feeling grown within recent years that administrative action sincerely taken in the best interests of the natives is frequently assailed.

[Sidenote: BRITISH JUSTICE]

No one would deny that blunders are but human; few would deny that the finest Colonial Office in the world—that of Great Britain—has made mistakes which subsequent history condemns. The natives have enough common-sense to make every allowance for such mistakes, but what they do not understand—and in this they are by no means alone—is, why recognition of the mistake is not made promptly, and some reparation made for the error. The plain man asks why there should be some Medo-Persian law which forbids the admission of error and the consequent refusal of reparation. This attitude is accountable for much harm to the prestige of the European in West Africa.

In Government despatches, in speeches, in our schools and from our pulpits, we are never tired of preaching upon those articles of British political faith which know no party. We pride ourselves upon our love of justice and freedom, and yet we do things which we know to be utterly indefensible, which we know to be in entire contradiction to our belauded principles. We have made the blunder and we know it, but we invariably crown it with the further blunder of refusing to admit it.

We know perfectly well that it is indefensible to arrest a man and arbitrarily punish him without trial, but it is done, nevertheless. During our journeys in Central Africa, we visited a grey-haired old chieftain living in a hut on the Gold Coast. The old man was reclining in a cheap deck-chair, he was totally blind and unable to stand. What was his story?

Some thirteen years ago he heard rumours of a rebellion against the British Government in Sierra Leone, and immediately Bai Sherboro sent a message to the District Commissioner that the war boys were bent on attacking Bonthe. This timely information permitted of measures being taken to protect Bonthe. One day a messenger called upon Bai Sherboro and told him the Governor wished to see him. Trustingly the old man picked up his staff and went to the British authorities, when, without trial—and he asserts without being even informed of the charges made against him—he was forthwith exiled to a lonely spot on the shores of the distant British colony, the Gold Coast. In Sierra Leone the old man had a son, who, refusing to allow his father to go forth alone, sold all he had and joined him in solitary exile, and who to this day shares his loneliness and sorrow.

The British Government does not deny the facts, but, apparently acting upon the advice of the “man on the spot,” who has probably never seen any other person than the old chief’s interested accuser, takes up the position that the return of this blind and decrepit old man to his native home, would be dangerous, on the ground that he was believed to be implicated in a rebellion! The Government has all along refused to give the old man a trial, so that he might face his accusers and meet the charges, with the result that he must die in exile. There is something very un-English about such an incident. Strangely enough the old man still holds firmly, after all these years, to his admiration of British rule, and faith in British justice. Again and again he reiterated to us the words, “If only the King of England knew!” “If only the King of England knew!”

This is a passionate loyalty which surely we are unwise to trifle with, unwise to immolate upon the altar of theoretic administrative infallibility. It is folly to bury our heads in the sand so that we may not see these things, for if we fail to look these facts squarely in the face, others are regarding them—our friends with deep concern, our enemies with the keen relish of an insatiable hatred.

Will it be argued that this is only an incident? Possibly, but who knows? This case was unknown to the outside public until the old man’s hair had whitened and until he had lost the use of his limbs during ten years’ exile. Two years of persistent knocking at the door of the Colonial Office has even failed to secure permission for the old man to return to die in his own country.

[Sidenote: THE PATERNAL DREAM]

Many chiefs and native merchants in British West Africa have but one ideal for their offspring—to send them to England for an education either for the bar or for the medical service. They are pathetic stories which some of these men tell you of how they deny themselves and their families so that they may save enough to send “my eldest” to England. They themselves have only heard of the glories of England, they can never hope to see them, but their determination is that the boy shall. The latter comes and spends his four or five years here in England, possibly more, and during that period the old man is slaving away on his farm, or trading early and late in his store, has watched his savings trickle away until often he has but little left. At last the glad day of home-coming arrives. The lad steps ashore from the boat, a fully fledged “medico,” carrying “no end of big degrees.” How proud the father is! How amply repaid he feels for all his efforts and struggles, as his full-grown son explains to him the degrees he has obtained are higher than those of Dr. Smith, the white medical officer at the hospital.

The young medical man hopefully sends in his request for an appointment in the Government service—an appointment which must be paid largely from native taxation. At a later date he receives an official envelope, which he greedily tears open in the presence of the expectant and admiring family. It is the official form, intimating that his services are not wanted!

We all know the reason, why wrap it up in gentle phraseology, the hideous fact is there—the medical service is the monopoly of the whites. Of what avail are degrees of the highest order? What use is it to argue that native medical officers would be less costly? The colour-bar is thrown across the threshold of opportunity in the Gold Coast. The young man himself understands, possibly he may even come to hate the Administration which appears to hate him, and can we be altogether surprised? The old father does not understand it, he is bewildered—the blow that has fallen upon his hopes is a heavy one, and in spite of himself he wonders what is amiss with British justice.

[Sidenote: EXPROPRIATION]

The island of Lagos, measuring less than 600 square miles, with a population of nearly 80,000, was always congested, but never so badly as it is to-day. By day, and also by night, I have traversed the native quarters and found overcrowding which before long must produce a grave condition in that hub of West Coast commercial activity. Lagos is always hot, always humid, always malodorous to epidemic point, but Lagos, overcrowded though it was, has within recent years seriously added to its congestion by the forcible expropriation of some hundreds of people from the lands they occupied. No doubt a nicely-laid-out race-course is more pleasing to the eye of many British officials: the brightness and neatness of this fenced park is cheering to those who now have a monopoly of this vicinity, but the price paid for such expropriation is a further alienation of native loyalty and goodwill. Somehow the native does not like being driven from his home, even though “Hobson’s” compensation is provided.

VII

RACE PREJUDICE

[Sidenote: RACE PREJUDICE AFLOAT]

The most lamentable feature which confronts the traveller in British West African colonies to-day is that with the growth of commerce on the one hand, and with the spread of Christian thought on the other, race prejudice is rapidly increasing its hold not only through an ever widening area, but in an intensity which must before many years have passed precipitate a grave condition in the relationship of the two races. The decks of West African liners provide an incomparable mirror for reflecting white opinion upon the shortcomings of the black man. On shore each man is busy with his own affairs and usually meets only men of his own circle, but on board ship one meets every class; moreover, the conditions of travel tend to facilitate a flow of conversation. One sees stretched upon the deck, in every conceivable attitude of comfort and discomfort, all classes of the coast community: the dapper little colonel; the young district commissioner; the army doctor; dealers in oil, ebony and rubber; the Nimrod going out in search of big game, and the missionary going forth in quest of human souls. These varied interests cooped up on the decks under the enervating influence of the tropical sun will with some exceptions share little in common, but that of an indefinable dislike and contempt for that black man they come out to govern or exploit. To the student of human affairs, the conversation is of absorbing interest, revealing as it does every type of thought and superficiality. The loquacious trader, with the experience of but one term, opines with a lofty air that the “nigger” is the very embodiment of Satan. The “gentle” wife of Britain’s representative suggests that the sum of all evils—the native we have half-educated, should be curbed by measures dear to the heart of the short-sighted statesmen of Russia. The sympathetic doctor, with ten years’ practice, looks on and holds his peace, a silent but eloquent censure. The missionary, with longer experience still, likewise says nothing, but listens with pained interest. The deck below is filled with the usual crowd of natives: the tall Fulani trader; the squat Gold Coaster; the Christian servant from Freetown; the devout Mohammedan merchant going up to Kano, possibly on to Mecca. The mammies, too, are there, dressed in skirts of brilliant Manchester print and gaily coloured blouses, outrageous in fit and style. The piccaninnies play their little games and romp round their admiring mammies. Not infrequently a child stands sadly apart, maybe a girl possessing but little in common with the other children, her little head with its pale face is covered with something half-wool, half-hair; she has a father somewhere, possibly amongst that group on the upper deck, but between upper and lower deck a ladder is fixed, down which the white man may go whenever desire prompts him, but up which neither coloured nor quadroon may climb.

But what are these exceptional sins of the coloured man? What are these terrible shortcomings of which he has the absolute monopoly and which call forth bursts of passionate denunciation from the great men of the earth? “An incurable kleptomaniac”—“unspeakably immoral”—“grossly impudent”—“incorrigibly lazy”—are but a few of the sweeping indictments hurled pell-mell at the reputation of the absent and mainly defenceless “prisoner in the dock.” Civilization, which has never robbed the African of his land or its fruits, never bought and sold him, never violated his daughters, but has ever protected him, has ever set before him a perfect standard of Christian practice, should examine these whirling charges in the light of established facts. It cannot be denied that the African frequently breaks the eighth commandment, but there is some evidence that the Almighty had the Anglo-Saxon race in view rather than the African when He gave Moses the ten commandments on Sinai’s mountain.

The following incident will show the prejudice to which the African is subjected: Our vessel was pitching, tossing and rolling her way down the West Coast, most of her passengers too sea-sick to stir far from the upper deck. A steward shuffled his way along endeavouring to balance cups of chicken-broth to tempt the appetite. One of the passengers helping himself, called attention to the lack of spoons. The steward replied: “We are not allowed to bring them, sir; you see there’s niggers aboard this ship!” Though knowing perfectly well that the Kroo boy may not intrude himself upon the upper deck, even the steward seeks to make him responsible for losses more properly attributable to the members of his own staff.

[Sidenote: NATIVE OFFICIALS]

The Post Office clerks at Sierra Leone, and Custom House officials at Lagos, are cited as paragons of impudence and “swelled head.” It must be admitted that these men fully realize that they are servants of the British Crown and maintain a dignity not altogether appreciated by the white community. If they can be accused of “swelled head,” may it not be that white example has led them to regard such an attitude as “correct form” for Government officials? Examples of this may too often be seen in British Crown colonies, for between the British official class and the merchant community a great gulf is fixed, across which many officials gaze with unbecoming contempt. Let the subordinate native but ape this attitude, and, in him, it becomes a sin.

With bated breath and eloquent gesture, the frightful immorality of the native is a morsel of scandal dear to the heart of many superior whites. This is a matter, however, upon which students of African social life have some differences of opinion, but none have any such differences of opinion upon the necessity of “Form B,” which so many white officials are prone to forget. An exposure of African immorality cannot, it is true, be long delayed; sooner than most people think that day is coming. Locked in the breasts of governors, doctors, missionaries and educated natives are strange stories and appalling statistics; their volume is daily increasing; facts are being labelled and classified and these only await the opportunity which an increasing virulence of attack upon native immorality—ignoring that of the white race which obtains in every African town—will precipitate.

The chief indictment against the African is that of being incurably lazy. Prejudice has so blinded the eyes of critics that they do not see the fleets of sail and steam craft which the horny black hands send to and from the West Coast laden with produce. Look over a single ship; there are boat-boys, deck-boys, boys for cleaning brass, washing plates and dishes, splicing ropes, hauling rigging and painting ironwork. “Boys” for loading barrels of oil, for towing and loading floats of giant timbers, all of whom, more or less, keep the doctor busy bandaging their crushed fingers and toes or sometimes their broken heads. “Boys,” too, for delivering cargo ashore, through the wild surf in which many lose their lives every year.

Those who have a leaning towards the “lazy nigger” theory would do well to stand for a single hour at the Liverpool docks and watch that unbroken stream of drays heavily laden with tons upon tons of mahogany for our tables; cocoa beans for our chocolates; rubber for our motor cars; palm oil for our soap; kernels which presently will find their oil labelled “fine salad oil,” or “rich margarine.” The sundries, too, are there by the waggon load; hemp and cotton, ground-nuts and skins, ebony and ivory, a veritable river of produce flowing into the heart of the British Empire without intermission. Nothing can check that flow, nothing can stop its increase, for it springs to-day from lands overflowing with forest wealth; lands where natives are inured to the hardships of labour, natives of infinite patience and withal the world’s keenest traders. There is but one danger to this increasing flow—race prejudice—which may, unless checked, give birth to actions which will utterly shatter African confidence in the British race.

[Sidenote: THE DAY OF RECKONING OR REFORMS]

The critics of the African all agree that he has one good point—“he takes his gruel like a man”—“flog him when he is in the wrong and he won’t resent it; flog him thoroughly whilst you are at it, and he will even thank you for it.” If this doctrine should ever firmly possess the minds of those whose duty it is to administer West African colonies, the Governments will be faced with a danger impossible to exaggerate. To make this opinion an article of administrative faith is to provide the white with a salve for every act of injustice which irritating circumstances and climate so constantly generate. In every colony in West Africa there are some few white men who are wholly trusted by the natives, and their homes and hospitality are at their disposal day and night. Naturally these are the experienced men of the coast, or those of repute amongst the natives; the easy grace with which they move in and out amongst the people at all hours, and in all circumstances, is demonstrative of the confidence they enjoy. Discuss the natives and the problems of administration with such men and the furrowed brow wrinkles still more, and they tell you a change must come soon, or—“Certain white men would be wise to clear.” It is for statesmen at home to recognize the danger in time and choose between a day of reform or a day of reckoning.