Chapter XII: The Preservation of the National Life

Among those to whom the government of the coloured races of mankind appears in the light of a sacred trust committed to an Imperial white people, as to the servants of that people possessing the widest experience in the practice of such government, the preservation of the national life of these races must be a matter of paramount importance. Increased knowledge born of familiarity in the art of tropical government and of anthropological knowledge, a clearer realization of human needs which an expanding mental horizon brings with it, are teaching us many things. They are teaching us that there can be no common definition of progress or common standard for all mankind; that the highest human attainments are not necessarily reached on parallel lines; that man’s place and part in the universe around him must vary with the dissimilarities of race and environment; that what may spell advance for some races at a particular stage in their evolution may involve retrogression, if not destruction, for other races in another stage; that humanity cannot be legislated for as though every section of it were modelled on the same pattern; that to disregard profound divergence in culture and racial necessities is to court disaster, and that to encourage national growth to develop on natural lines and the unfolding of the mental processes to proceed by gradual steps, is the only method by which the exercise of the Imperial prerogative can be morally justified. Our one and only conspicuous Imperial failure was due to a misguided belief that we could, and that it was desirable in our own interests that we should, crush out nationality by violence. It inflicted upon the victims immense misery and upon the performers embarrassments which have endured for centuries. Elsewhere we are experiencing the discomforting reflex of a policy based upon the supposition that East is capable of assimilation with West under alien guidance. British India is rent with confusion and mentally unsettled by a jumble of conflicting ideals, to which the Protected Native States offer a contrast that cannot but carry with it its own very significant lessons.

All the good work accomplished in Northern Nigeria during the last seven years can be flung away by a refusal to benefit from experience in other parts of the world. In pleading for the slow but sure policy everywhere in Nigeria, and in pleading that where in Nigeria national life has already expanded through the exercise of its own internal forces into organized communities, possessing their own laws and customs, their own machinery of government and their own well-defined characteristics, that national life shall be protected, preserved and strengthened to enable it to bear the strain of new conditions, one is pleading, it seems to me, for the true welfare of the people and for the highest concept of Imperialism.

These considerations hold good as regards every branch of European activity. Effective British political control does not require constant encroachments of departmental activity. British industrial interests can be allowed to find a natural outlet in the ordinary play of economic forces without calling upon Government assistance, for example, to undermine a national weaving industry in which, as Barth remarked of it many years ago, there is something that is “truly grand,” giving employment and support as it does to innumerable families without compelling them to sacrifice their domestic habits or to pass their lives in immense establishments detrimental to health. British commercial necessities do not demand that the big native cities should be thrown open to the White trader, who can pursue his useful avocations just as well, and certainly with much greater regard to health conditions, outside than inside them. In the same way the advent of the missionary into the organized Mohammedan provinces of the north before the country is ripe to receive them, would be a positive danger, besides being an act perilously akin to a breach of faith. Surely we have become sufficiently intelligent to take a broadly human view of these things? There is a field in pagan Northern and pagan Southern Nigeria sufficiently extensive to occupy all the energies of all the missions put together, without invading the heart of Moslem Nigeria. The advent of Christian missions into Kano or Katsina or Sokoto, for example, would be regarded as an act of aggression. Their presence in Zaria is a great mistake, and I make bold to assert that it is only comparable to a man smoking a pipe on a barrel of gunpowder. We hold this newly occupied country by the force of our prestige, far more than by the very small number of native troops in our service. That it is the duty of Government to prevent the introduction of elements, whatever their character and however lofty their motives, whose presence is calculated to cause unrest, is sufficiently self-evident as not to need emphasizing. No Government can afford to disregard so clear a view as that formulated, for example, in the Emir of Kano’s letter given in Chapter VIII. But one would desire, if possible, that the leaders of the Christian Churches themselves should be brought to appreciate the justice of the contention. The establishment of Christian missions in the Mohammedan Emirates would not succeed in damming up the self-propelling currents of Islamic propaganda which are permeating Nigerian paganism. That is the true problem which the Churches have to face.

The question of economic development is on the same plane. That peace, the advent of railways and the growth of population will eventually result in the creation of a large commercial movement of affairs with Northern Nigeria—apart from the mineral output—is not to be doubted. But exaggeration as regards immediate prospects is to be deprecated, and the claims of economic development, important as they are, should not be allowed to play too great a part in administrative solicitude. The main concern of the Administration for the next few years should be that of placing the political, financial and educational organization of the country upon secure foundations. Political unrest and social confusion are stumbling-blocks to commercial progress, and everything should be done to avoid them. Those in a position to realize the marvels already accomplished in this region of Africa by the handful of British officials administering the country, and the many problems requiring on the part of those who are called upon to deal with them the utmost delicacy and tact in adjustment, cannot but enter a _caveat_ against all tendencies, from whatever source they may emanate, be they of self-interest or of unselfish devotion, to “rush” Northern Nigeria. Rapid expansion does not necessarily mean progress. Sometimes it means exactly the reverse. Let us, rendered wise by experience elsewhere, set our faces like flint against the “Europeanizing” of Northern Nigeria. In Sierra Leone, in the Gold Coast, in the Western Provinces of Southern Nigeria we have daily object-lessons of the deplorable results of this denationalizing process. That Northern Nigeria should be preserved from it must be the earnest wish of all who are acquainted with its peoples and alive to their possibilities.