Sir William M.N. Geary - Nigeria Under British Rule (1927)

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE

Sir William N. M. Geary

First published 1927 by Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.

Published 2013 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

ISBN 13: 978-0-714-61666-7 (hbk)

CONTENTS

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE

INTRODUCTION

West Africa previous to 1895Mr. Chamberlains Policy in 1895The Authors CredentialsProgress of NigeriaEuropeans in NigeriaMissionariesGovernment Constitution and OfficialsDiscipline and Dismissal of OfficialsHealth.

T O the memory of the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain have I dedicated this book on Nigeria under British Rule, because his statesmanship, when he was Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1895 till 1903, is demonstrably the creative cause of the prosperity of British West Africa. It is admirable and wonderful that a statesman in London should by acts of intellectual volition have conferred such immense benefits on the far-off countries under his command. The progress achieved was not by way of conquest, the land and people were ours for the taking, and the Secretary of State gave the orders. His predecessors were content to let our talent remain buried; by the policy of Mr. J. Chamberlain we utilized our talent and it grew twenty-fold, nay twenty-five-fold. The revenue of Lagos and the Niger Coast Protectorate in 1894 was a quarter million pounds; in 1903 it was three-quarter million pounds, or triple. Mr. J. Chamberlains successors in office have consistently carried on his policy; and the revenue of Nigeria is now over seven millions sterling. It was his foresight, his judgement, his initiative, and above all his courage in his convictions, which has made small and poor possessions large and wealthy, but his services to West Africa have never been adequately recognized.

WEST AFRICA PREVIOUS TO 1895

To appraise rightly the value and the courage of Mr. J. Chamberlains statesmanship it is essential to consider the situation of the West African Colonies in 1894, and the causes which had retarded their development. At that time there was a vicious circle in West African Colonial Administration. The revenues were on the one hand stationary, or increasing very slowly, and there was no immediate prospect of internal development without policing the country so as to safeguard transit and trade in the first instance, and without railways in the second instance; and on the other hand the exiguous and stationary revenues prevented the raising of the necessary force or the building of the railways. Externally, while the British Colonies stood still, there was the ever-present risk of French rivals occupying what we had omitted to occupy. Mr. Chamberlain gave the start to the development that has quickly and continuously followed.

The condition of the British West African Colonies in 1894 has been described in the following pessimistic language:

Eighty years and more have passed since the days of the Abolition Act. English lives have been lost and English money has been spent in trying to bring peace and order into lands which were taught to know none of these things. Yet the end of it all is that civilization has made but little way, that industry is hardly more than trade in jungle produce, and that even in these brighter and healthier days men sometimes wonder whether the game is worth the candle; whether England gives any real benefit to or derives any real benefit from her possessions on the West Coast of Africa.1

In the beginning of the nineteenth century Englands possessions in West Africa were the Gambia, Sierra Leone and certain forts on the Gold Coast. In 1851 Denmark, and in 1871 Holland, sold their forts on the Gold Coast to England. France and England were thus the only two European Powers interested. France negotiated for the ten years from 1866 to 1876 on the basis of France giving up all claims and protectorates from Rio Pongas 10 N. to the Gaboon on the Equator, and England surrendering to France the Gambia, but the negotiations were broken off and not resumed.

The profits of legitimate trade were small: companies and individuals retired or became insolvent, and factories were being abandoned. So neither European Powers nor Nationals took interest in or desired extension of territory in West Africa.

England, however, maintained the Humanitarian Squadron for the suppression of the slave-trade, and it was with this object that Lord Palmerston ordered the reduction in 1851 of Lagos, a great slaving centre. But by 1860 the slave-trade had become almost extinct, not so much by the exertions of the squadron, as by reason of cessation of the demand on the other side of the Atlantic, owing to political changes in North and South America.2

The question was asked in England, Cui bono? Are the West African settlements worth keeping? The philanthropic reason, the suppression of the slave-trade, had ceased to apply. The economic reasons of the Manchester School, then prevalent, were weighty. The cost of maintenance was more than the commercial advantage.

In 1864 an engineer officer, Sir H. St. George Orde, was sent out to report on the West African settlements. He reported1 in favour of their retention, that they attained the object for which they were founded, i.e.

The objections to their retention were, as he pointed out:

In 1865 a strong Parliamentary Committee was appointed, which took much evidence, including Ordes, and reported, as to the West African Colonies, as follows:

That all further extensions of territory or assumption of government or new treaties offering protection to native tribes would be inexpedient, and that the object of our policy should be to encourage in the native the exercise of those qualities which may render it possible for us more and more to transfer to them the administration of all the government, with a view to our ultimate withdrawal from all except probably Sierra Leone.