Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 29 Gorffennaf 1926.
You were unfortunate in your companions, no doubt; but, I do not think you yourself were a good bear leader. While it is true we have to wait for a report in detail on the tour on the West Coast, on the main question the hon. Gentleman has proved himself to have a backbone comparable to that of Sir Hugh Clifford, who was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. Johnston). On the West Coast of Africa we have got everywhere native producers producing for themselves for our markets. It has had remarkable results in the increase of exports and imports in that country, and it is a magnificent example to the rest of the world and other colonising nations of what England can do to develop the economic independence of the native races. I was naturally afraid that the urgent recommendations of the commercial interests should persuade the hon. and gallant Gentleman to spoil this magnificent example by importing to the West Coast the plantation system which has been the curse of our East African Colonies. He has not done that. He has reserved the land of Nigeria and the Gold Coast for the people of Nigeria and the Gold Coast. He is still sticking on the West Coast, I understand, and I hope he will confirm it, to the principle of by the blacks, for the blacks and producing for our market. That is an admirable thing, and I hope we shall have it confirmed when he speaks. But the battle is a very stiff one when you have great commercial magnates in this country going on a tour of inspection and urging that the principal business of the British Government and the Colonial Administration is to get black workers to work far white masters by the best means that economics and the power of taxation have placed in their hands.
I pass from West Africa, where all is healthy, to the East Coast where the right hon. Gentleman has recently been on an unfortunate tour and the picture there, I am afraid, is not quite so cheerful. The position there has gone from bad to worse. I do not mean that exports and imports have gone down. They have gone up all right but the position as far as the native is concerned is worse to-day than it was a year ago. You have now the increased severity of the penal laws. I dare say the right hon. Gentleman could not possibly help giving assent to that extraordinary law of the death sentence for rape, but I am afraid we must take that law in conjunction with that unfortunate article I saw the day before yesterday in the "Times" from their correspondent in East Africa, all directed towards stiffening up Government action against the natives. We must combine that with the new compulsory military service which, when you examine it means the issue to all whites of rifles and ammunition but not to the natives or the Indians. When we are told that this is for use against the tribes in Abyssinia I beg leave to doubt whether this is an accurate solution.
Then there is segregation. We were told last year that this was to be the one thing won by the natives as a result of the long struggle and that there would be no segregation. Quite recently we find that there has been a sale of land at Mombasa, a segregation of land and a limitation of the sale to Europeans alone which is authorised and apparently instigated by the Secretary of State.