Orders of the Day — Dominion and Colonial Affairs.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 29 Gorffennaf 1926.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr William Ormsby-Gore Mr William Ormsby-Gore , Stafford

The native reserves were approaching completion of a final settlement. We have got all but three now gazetted, and as soon as they are completed the final enactment of the legislation can be made. The Kenya Government have been working on that continuously for the last nine months without delay. The main point of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme was in regard to land committees and land inquiries. From my experience in Africa—and I have been in every British Possession there except Somaliland—I am perfectly certain that further committees in London on questions of this kind will mean endless delay. Take the African Lands Commission. Neither Mr. Morel nor the right hon. Gentleman (Colonel Wedgwood) signed the Report. They sat and took masses of evidence after months of delay. The East African Report says that it is most essential before you legislate with regard to land in North Eastern Rhodesia that you should know where you stand in regard to land. The Chief Justice was set up as Chairman of a Commission and we have just received his Report on an important area. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we have started discussions with the Governor of Nyasaland who has just come home, and brought new material as to the very unsatisfactory land situation there. I am perfectly certain that if you set up a new Committee you will merely spend months in going through documents of this kind, when what you want to do is to get the local Government to act as soon as the necessary information is collected.

Let it be clearly understood that there are two responsibilities— that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament, and that of the Governors to their local legislatures. We should not attempt to do everything by Order in Council where we can get a local Government to do the work. We should get the co-operation and assent of the local legislature. I am perfectly certain that is a great thing to get their co-operation, and if we are to develop all our possessions in Africa, we have got to remember that one of the great assets of the British development in Africa is the British non-official. If he will take the interest he is now taking in the future of the natives and in the future of these communities as a whole, and if, instead of attacking him and telling him that he is narrow and self-seeking, we give him the same spirit which I am sure animates hon. Gentlemen opposite, of trying to do our best to ensure that the good name of Britain and of all Britons in Africa will go down to history, we can secure his co-operation. We will not secure it by attacking them, but by trying to understand their point of view and trying to carry them with us. That is the policy the Government are trying to pursue. I believe it is the only policy, taking the long view, that will succeed. I am just as anxious as hon. Members opposite for a square deal for the natives, for the elimination of all those forms of compulsory labour which have come down from the days of the past, for true progress, true education, and true development for all His Majesty's subjects, whether they he black or white, in that great Continent.